Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars - An Overview Of The Game!

Grand Theft Auto, the one game i did not expect to see on a Nintendo DS, or any other sort of Nintendo Console (even though their was a GBA Version a few years back) is now available to buy in the UK (and Europe) and i have spent the past few days playing the game and its rather good.

The game yet again takes place in "Liberty City" and uses the same map (and Islands) used in Grand Theft Auto IV, except only a little bit smaller - which means there is alot of ground to be covered and lots of space to run around creating disaster for the city.

The game starts off with your character (Yung Chian (if im not mistake)) on a plane heading towards liberty city, his mission is to delivery a special sword, a sword that has been in the family for generations, to his uncle - but as with all GTA Games, the plan doesnt go as smoothly, as soon as he arrives in liberty city another chinese gang guns down his uncles bodyguards and nearly kills you by dumping the car (with your body in it) into the river.

This is where the tutorial starts and when the touch-screen first comes into play, to get out of the car you have to tap the touch screen to break the car's window, as soon as it breaks you will escape into the river and yes you can swim in the DS version of GTA. Afer getting out the reivew you will be welcome by alot of text telling you whats on screen (such as Map, Phone Icon etc) - if youve played GTA games before you'll know what to expect. After skipping through all the text youve got to reach your uncles place and in tradional GTA style you take the car in front of you, but now there is a twist, instead of just getting into the car and driving off you have to use the touch screen, in other words your stylus is a screwdriver and you have to turn the stylus the way it shows you on screen, its mainly a gimmick but works quiet well, as soon as you have done it you can drive off to your uncles place and then this is where the main story of Chinatown wars kicks off - but i wont spoil it for you.

The Controls for the game and simple enough and are mapped out exactly like they are on the PS2 / PS3 / Xbox 360 versions of the game, for example the D-Pad moves your character, which to start off with felt abit fiddly as i am so used to Analog Sticks, For example X (on the Nintendo DS) is used to get into cars (which is the eqvilant to Y or Triangle on a 360 / PS3 Pad) - so the other buttons on the DS (Y, B and A) are mapped out similar to that of the other Grand Theft Auto Games.

The Graphics, as you can see, are not absolutely amazing, however the cartoon / anime-styled graphics do the game good, espically since its releating to the chinese and the triads, the cutscenes are mostly 2D Drawings (with a Hint of 3D Style) that hardly move, but the game is in 3D - the easiest way to explain it is that Chinatown wars is the original GTA Game (with birds eye view) but in 3D and to be honest it works, only problem is trying to see whats ahead of you because you can not.

To Put it simple i was not really interested in Chinatown Wars, but now that i have played it on it is a really great addition to the Nintendo DS Catalogue, which yes it does have alot of games but not all of them are premium titles such as this, good job Rockstar Leeds! If you love GTA Games and own a DS i recomend you getting this game as soon as you can, as it will bring hours of entertainment, even if you just want to run people down! Enjoy!