Rockstar brings their popular GTA series to the PSP and the results are both good and bad.
The plot of Liberty City Stories (which is set before GTA III) is fairly standard like most GTAs. Toni Cipriani is the main character here and will be familiar to those that played GTA III as he gave missions to the main character in that game (one of many characters from the GTA universe that make an appearance here). Right in the front of those familiar characters is Salvatore Leone, one of the heads of the Mafia in Liberty City whom is attempting to gain total control of the entire city. First, he must deal with the Yakuza, Triads as well as rival Mafia families, the Sindaccos and Forellis. The way future events in Liberty City are foretold here in and that particular part of the story is well written in filling in gaps of the story. The plot twists a few times during the game but never to the scope that it does in the console games. The overall plot itself is also disappointing. At several points in the game, you’ll sit and wonder where this enemy or group appeared from. In fact, the overall plot of the game (basically just making it so Leone controls all of Liberty City) is a step down from previous games which were all about getting revenge on someone. Here, its you making others want to get revenge on you. As such, the plot gives less motivation than the other games in the series and you’ll find yourself wandering from mission to mission.
The graphics in GTA sum up much of the game. There is a lot of good things but also plenty of complaints. The game is basically a copy of the three district maps from GTA III with a few changes as well as new features (particularly interiors). Other than that, GTA III veterans will know exactly where many important locations are immediately. The imagery is much the same as well from that game. That means that Portland and Staunton are generally more darker and seedier looking whilst Shoreside Vale is sort of a sunny district. Considering how large the cities are, its impressive that Rockstar has managed to fit all of it into the game, but that comes at a cost. The pop-ups of trees, buildings, cars, etc that happens in the console games is even worse here. Because of the more memory restraints of the PSP, pop-ups can happen at the worst times and give you some headaches. The load times between districts is manageable but there are actually load times occasionally when you get into and out of a car. When doing a chase mission or something where speed is of the essence, these loading times can cause you some failed missions. One of the worst graphical problems though is the framerate. It takes very little action onscreen to cause slowdown and if just a few more targets appear, you find the game chugging along at an unacceptable speed. Its unfortunate but considering the amount of action that generally has to happen onscreen at any given time, frame rate drops will become something you’ll have to get used to. The cutscenes in the game are made well, however the facial details on some characters looks unnatural as if some of the characters are anorexic and have very thin faces. This appearance surprisingly looks worst on the main character whom you’d expect would have extra details put into him.
Sound in GTA has always been a key feature into pulling you into the world through the music of the time as well as frequently hilarious talk radio dialogue. Lazlow returns here and he is his usual funny self, guaranteed to bring about more than a few chuckles. The radio stations themselves are mostly ones that were also in GTA III with a few additions. Overall though the selection of songs is limited due again to the PSP’s memory limitations. Each station has about the same number of tracks in it as the stations in GTA III. Still acceptable but after Vice City and San Andreas, we’ve grown accustomed to a larger playlist. Speaking of playlists, you can listen to your own songs off memory stick and have them play when you’re cruising around Liberty City. This feature is however not as well designed as it should have been. For one, you have to download a program that lets you convert songs into the format that LCS recognizes. The other problem is that Rockstar chose to limit music selection to only songs that are on CD. For those with large MP3 collections, this is a glaring mistake, especially since mp3s can be played on PSP easily. Rockstar should have simply allowed mp3s to be recognized by the game. That factor aside, the music still has enough to it to keep you at least distracted. The voiceovers in the game are once again top notch as we’ve come to expect from Rockstar. Its disappointing that Michael Madsen (Toni) and Kyle Maclachlan (Donald Love) didn’t reprise their roles from GTA III but Salvatore is there at least. Its not really a complaint, just a disappointment that not everyone returned for this game. The sounds ingame are the same as they always are, pedestrians chatter in the streets, tires are audibly popped, gunshots and vehicles engines. All retain the same sound you would hear in one of the console games.
Control is where many will take issue with LCS. The PSP doesn’t have as many buttons as the PS2 controller and so some concessions have had to be made. The main concessions have to do with aspects of shooting. When in a vehicle, in order to attempt drive-bys, you must hold the Left shoulder button and push the analogue control in the direction of the target before firing. It doesn’t sound easy and it isn’t when you’re dealing with enemies that fire at you as you try to shoot. The other aspect of shooting that is a problem is targeting (long a problem in the series, here its even worse). Though in general targeting is done fairly well, on more than one occasion you will end up targeting civilians instead of enemies carrying AKs and other weapons. This wouldn’t be so bad if switching targets was easy. Instead you have to use to the Dpad to switch between targets which is another feature that will almost certainly cause you unnecessary deaths on more than one occasion. Driving with the controls and running around however works well. Toni moves fluidly (framerate issues aside) and cars behave exactly as they do in the console games.
The missions in GTA: LCS show signs that there is a lot of untapped potential in the PSP however many of it is wasted here on simple missions that we’ve done countless times before. From simple missions where you have to go from point A to point B, racing missions and missions where you simply kill everyone that attacks you, its all been done before. The missions where you have to deal with a large number of enemies are usually the most challenging and most rewarding. In these missions its frequently best to snipe targets from afar rather than head into the fray with guns blazing (also partly due to the difficulty of changing targets easily). LCS is definitely the easiest of the 3D GTAs. Whether its because I’m used to how the games work, know when to target or how to take out targets, or simply because the challenge was decreased by Rockstar, the game in general is fairly easy and its not really unheard of to make it through the story missions and only die a couple times. The vehicle side missions from previous games return again with the same rewards for completing them as before. New ones are the car/bike salesman and Avenging Angels missions that add a few changes to the regular jobs to do when you’re not looking to do a story mission. Hidden packages return as well as rampages. The gameplay overall is much like the console games and anyone that has played those GTA games will feel right at home in Liberty City and will be quickly able to pick up the game and quickly get into the action.
Overall, Liberty City Stories does exactly what Rockstar wanted to do, make a GTA game like its console brethren that holds true to the gameplay and action that have made the series the success it is. The complaints with the game don’t deter too much from the gameplay but they can easily turn you off if you don’t have the patience to get used to these annoyances that are not generally found in the console games. If you’re looking to play GTA on the go, this is an easy choice for you since it’s the only option for a fully 3D GTA world on handheld. If you can get past the less than stellar story, shaky framerate and occasionally dodgy controls, you will end up having plenty of fun in Liberty City.