A return to simplicity and a move to the DS makes this GTA feel like a breath of fresh air.
A) The DS is friggin' awesome, and
B) Chinatown Wars ROCKS!!!
Because the DS isn't as powerful as the PSP (and I don't say that in a bad way) a return to a simpler style of presentation was needed. The game uses a sort-of top-down approach used in the old PSOne era games. I say sort of because there are a few notable differences. The camera isn't strictly above the character, it's more behind-and-above, which still gives a sense of depth to everything because you're seeing it at a bit of an angle, instead of looking straight down at them. Secondly, instead of the camera being locked, you can rotate it around 360 degrees, so if you find yourself running in one direction and the camera in another you can quickly turn the camera back into the right position.
The version of Liberty City presented here is somewhat based on the city seen in GTAIV. You'll see landmarks that look familiar from time to time, but the third island is gone, and there aren't multiple layers of roads like there is in GTAIV (I'm glad of this, since without the GPS in GTAIV I would have been getting constantly lost). All this might sound like Liberty City has gotten smaller and there isn't as many places to go, but there is still plenty of ground to cover, and once I had scraped some money together I had to buy safe houses that were strategically placed throughout the map (maybe it's the saveoholic in me, but I don't trust auto-saves).
The story is typical GTA: guy arrives in town, gets screwed over by someone, and goes on a quest for vengeance, having to work for a lot of odd people in the process. Here, we see Huang, a spoilt rich kid arriving in Liberty City with a sword. His father has recently been killed and he has to give the sword to the next Triad leader. He's not off the plane two minutes when he gets attacked and the sword is stolen. Now he needs to get it back and find his father's killer. This means working for inept undercover P.I's, a drunken, junkie cop and a lot of crazy, power hungry triads.
The game tells it's story with still images and subtitles rather than motion capture and voice acting, and that return to simplicity isn't a bad thing. In some ways it helps with the story. GTAIV was a very serious, sombre affair story-wise, with a more cinematic feel to it. Chinatown Wars returns to that old the-world's-a-bit-barmy feeling of the old games and a lot of the comic timing comes down to reveal of new panels in the cut-scene. An example would be when Huang goes to confront of of the gang members who's been dicking him around. When he finally confronts the guy we're given an extreme close up of Huang's shocked expression, and we hold on it just long enough to get curious as to what he's seeing before the next panel shows us: this gang member is a cross dresser. It's that good old fashion GTA humour, that was sadly missing from GTAIV, that's back here in this game, and the game does it so well.
The game also has a more arcade feel to it at times. When getting chased by the cops, for example, instead of having to get away from their field of vision so that they loose you, you take down cars by ramming them, or causing them to crash, which is shown on screen by a big red cross over their car and the death of their siren. It means accidentally antagonising the cops is met with less of a 'oh, for god's sake', and more of a 'come on then!' Maybe it's also helped by the fact that the driving in this game is pretty solid. In fact, the controls all over the game are solid, and I think a return to simplicity has helped that. Let's face it, the controls in Grand Theft Auto games have never been that good. It's the reason I never want to play Vice City again, not because I didn't like the setting or the story, but because the controls in that game are a mess. They did a lot to improve this with GTAIV, but here everything just works exactly the way you need it to.
A lot of the action is also done with the touch screen, and this is where Chinatown Wars really sets itself apart. The use of the touch screen is clever and innovative, and I couldn't have had a better introduction to the DS than with this game. Right from the get go the game makes you feel like you are actually participating with it, rather than just pressing a button and watching a character hot wiring a car, you have to do the actual hot wiring. There are a few different ways you do this, but an example would be first having to unscrew a panel, by placing a screw driver over the screws and doing circular motions to unscrew them, then placing the exposed wires together to start the engine. Other examples include sticking a screw driver into the ignition, or hacking a computer controlled security system. It makes you feel like you are actually participating in the game, rather than just watching it happen. Other uses of the touch screen include putting a sniper rifle together before a hit, using a winch to pull rubbish out of the sea, using scratch cards, smashing a window in a sinking car (you're on the inside) and rifling through a dumpster, looking for an abandoned sub-machine gun. You can also use it to interact with your map, setting up GPS trails and locating points of interest.
Ammu-Nation is sort of back, but in an Amazon.com kind of a way. Instead of going to a shop, you order your guns online and they are delivered to your safe house. It's a convenient, easy way to shop for fire-power, and you don't have to wait long for the delivery, but I found getting weapons from scratch cards, a new feature introduced in this game, was a far easier way to get what I needed. Only in Liberty City could you get a scratch card that, if you win, your prize is an assault rifle. Say you want some body armour (as I often did), it costs $500 from Ammu-Nation, but if I get a scratch card it'll only cost $10. Even if I have to go through three or four scratch cards before I get it, that's still a hell of a saving. I only really used Ammu-Nation later on in the game when I started to need serious fire-power. You can also win money, food and safe houses from scratch cards, though I usually stuck with the weapons.
One of the main ways to get money in this game is to deal in drugs. I'll admit that the idea of this, at first, felt a little bit odd. I even though, well, I'm not going to do that. But then I relaxed and remembered that this is just a game. So I got a-dealing. The trick is to look out for the people who are buying and selling cheaply. Every now and again you'll get an email from someone saying they're selling something, let's say Weed, and they're giving it away at a bargain price. You buy the stuff, stash it in your safe house and wait for someone to say they want some Weed and they'll pay a good price for it. You sell it to them and in the process make a profit that would make a Ferengi grin from giant ear to giant ear. You can also hijack passing vans that have drugs stored in them, take the van to your safe house, get the drugs and then you make a lot of money for stuff you didn't even pay for. There's an Ammu-Nation van as well, but I tended to avoid this, because while it's easy to get the drug van, it's more difficult to get the Ammu-Nation van and I ended up expending a lot of fire-power just to get into the van. I figured it was all worth it, until I found out all I got for my troubles was an SMG, which I could have gotten hassle free out of one of the red dumpsters.
The only major hassle I has was with aiming the guns. It's fine on foot, because the game has you auto-aim at the nearest threat and you just fire away until all your opponents are wasted. But it gets more awkward when in a car as the auto aim often shot out the wrong side unless my opponent was right next to the car. Even then, there were times when it got confused. If I had a wanted level and a police officer came up beside the car I would try to shoot him but would often fire out the other side of the car. And, of course, there's no way to avoid being Busted once he's pulled you out of the car. It led to quite a bit of frustration if this happened in the middle if a mission.
But this is honestly the only gripe I can think of. I've often been cynical about the rating of Grand Theft Auto games in the past because even though I like most of them, I've always found it hard to ignore the flaws. But Chinatown Wars is a game that truly is worthy of a ten out ten score, everything comes together nicely, it's fun to play, the story is good old GTA, and like every GTA game, it's easy to just loose yourself in the world it creates for you. If you have a DS, you owe it to yourself to check this out.