Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (PSP) - Review
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High: Multiplayer mode is a big plus; the missions are short, yet challenging; perfect for on-the-go play. This is a great game for the PSP maybe even one of the best portable games ever.
Low: Controls are a bit awkward to work with, and most of the innovative features introduced in San Andreas have been removed. Though the scale of the game is still amazing.
Let’s face it, Rockstar games landed in some hot water when hidden content was found within all versions of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. While the content was easily accessible on the PC version (if you knew where to download the mod), accessing it on either console version took such an effort that actually viewing the content didn’t seem like much of a reward at all. Once this hidden content was leaked to the public, politicians, family activist groups, and the media latched on to the story, causing San Andreas’s rating to be pushed up to Adults Only, which in turn led to retailers pulling the title from the shelves requiring Rockstar to publish a new version without the controversial content. As they say though, there’s no such thing as bad publicity, and what this little fiasco helped to do was get the Grand Theft Auto name out to people that may not normally get exposure to the branding. Hoping to use this new brand awareness to their advantage, Rockstar has released another Grand Theft Auto title, this time on the PSP with Liberty City Stories.
Taking place after the more recent GTA titles, Liberty City Stories occurs in 1998, three years before the events of Grand Theft Auto 3. Though much of the city is still the same, you’ll find buildings and other landmarks that under construction, mainly the bridges to the neighboring island and mainland. As with previous GTA titles, players take the role of a brand new protagonist named Toni Cipriani, a man who went into hiding after killing a "made man" but is now coming back to resume his life of organized crime. Toni works for the Leone family, and with rival families attempting to move in on the Leone turf, Toni must fight through mission after mission in order to stop their takeover, spread the Leone influence throughout Liberty City, and most importantly regain the reputation he lost long ago.
If you’ve played any of the latest Grand Theft Auto titles, then you should be immediately familiar with Liberty City Stories’ play mechanics. In short, you take missions from different contacts throughout the city, most of which include the partaking in one violent act or another, earning money and reputation with the successful completion of each one. As in Grand Theft Auto 3, Liberty city is split into three sections: Portland, Staunton Island, and Shoreside Vale. Each section of the city is separated by water and the only viable means of getting from section to section is by taking the bridge. When you first start your adventures however, the bridges are blocked and only open as you complete missions relevant to the story.
What’s interesting in this iteration is the brevity of each mission. Because the PSP is a system that was designed for play on-the-go, Rockstar took this into consideration when developing Liberty City Stories, resulting in missions that span around five minutes tops. This allows you to turn on your PSP and play a mission or two all within the span of a few minutes. However, don’t let the fact that the missions are shorter fool you as this GTA title has some of the most challenging missions of any iteration.
Something that won’t be immediately familiar to GTA veterans is this game’s controls. Due to the PSP having fewer buttons to work with than both the PS2 and the Xbox, Rockstar made some creative decisions while attempting to retool the control scheme to align with what the PSP had to offer at the same time not removing functionality that players have come to rely on. Driving a car is straight forward and holding the left trigger and moving the thumb stick allows you to look right and left to do the occasional drive-by. Though you can’t steer while looking out your passenger or driver’s side windows, this setup is actually an improvement over the Xbox’s multiple button configuration to accomplish the same task.
What suffers the most from the button remapping is any time spent out of your vehicle. Because of the absence of a right analog stick, moving the camera around Toni requires a combination of pressing the left trigger, then moving the left analog stick which in turn overrides your movements. This also cascades through the rest of the controls causing many frustrating experiences. It’s most felt when engaging multiple individuals in gun fights as much of the agility that was introduced in San Andreas (such as crouching for higher accuracy, rolling, etc.) has been removed. I found that the best way to overcome this obstacle was to shoot at targets from afar in hopes of gunning them down before the fight got too near as the game’s targeting system had some issues cycling through multiple close-range enemies.
Keeping on the topic of alterations, the single player portion of Liberty City Stories seems like a step back for the series. Yet again Rockstar has decided to create a hero that missed his swimming lessons as a child, resulting in instant death if you happen to fall into a body of water. Also, when attempting a mission that requires you to tail an enemy vehicle, the spook meter has been removed and all you’re left with is the occasional warning stating not to get too close or else the target will be alerted. Finally, the upgradable attributes feature, something that turned San Andreas into even more of a simulation, has been completely removed. So although you don’t have to worry about feeding Toni, you also no longer have the ability to upgrade his proficiency with the available firearms to turn him into even more of a killing machine. Not all the changes have taken a turn for the worse however, as the artificial intelligence has received an upgrade and enemies that you left alive at a crime scene will actually hijack a vehicle in hopes of running you down.
The fact that I’m able to sit here and compare this portable title to its console brethren should say something about its quality. This game is not just a toned-down spin-off of a successful console franchise and can be considered a true addition to the Grand Theft Auto lineup. If you’ve played all of the previous GTA titles leading up to Liberty City Stories, then comparing the overall experience to a mixture of GTA 3 and Vice City should give you a good indication of what to expect. As previously stated, Liberty City matches closely to what was presented in GTA 3. However, with the amount of total missions surpassing GTA 3 and quite possibly Vice City, you have more opportunity to explore its every nook and cranny. Not only that, but most of the mini-games introduced in the previous titles (such as Taxi Driver or Fire Fighter) have been brought back with additional extra content including trying your hand out at selling used cars, or dawning on an Eminem styled goalie mask and overalls to take on wave after wave of chainsaw wielding psychopaths in an abandoned boat for extra cash.
What Liberty City Stories brings to the table that no other GTA game has done in the past is offer a multiplayer mode. While this is new territory for Rockstar, the multiplayer integrates seamlessly with the single player, offering the opportunity to take on friends in various multiplayer game types. In addition to normal versus modes like deathmatch, Liberty City Stories offers games that could only work in the GTA universe such as protecting your cars from the other team’s looters and also killing the other team’s made man. Gameplay takes place on any one of Liberty City’s three sections which allows a huge area for players to chase each other, locate additional weapons and armor, or hide. Unfortunately only a max of six individuals may join a game, and due to the multiplayer’s ad-hoc nature you cannot go online and face opponents.
The PSP does a great job handling the graphics that Rockstar pushes through to make Liberty City Stories look as close to its console counterparts as possible. While the frame rate is a bit slower than previous titles, the game stays crisp and clean. All of the cut scenes have that GTA feel to them and look just as good as a PS2 title. Besides the few camera problems I mentioned before, there was really only one other issue I had with the graphics, that being when cutting through a park or other area that had trees, they had a habit of getting between the camera and your character. More often than not, when this occurred it led to my current vehicle getting totaled. Other than that though, the graphics were excellent, especially when compared to other PSP titles released to date.
Rockstar has yet again done an excellent job on the audio side of the house recreating Liberty City’s feel that was first presented in GTA 3. Only the game’s hip-hop station plays licensed music while the others have poppy tracks specifically written for the game. Also making a comeback is Lazlo and his brand of humor which is displayed with every commercial you hear, and specifically on the talk radio station. Also, while you’re driving around the city pay special attention to the call-in guests on the stations as you may catch a celebrity or two (such as Wil Wheaton from Star Trek fame or XM Radio’s Opie & Anthony) lending their voices. The in-game sound effects don’t deviate much (if at all) from what we’ve become accustomed to from the other GTA titles released through the years.
There isn’t much more to say on Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories other than it really is the best game currently available on the PSP. Despite the new control scheme and a minor technical glitch here or there, once you’ve gotten past these idiosyncrasies you’re left with a truly engaging title with plenty of content to keep you recharging your PSP’s batteries time and time again. If you happen to have friends that also have this title, the multiplayer option only adds to what already is a must have title for the PSP. Finally, don’t expect this PSP adventure to be a one-time outing either as Take-Two has recently announced a brand new GTA scheduled to release on the system some time in 2006. Until then, you’ll have all of Liberty City in your back pocket to let loose a little havoc whenever (and wherever) the urge strikes.
Reviewed By:EG Admin Reviewed On: Thu, 03 November 2005 23:21:25
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Release Date: Mon, 24 October 2005 19:00:00
ESRB: "M" for Mature
Genre: Action
Platform: PSP
Multiplayer: N/A
Developer: Rockstar Leeds
Publisher: Rockstar Games
ESRB: "M" for Mature
Genre: Action
Platform: PSP
Multiplayer: N/A
Developer: Rockstar Leeds
Publisher: Rockstar Games
Score:
Graphics: 80
Audio: 77
Gameplay: 75
Replay: 77
Overall: 77
Graphics: 80
Audio: 77
Gameplay: 75
Replay: 77
Overall: 77
High: Multiplayer mode is a big plus; the missions are short, yet challenging; perfect for on-the-go play. This is a great game for the PSP maybe even one of the best portable games ever.
Low: Controls are a bit awkward to work with, and most of the innovative features introduced in San Andreas have been removed. Though the scale of the game is still amazing.
Let’s face it, Rockstar games landed in some hot water when hidden content was found within all versions of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. While the content was easily accessible on the PC version (if you knew where to download the mod), accessing it on either console version took such an effort that actually viewing the content didn’t seem like much of a reward at all. Once this hidden content was leaked to the public, politicians, family activist groups, and the media latched on to the story, causing San Andreas’s rating to be pushed up to Adults Only, which in turn led to retailers pulling the title from the shelves requiring Rockstar to publish a new version without the controversial content. As they say though, there’s no such thing as bad publicity, and what this little fiasco helped to do was get the Grand Theft Auto name out to people that may not normally get exposure to the branding. Hoping to use this new brand awareness to their advantage, Rockstar has released another Grand Theft Auto title, this time on the PSP with Liberty City Stories.
Taking place after the more recent GTA titles, Liberty City Stories occurs in 1998, three years before the events of Grand Theft Auto 3. Though much of the city is still the same, you’ll find buildings and other landmarks that under construction, mainly the bridges to the neighboring island and mainland. As with previous GTA titles, players take the role of a brand new protagonist named Toni Cipriani, a man who went into hiding after killing a "made man" but is now coming back to resume his life of organized crime. Toni works for the Leone family, and with rival families attempting to move in on the Leone turf, Toni must fight through mission after mission in order to stop their takeover, spread the Leone influence throughout Liberty City, and most importantly regain the reputation he lost long ago.
If you’ve played any of the latest Grand Theft Auto titles, then you should be immediately familiar with Liberty City Stories’ play mechanics. In short, you take missions from different contacts throughout the city, most of which include the partaking in one violent act or another, earning money and reputation with the successful completion of each one. As in Grand Theft Auto 3, Liberty city is split into three sections: Portland, Staunton Island, and Shoreside Vale. Each section of the city is separated by water and the only viable means of getting from section to section is by taking the bridge. When you first start your adventures however, the bridges are blocked and only open as you complete missions relevant to the story.
What’s interesting in this iteration is the brevity of each mission. Because the PSP is a system that was designed for play on-the-go, Rockstar took this into consideration when developing Liberty City Stories, resulting in missions that span around five minutes tops. This allows you to turn on your PSP and play a mission or two all within the span of a few minutes. However, don’t let the fact that the missions are shorter fool you as this GTA title has some of the most challenging missions of any iteration.
Something that won’t be immediately familiar to GTA veterans is this game’s controls. Due to the PSP having fewer buttons to work with than both the PS2 and the Xbox, Rockstar made some creative decisions while attempting to retool the control scheme to align with what the PSP had to offer at the same time not removing functionality that players have come to rely on. Driving a car is straight forward and holding the left trigger and moving the thumb stick allows you to look right and left to do the occasional drive-by. Though you can’t steer while looking out your passenger or driver’s side windows, this setup is actually an improvement over the Xbox’s multiple button configuration to accomplish the same task.
What suffers the most from the button remapping is any time spent out of your vehicle. Because of the absence of a right analog stick, moving the camera around Toni requires a combination of pressing the left trigger, then moving the left analog stick which in turn overrides your movements. This also cascades through the rest of the controls causing many frustrating experiences. It’s most felt when engaging multiple individuals in gun fights as much of the agility that was introduced in San Andreas (such as crouching for higher accuracy, rolling, etc.) has been removed. I found that the best way to overcome this obstacle was to shoot at targets from afar in hopes of gunning them down before the fight got too near as the game’s targeting system had some issues cycling through multiple close-range enemies.
