Grand Theft Auto - Liberty City Stories

The Good, the Bad, and the Liberty City

Review By Hugo

GTA3, GTA:VC, GTA:SA - when people see these acronyms, they think of innovation, excitement, and most of all, tons of fun. Grand Theft Auto 3 began a generation of games with it's open ended, free roaming playing environment; Vice City expanded on it's predecessor with mixed, but still enjoyable, results; and San Andreas perfected a lot of elements of the earlier games, offered a truly immense environment to roam around, tons of replayability, and had only a few minor short comings. Enter GTA:LCS.

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories was the first in the line of PlayStation Portable Grand Theft Auto games. Due to Rockstar's past history, a lot of expectations were held for it, and it's ability to meet all of them were quite unrealistic. Less disk space, less processing power, and less buttons meant that the new addition to the Grand Theft Auto series already had a lot of obstacles to contend with. Despite this, GTA:LCS reached a level of popularity that saw it being directly ported over to the Playstation 2...but was it a good idea?

The Good:

STORY: While it starts off a bit slow (and overly silly at times), the story quickly becomes compelling in a similar way to the original GTA3. The difference being, the main man Tony Cipriani is more than willing to add his input on most situations, especially when he feels he's getting slighted. The story takes you through Cipriani's return to Liberty City, from his re-initiation into the Family to his unfortunate relationship with his mother to his undying loyalty to Salvatore Leone. The story picks up pace as it progresses until the final (if not sudden) climax of events. It doesn't take long to begin to like Cipriani for his blunt, no nonsense ways, and those he interacts with offer considerable contrast more often than not. The drama isn't as in-depth as the home console exclusive games, but there's more than enough to keep you interested and on your toes.

VOICE ACTING: While most scenes are short, the dialogue contained within them is excellent. The original voice actors/actresses all return to breath life into the Liberty City Stories cast, helping pull you into the game. Pedestrian conversations are few and far between, but they're on par with Vice City.

HIDDEN PACKAGES: In similar style to past GTA games, finding all of the hidden packages proves to be a difficult but addictive task. There are a lot of problem solving skills that will need to be in full effect to reach some of them, which makes collecting all of them extra satisfying. Trial and error can make for some amusing and completely ridiculous strategies, adding a sort of player made charm to the experience.

WEAPON SELECTION: Pistols, uzis, M4s, rocket launchers, flamethrowers, and the infamous minigun all return to help you thwart your enemies (or just random people on the street). Killing sprees are as fulfilling as past GTA games, leaving nothing but carnage in your wake. In fact, since people seem to bunch together a bit more in this game, anything that explodes has an even better chance of taking out multiple people.

SOUND EFFECTS: For those that have played past GTA games (which is probably all of you if you're considering this game), the sound doesn't miss a beat. Weapons blast, explosions erupt, and people scream to warn others of your murderous rampages. Everything is true to form, which makes beating cars with a baseball bat seem so much more meaningful.

The Bad:

COLLISION DETECTION: More often than should ever happen, you'll be happily cruising along in a car, when you find yourself being clipped and spun out by a car you could have sworn you weren't close enough to touch. Perhaps I'm just so used to San Andreas that I've been a bit spoiled, but being in "the same general area" shouldn't effect your car the same way that actually hitting another car does. This is a minor issue in general, but during timed missions with a lot of driving, you can find yourself repeating multiple times simply because you head into an opening where you can see you have enough room just to find yourself banging off of a wall or another car without actually hitting it. Also, every now and again you'll also find yourself getting stuck in random objects just to pop out again a second later, which can be disorienting.

CAMERA ANGLE: This is my second biggest gripe about the game. The camera angle can be really hazardous to your health, as it rarely works in your best interests and makes running along walls a tedious task. Trying to move it into a better positioning only makes matters worse, as the camera is hard to lock into place, and movement changes depending on where the camera is facing. The old problem from the original GTA PS2 game rears it's ugly head again as well, in that if you drive a large vehicle, you can't see anything in your way unless you drive in first person view mode. This sort of issue simply shouldn't exist, as the camera has never been this bad before in the GTA series.

GRAPHICS: Unlike others who have reviewed this game, I'm not going to bash the graphics themselves. They aren't THAT bad, and as long as you don't look too closely, you'll hardly notice the difference between this and past games. The big problem with the graphics, and the biggest problem with the game, is the drawing distance. The drawing distance is horrible, you'll often be driving down the road when a bunch of cars will suddenly pop up in front of you, forcing an accident that never should have occurred. Even if you're on the ball and able to contend with that problem, you also have another issue that is even worse. Let's say you can see all the vehicles ahead of you, which may make you think that you can easily weave in between them, but that all changes when this second glaring flaw appears...cars will suddenly go from slowly pulling off a corner to warping out in front of you without warning. This can get ridiculous when you consider that the same thing happens during lane changes and that cars randomly drive into opposing lanes of traffic for no reason.

NOT BEING ABLE TO FLY: Probably the most griped about issue of the game, though it's by no means a reason not to get the game. I used a cheating device to fly around after I beat the game, so I understand WHY they removed airborne vehicles (the physics are pretty bad), but it still takes away from the fun factor when you can't see the city from above. Cruising around in the sky was always one of the more enjoyable parts of the other GTA games, so it's just a bit of a letdown not to be able to do it.
 

INABILITY TO CLIMB: While it's "true" to GTA3, not being able to climb up small areas is REALLY annoying sometimes. You can accidentally fall down a few feet and find yourself having to completely walk around some needlessly long area because your maximum ability to jump is just an inch too short. This is one of those classic details that would have been better off left in the past.
 

RADIO STATIONS: Outside of a select few songs, the cruising music is best turned off. Even the chat stations don't hold as much interest as they have in the past. Luckily, all you have to do is play your own music and this issue no longer exists.

LACK OF REPLAYABILITY : I'm not claiming that there aren't a few really enjoyable aspects of the game that would be worth playing again, but the game on the whole just doesn't leave much of interest after you beat the storyline. A majority of the side quests involve racing and, if I haven't already made this clear enough, driving is a pain. Some of the side quests are fun and/or amusing, but there aren't nearly enough of them. After you beat the game once, you're not likely to want to play the game through again, not because the story wasn't interesting, but because the gameplay itself would be kind of boring the second time through.
 

The Liberty City

All in all, this game is certainly worth owning. With a twenty dollar price tag, you'll more than get your moneys worth, and the nostalgia factor is nice. So long as you don't go in with unrealistic expectations and just take the game for what it is, you'll find a lot to enjoy. If you're expecting another San Andreas, then you may want to steer clear, as your dreams will be trounced into nothingness.

This isn't a bad game, in fact it offers a few fun quests that are completely unique to this game, but it's by no means ground breaking. It wouldn't be out of line to call this the worst of the bunch up to this point, but considering the high quality of the past games, that isn't too much of an insult. Learning about Tony Cipriani's rise to power helps explain a lot for those that were left yearning for further information about their favorite GTA3 characters. It isn't an epic addition, but it's still a strong game in it's own right, and one that fits well in any Grand Theft Auto fan collection.

NAME: GRAND THEFT AUTO - LIBERTY CITY STORIES

SYSTEM: PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable