Cars, Guns and weird girls what could be better?
I started playing GTA from the very first one. GTA3 was my favorite, so you can imagine my glee when I discovered that Liberty City Stories takes place in Liberty City, before the events of GTA3 take place. The continuity between the two games is great.
GTA:LCS has a lot more to offer than GTA3. Without spoiling anything I'll give you one word: motorcycles. Yes, they've taken a lot of elements from the other GTA games that came out after GTA3 and added it into this PSP gem.
As for the game itself, the controls are excellent, the graphics are amazing, the music is great, the gameplay is phenomenal, and the camera is ok.
Controls can be set to a number of pre-defined configurations. You can fine tune certain controls such as inverting your aim directions. Overall, you can control the character quite well, and I don't have any problems with the controls getting in the way.
This game doesn't need to load that much except from the start, on missions and ,moving in and out of buildings just like other GTA games. However, at some parts the game just stops and freezes and your PSP starts over again. It happened to me 3 times and I've only had it for a few days.
The graphics were nicely done. Because the game was made for the PSP, Rockstar has done a great job of balancing the game with the screen capabilities. The special effects are wonderful, and I have noticed no anomalies with the video. The only problem I had with the graphics was the point of view. Also, maybe this is just me, but I seem to notice the LCD ghosting more when run off batteries than when I play with it plugged in, very minor however.
The music is what you would expect from a GTA game. Rockstar has made fake songs (although they sound very real) for LCS and have put them into a number of radio stations. No matter what your listening preference, you should find something that you like. If not, you can always play custom tracks from the Music folder of your PSP.
The gameplay is better than any GTA I have played. There is so much content it is hard to fathom. I played on Portland for 50 hours in game time, and I am still finding entirely new sub-games that escaped me. And like any other GTA game, if you are tired of doing the Mafia's bidding you can always go out and start beating pedestrians. My favorite subgames are selling cars, beating criminals on the street ($$ bonus for each), and delivering Noodles.
I am going to knock the game's camera a bit, but it's only a minor annoyance. The camera angles tend not to snap too quickly into place. This causes problems because if you handbreak around a corner, you are driving for a short while without seeing what is there. Also, when doing gun battles, the camera can go haywire, and you can't see anything worthwhile. It would have been nice to have had a first person view, or a quick camera snap option, but Rockstar did not deliver on this. The game is still highly playable despite this, but it can get annoying.
Final Verdict: Could easily be one of the best PSP games out there. Get it.