Keeping on the topic of alterations, the single player portion of Liberty City Stories seems like a step back for the series. Yet again Rockstar has decided to create a hero that missed his swimming lessons as a child, resulting in instant death if you happen to fall into a body of water. Also, when attempting a mission that requires you to tail an enemy vehicle, the spook meter has been removed and all you’re left with is the occasional warning stating not to get too close or else the target will be alerted. Finally, the upgradable attributes feature, something that turned San Andreas into even more of a simulation, has been completely removed. So although you don’t have to worry about feeding Toni, you also no longer have the ability to upgrade his proficiency with the available firearms to turn him into even more of a killing machine. Not all the changes have taken a turn for the worse however, as the artificial intelligence has received an upgrade and enemies that you left alive at a crime scene will actually hijack a vehicle in hopes of running you down.
The fact that I’m able to sit here and compare this portable title to its console brethren should say something about its quality. This game is not just a toned-down spin-off of a successful console franchise and can be considered a true addition to the Grand Theft Auto lineup. If you’ve played all of the previous GTA titles leading up to Liberty City Stories, then comparing the overall experience to a mixture of GTA 3 and Vice City should give you a good indication of what to expect. As previously stated, Liberty City matches closely to what was presented in GTA 3. However, with the amount of total missions surpassing GTA 3 and quite possibly Vice City, you have more opportunity to explore its every nook and cranny. Not only that, but most of the mini-games introduced in the previous titles (such as Taxi Driver or Fire Fighter) have been brought back with additional extra content including trying your hand out at selling used cars, or dawning on an Eminem styled goalie mask and overalls to take on wave after wave of chainsaw wielding psychopaths in an abandoned boat for extra cash.
What Liberty City Stories brings to the table that no other GTA game has done in the past is offer a multiplayer mode. While this is new territory for Rockstar, the multiplayer integrates seamlessly with the single player, offering the opportunity to take on friends in various multiplayer game types. In addition to normal versus modes like deathmatch, Liberty City Stories offers games that could only work in the GTA universe such as protecting your cars from the other team’s looters and also killing the other team’s made man. Gameplay takes place on any one of Liberty City’s three sections which allows a huge area for players to chase each other, locate additional weapons and armor, or hide. Unfortunately only a max of six individuals may join a game, and due to the multiplayer’s ad-hoc nature you cannot go online and face opponents.
The PSP does a great job handling the graphics that Rockstar pushes through to make Liberty City Stories look as close to its console counterparts as possible. While the frame rate is a bit slower than previous titles, the game stays crisp and clean. All of the cut scenes have that GTA feel to them and look just as good as a PS2 title. Besides the few camera problems I mentioned before, there was really only one other issue I had with the graphics, that being when cutting through a park or other area that had trees, they had a habit of getting between the camera and your character. More often than not, when this occurred it led to my current vehicle getting totaled. Other than that though, the graphics were excellent, especially when compared to other PSP titles released to date.
Rockstar has yet again done an excellent job on the audio side of the house recreating Liberty City’s feel that was first presented in GTA 3. Only the game’s hip-hop station plays licensed music while the others have poppy tracks specifically written for the game. Also making a comeback is Lazlo and his brand of humor which is displayed with every commercial you hear, and specifically on the talk radio station. Also, while you’re driving around the city pay special attention to the call-in guests on the stations as you may catch a celebrity or two (such as Wil Wheaton from Star Trek fame or XM Radio’s Opie & Anthony) lending their voices. The in-game sound effects don’t deviate much (if at all) from what we’ve become accustomed to from the other GTA titles released through the years.
There isn’t much more to say on Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories other than it really is the best game currently available on the PSP. Despite the new control scheme and a minor technical glitch here or there, once you’ve gotten past these idiosyncrasies you’re left with a truly engaging title with plenty of content to keep you recharging your PSP’s batteries time and time again. If you happen to have friends that also have this title, the multiplayer option only adds to what already is a must have title for the PSP. Finally, don’t expect this PSP adventure to be a one-time outing either as Take-Two has recently announced a brand new GTA scheduled to release on the system some time in 2006. Until then, you’ll have all of Liberty City in your back pocket to let loose a little havoc whenever (and wherever) the urge strikes.
Reviewed By:EG Admin Reviewed On: Thu, 03 November 2005 23:21:25
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