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nathan151 · Sun Apr 09, 2006 4:13 pm GTA : LCS (game) review

Right time for a big review.

Set three years before GTA 3, so there are many odd changes to the landscape. Clubs have different names; ferry terminals are operating on the outskirts; Callaghan bridge sits unfinished; hidden items have been moved around. But otherwise, this is Liberty City all right still arguably the most memorable map in GTA history.
It’s the story and missions that are noticeably new but there style and flow will course you to feel a slight sense of déjà vu. The triads, the Mafia and the rest are at each other’s throats, making it a profitable time for a mobster who knows how to drive a car (and steal it). It’s the same old go here chase this, and flee from that, as well as taking photos of grown FAT men in nappies, putting the scares up union bosses with stomach turning limo rides, and getting trapped in a room with 15 men with chainsaws.
Few.
All in a days work.
Has the miniaturised process worked? Umm sort of. Fitting the now seemingly retro GTA 3 on to the PSP on a UMD has meant making compromises. The in game speech is crunchy at times and some times out of sink with the video. Scenery detail is sometimes late loading in, leading to some disconcerting moments of mad blurry building confusion. Worst of all, some kind of mystery loading task occasionally stops the whole game dead for a slit second when you switch from vehicles to foot and back again.
But all that aside, its incredible taking what was state of the art five years ago and squeezing it into your trousers is astonishing achievement. The real debating point is whether rockstar have retained all that was good about GTA 3, thrown out the bad, and borrowed out bits that beg to be borrowed from vice city and San Andreas.
Theres certainly old rubbish here that should have been trashed. Our stubborn friend the GTA camera is back, grumpier than ever now that it’s shoehorned onto PSP’s buttons and analogue. In fact, the controls are iffy as a whole, steering is more of a pain, and vehicles seem to throw a gymnastic tantrum at even the slightest bump in the road.
But alongside old problems sit fresh new ideas. Simple customisable costumes:great. Shooting bullets of bikes:brilliant. Target flicking with left and right: pure bliss. And I cant get enough of the new flying kick attack, where you knock a block off a bike and land on the saddle on one classy move (Jackie Chang eat your hart out). Still its only natural to wonder why we’re missing the best new GTA features like gang wars. You could add flying but thanks to the cheat devices for GTA that is a thing of the past.
There’s one new feature that we all could do with out. That is that LCS missions get hard very quickly. From mission 5 your trying to keep your fragile sports car intact after a sudden 3 star police ambush, the game could be said to own you. It cruelly strings together mission objectives- fetch a deli owner, take him to the sawmill, then machete him up, then flee the cops, than deliver his mincemeat remains to his own restaurant, so if you happen to die in the last second you have to slog back through the whole thing again. Grrr. Police now plonk stingers on the road, popping you tires, giving the feel your driving a shopping trolley on ice.
The key word is unfair her, in fact LCS frustrates me more that GTA 3 did. Your forced to chase on near uncontrollable bikes, dumped in the middle of angry men who want you blood, or take on huge gangs of Diablos with you gangster palls only for them to stand and look at the dead corpses as if they were a giving out free samples of cheese on a stick.
The worst mission is a repeat of GTA 3 rooftop sniper shoot, is made near impossible by a sniper rifle that cannot be aimed. What did I end up doing ignoring the game and dropping down to the street and blasting the f**kers with and AK47. And that’s how GTA always gets its sell out of a sticky situation. Because you can do what you want. As with the PS2 games, the real GTA magic stems from emergent behaviour, i.e., the poor bloke who ended up walking around on my car roof wile I raced down hepburn hights at 90 mph, or my favourite, when Mafia hitmen try there luck by chasing you through a red light on a commandeered bike only to get splattered by an oncoming triad van. Moments like this aren’t always intended, or to be frank even right but its all thanks to rockstar throwing together a pedestrians cops and vehicles in one city, and the reason why every one stays up late just to see what carnage can unfold when you decide to get a spot of road rage at a crossroads and the army have had to be called in to take you down. You could argue all day about LCS and where it stands compared to the others. Better map than Vice City, less daughtingly complex but more repetitive than the masterpiece that is San Andreas, and so on.
But there will come a point, jumping the Callahan Bridge and landing in Staunton, that you know that once again your hooked on the best franchise there is.
I give GTA: LCS a massive 9 ½ out of 10
GET THIS NOW IF HAVEN'T ALREADY

Admin · Sun Apr 09, 2006 5:36 pm

wow nathan, that review was brilliant!
I am back now!!! :o

nathan151 · Sun Apr 09, 2006 8:21 pm

thanks it took me all saturday to do that

Admin · Sun Apr 09, 2006 8:24 pm

OMG! well this is getting stickied then....10/10 work nathan ;)

nathan151 · Sun Apr 09, 2006 9:08 pm

and a good part of friday night to do the others

Admin · Sun Apr 09, 2006 9:19 pm

Yes....I really like ur sig nathan ;)