There are literally 100 billion reviews scattered across the internet (I counted), talking about how GTA: CTW is “incredible”, “the best game for the DS” and “going to take over your life”. They go on and on, gushing about the game’s accomplishments. Most read like a love letter written to Rockstar. Well guess what…

This review isn’t going to be any different. The bottom line is CTW is deserving of all the praise it’s getting. It is exactly what handheld GTA should have been from the beginning. Now, I have gotten a lot of enjoyment out of the “stories” games for the PSP, but it always felt like there was something missing. It’s like they were trying too hard to be the console versions, and let’s face it, that’s just not possible on the current generation of handhelds.

Apparently Rockstar thought so too, and took to building a completely new Grand Theft Auto specifically for the Nintendo DS. Unfortunately a lot of DS titles (for me) fall into the realm of:

Developer 1: Ah, crap. This thing’s got a touch screen. What are we going to do with that?

Developer 2: I don’t know, uh… a place to draw pretty shapes?

Developer 1: Brilliant!

So if you’re like me and were a little worried that the touch screen features would be gimmicky and pointless, I’ve got news for you:

We were wrong!

Everything you do in CTW that involves the stylus makes you feel cooler than you actually are. Whether you’re smashing, and cutting the competition’s engine to pieces, or assembling a sniper rifle; using the stylus to do so puts you one step closer to physically doing all this cool stuff you’d never do in real life; like digging through dumpsters for guns! And for those of us un-cool enough to not own a smartphone, flipping out the stylus to use Huang’s PDA to order guns online makes us feel like a high-roller for the day.

Story

I’m not going to go into the plot too much, because half the fun of Grand Theft Auto games is watching the story unfold. I will say that it’s up to par with the previous games even though the presentation isn’t. The story is told through comic-book-style, subtitled pictures. It was hard to get into at first, and it makes it a little tricky to get to know the characters, but with something like 900,000 lines of code on that little cartridge, you can’t really complain about the lack of voice acting. I’d rather read the dialogue than be without some of the awesome features they crammed in.

Features

Although Chinatown Wars looks similar to the first two Grand Theft Auto games, everything is fully rendered in 3D (which unfortunately leads to inevitable camera problems). It’s also sporting a pretty decent physics engine. What all this means is, cars flip over, debris tumbles into the street, and old ladies fall down stairs. Good stuff. I can honestly say, there’s nothing quite like it. There are over 100 different vehicles, including boats, and they all handle very distinctly.

CTW is a cool mix of both new ideas and old features returned from previous iterations. You’d have to be a fan from the beginning to remember rampages, but they are back, and I didn’t know how much I had missed them. A rampage mission pits you with the task of picking up a random weapon, and killing as many passersby as possible, before time runs out. Hurray for random violence! Little things like taxi missions are available again, and they are something I racked up a lot of hours with in GTA 3. I’m not even sure why.

Between stealing rival gang vehicles to tear apart in search of loot, and buying scratch-it tickets at the grocery store, Chinatown Wars is absolutely jammed full of stuff to do, and that’s not even counting the story missions. Personally, I can’t get enough of dealing drugs. Boy, that’s not something you get to openly admit on the internet everyday!

The drug dealing aspect of CTW is more in depth than you’d think. There’s an actual fluctuating economy at work, with six different types of drugs to peddle about town. Just like any business, it’s all about buying low, and selling high (no pun intended). I spend most late hours of the night cruising around Liberty City in my beat up Sabre GT, looking for a good price on some ecstasy that I can sell to the college kids in Middle Park I know are jonesing for it. Danny, my guy down at the park usually has a pretty good deal on X, but the idiot operates right under a security camera, so almost every exchange with him ends in a high speed chase.

Gameplay

While the on-foot controls are somewhat wonky, and require a little getting used to, driving is tight and works well. Cars even automatically align with the road when you’re not pressing anything, so not as many tiny corrections are required. But if you don’t like that, you can always turn it off. Don’t like the radar only on the bottom screen? Put one up top too. What about a GPS path on the actual road, instead of just the map? Turn it on. This game really wants everyone to like it. And as I said before, everything involving the stylus is just as slick as can be. I feel like I’m going to miss the little mini games when I go back to previous GTAs. There are several different ways to hotwire cars, including jamming a screwdriver straight into the ignition, or opening the console to tear out the wires and twist them together just like in the movies!.

The wanted system has also received an upgrade. Not only can you escape the police (on two stars or less) by getting far enough away, ala GTA IV, but a new mechanic has been added that allows you to disable cop cars by smashing them off the road, or luring them into oncoming traffic. Their cars burst apart in a satisfying array of twisted metal, and one of your stars is removed. Once you have trashed all the cars pursuing you, all you have to do is act a little more low-key until your wanted stars disappear (i.e. - don’t shoot anyone in the face). I wouldn’t be surprised to see this feature showing up in future installments. The only problem I’ve got with the new system is it seems like they’re trying to force it on you. It’s very difficult to outrun the cops without disabling a couple cars, because when you’re on the run from Johnny Law, there seem to be about 37 cops per block, just waiting to drag you out of your car and confiscate your $10,000 worth of coke.

While not quite as cinematic as past endeavors, and possibly a little too easy, If you are a Grand Theft Auto fan you don’t have any reason not to pick this game up; apart from not owning a DS I guess. But GTA: Chinatown Wars might be a good enough reason to convert. I hope to see many more GTA titles like this on the DS.