Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars was originally of the Nintendo DS. It was ported to the PlayStation Portable a few months later. It was the first portable Grand Theft Auto game of the DS, so the graphics and gameplay is slightly tweaked compared to what you are used to. Due to the limitations of the original hardware, the game has a camera angle from above. It’s not directly overhead like the original games, but more at an angle. The PSP version removes the cel shading effect so it looks more akin to the console games. The change in camera angles still takes a little bit to get used to though. The controls are familiar. Your character can run around, get weapons and use them, jack cars and drives them. Of course, the biggest draw of the series is the open world and the huge amount of optional content. Chinatown Wars does not disappoint in this area. As you play the game and more and more things unlock, you’ll come to realize that this game is a true Grand Theft Auto game. It’s the full experience but on a handheld. This is very impressive, given that there’s so much to do, from racing, drug dealing, rampages, ambulance missions, and much much more.
However, the age of the game shows in the missions and game design. It’s still as tedious as ever to gain weapons in a permanent manner from scratch. Similarly for money making. If you get busted by the police, then you’ll lose everything on you. There are no checkpoints during missions. If you fail at any point of the mission, no matter how far you may have progressed, you will have to restart it completely again, which can be absolutely painful. The only saving grace is that the game is nice enough to allow you to immediately restart the mission upon reloading, and even so far as to allow you to skip some of the traveling you may have had to do. While the missions are nowhere near as frustrating and hard as the console counterparts, there are still some annoyances every so often. The gameplay also feels a lot more gimmicky, thanks to its origins from the DS. Driving was never great in the Grand Theft Auto games and it is bearable here. It can be a bit tough given that you do not control the camera angle at all, it follows you. The best you can do is force it to face the same direction as your character. Due to the small space / screen estate, controlling the cars can be slippery and annoying. The overhead camera means that you can’t really see too far ahead of you. Your activities will attract the police, which is always annoying when they try to hunt you down in the most inopportune of moments.
The story follows Huang Lee, who returns to Liberty City after his father, who was in the triad, had died. He will end up wanting to seek revenge and in the process, climb his way up the ladder. To do that, he starts off helping out as a lackey with various triad members (some of which are family). The game doesn’t break any new ground, it’s still the same structure where various missions are available so you can pick and choose which ones you’d want to do first. The mission designs are predictable. The graphics are actually quite good and holds up even today, but the cutscenes retain the cel shaded look. The story, like most Grand Theft Auto games, can feel disjointed because you only get cutscenes during missions. This means that the more that you get distracted with the optional content, the longer the period of time between each story piece. The story is mixed between the cutscenes and the in-game emails that you get. It basically has Huang on a huge wild goose chase while he does this, then this, and then that, before he finally finds out who killed his father. He’s basically a lackey throughout the whole game but has so much sass that the insults that he throws around in this game is extremely funny and amusing.
There is a lot of mission variety as it is beyond just driving and shooting. Although not every piece is good, at least they got the difficulty right. Shooting isn’t great since the auto aim works most of the time but when it doesn’t, it’s annoying. Similarly, it’s also awkward to shoot while driving. The penultimate mission are fun and you can tell that the story was reaching its climax. Unfortunately, the final mission was a bit of a let-down, both in terms of gameplay as well as the story. The ending was short and quickly explains what happened with Huang’s father, and while it was expected and passable, at the same time, it highlighted how simplistic the story was. Of course, even finishing the main story there is still so much of the optional content left. The story missions take around seven to ten hours to complete if you focused only on them. Overall, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is an impressive game, especially for the DS (not so much for the PSP given that it already had two Grand Theft Auto games). Make no mistake, this is a fully fledged Grand Theft Auto game with everything one would want of the series: a big open world and a ton of things to do. The story is weak but then again, none of the games in the series had amazing stories. However, the characters are good and the dialogue filled with all those insults added a nice dose of humor.