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A fantastic Addition to the Series,
I just started playing this game yesterday, and as of now my mission status says that I’m 11% finished. So far this game has done everything to amaze me. First of all the city is ENORMOUS! I cant believe that Rockstar was able to squeeze this much information and detail into a tiny DS cartridge. Not only is it large, but it is also incredibly detailed. You wont see any “Flintstones” type backgrounds where the same buildings repeat several times, or you keep seeing the same park every few miles. Anyhow, onto a few points I’ve noticed about this game.
First of all, this game is DEFINITELY for adults only. Parents, DO NOT get this game for your 10 year olds birthday. There is (so far) sexual innuendo, graphic violence, and liberal use of the F word.
Second – I hadn’t read any press about this game prior to playing it, but I was hoping for some licensed songs to make it to the soundtrack. The music, while good, is nothing recognizable and serves as little more than background. Honestly I cant fault the developers as this game is already full of other features. Also, there is little to no voice acting – again, what can you honestly expect in a game this size (might I add the largest DS game made to date).
Third – Most everything about this game has been executed flawlessly. The cutscenes, the aiming mechanism, the driving physics, the “mini” tasks that you must do such as hot wiring a car, disarming a bomb, or hacking a security system – Everything is perfect. Honestly, in my day of playing this game I have yet to find anything which I can fault. It really is that good.
I predict that this will become the #1 Nintendo DS game very soon, unseating Mario Kart, which has been #1 for quite a while now here at Amazon. This game is nothing less than a masterpiece and is reason in itself to pick up a DS if you don’t already own one.
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|The most technically impressive game I’ve seen on the DS yet.,
Chinatown Wars somehow manages to push the technology in the DS more than anything I’ve seen. On top of that, the developer has managed to make one of the largest and most in depth games on the system as well. I won’t go so far as to say this is the best game on the DS, but I am nothing short of impressed. This game isn’t some attempt to make a quick buck… the developers went out of their way to do a great job.
GRAPHICS: Fully 3-d environment with an amazing amount of detail all presented in cell shaded style. You can even read many of the billboards and signs on the buildings even though the game is presented in a top-down perspective. There is so much detail in the graphics I am constantly discovering new things every time I boot the game up. My only major complaint about the graphics is that I think story-board presentation is flat, lifeless, and kind of ugly.
SOUND: Sadly this game doesn’t have the quality of sound that the big console versions have. The funny, wacky radio stations with hours of dialogue are gone, but that isn’t surprising since this is a DS game. The sound that the game gives us is still pretty good though and above average for most DS games.
CONTROLS: Probably the weakest part of this game, the controls are still very solid. Driving a vehicle with the d-pad on the DS can cause a lot of fatigue, but that’s more a problem with the DS than the controls themselves. While running around on foot the camera sometimes gets positioned at a bad angle and requires re-centering constantly. A moderate annoyance, honestly. More annoying is the fact that I have trouble finding the “sweet spot” where you can hijack a vehicle, which sometimes results in me slowly walking around the vehicle pressing the button until my character climbs in. Combat controls are pretty solid and the lock-on feature works very nicely. In fact, the lock-on is almost a little to easy to use. Selecting weapons and throwing weapons is kind of clunky and requires use of the stylus, but it still works.
STORY: This is a standard Grand Theft Auto crime story with a lot of contrived elements. You are a member of the Triad aspiring to avenge your father’s death and uphold the family honor. Entertaining and often humorous at times, but nothing amazing.
GAMEPLAY: Lots of stuff to do in a huge city with three major islands. The DS game has almost the level of depth of the preceding console versions.
>> In addition to standard GTA style missions (travel here, do something, come back to hideout), the game offers many other distractions: scratch lotto cards, drug dealing, ambulance rescue, security camera destruction, insane jumps, buying property, and so on and so on. The amount of stuff to do is almost overwhelming if you are a completionist.
>> The game has a very enjoyable and solid driving and physics engine which emphasizes wild arcade driving action.
>> Taxi system for those times when you don’t want to actually take the time to drive to a location. Helps eliminate some of the repetition you would otherwise experience in the game.
>> Clever and intelligent use of the stylus for hot wiring cars, making Molotov cocktails, etc.
>> Police chases are really fun and focus less on escape and instead emphasize disabling the police cruisers, a welcome change in the GTA formula. Very fun.
>> A mission replay feature is available in Chinatown wars. I love this because in previous GTA games it wasn’t possible to replay my favorite missions over after completing them. It is a great feature that should have been in the previous games from day one.
REPLAY VALUE: Game length is pretty hefty for a DS title. Based on my current percentage of completion I expect about 12 to 16 hours of gameplay, but that is only if I were to plow straight through the missions and ignore all of the interesting stuff to do off the beaten path. To get 100% completion I expect at I’ll have to pour in at least 25 hours of gameplay, possibly much more… I can’t really tell. Multiplayer is present in this game with couple of modes, but I haven’t tried any of them out yet.
All in all, GTA: Chinatown Wars is one of the most full-featured games to be released on the DS. I’d prefer to give the game only 4.5 stars, but since Amazon doesn’t allow half-stars I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt and round up to a rare 5-star rating. I highly recommend this mature-themed title to every fan of the GTA series or to anyone looking for a quality crime-themed action title.
[NOTE: Be aware that my first copy of this game was defective, but the retailer was gracious enough to provide a working replacement free of charge and without any hassle. I hope that my original faulty copy was the exception and not the rule.]
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|A stunning achievement,
I honestly didn’t know just what to expect upon hearing of the looming release of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars on the DS. I had figured that there would be little to no chance of the game bearing any sort of resemblance to the franchise we all know and love. Well, I was wrong. Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is a stunning achievement in every sense of the word, as the series’ debut on the DS not only manages to retain nearly everything that made the series so great and revolutionary on home consoles, but in some cases even improves on them. Taking place in Liberty City, Chinatown Wars finds you in the shoes of Huang, who is looking to avenge the death of his gangster father. While the game provides a good story and memorable enough characters, Chinatown Wars also features the tried and true classic GTA gameplay, which is a surprise and an achievement in themselves in translating all of these features to the DS. Translating the Liberty City from GTA IV is also brilliantly done, and there are tons of side missions and optional activities, along with two-player multiplayer modes; all of which will keep you busy for quite some time. The game’s graphics can appear occasionally grainy in some spots, but for the most part, achieving these kinds of visuals on the DS needs to be seen to be believed. Chinatown Wars also makes great use of the touch screen and stylus features, and does so without over-complicating things as well. All in all, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars isn’t only the best third-party game to hit the DS yet, it is a stunning achievement that needs to be in the hands of every DS owner. Even if you aren’t that much of a GTA fan but you own a DS, Chinatown Wars is definitely worth playing at the very least, and stands as one of the best games available for the handheld.
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