Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories

"Back In The City."

The controversial series, "Grand Theft Auto" is back and in good form, ported from the PSP, "Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories" takes us back to where all the mayhem began, Liberty City. The story follows Toni Cipriani coming back from a long absence after murdering a made-man, upon returning he is forced to battle gangs and corrupt cops to put the Leone family on top. The story is narrated through cut-scenes using the in-game engine and through very good dialogue, it all feels like an epic mob-movie.

The game-play is fun and very addicting, veterans of the GTA series should know what to expect here. Tons of missions, shooting, car-jacking, beating and all-out terrorizing everyone in sight. The missions here seemed the easiest to me out of the entire series, you are either basically sent out to kill someone or a bunch of goons, blow stuff up, steal something or escort a person. While they aren't really imaginative, they are still extremely fun. Weapons of destruction that are at your disposal include everything from chainsaws, katanas, hatchets, and baseball-bats to flamethrowers, shotguns, machine-guns and rocket-launchers. The targeting-system is ages better than the one in "Grand Theft Auto III", it's more akin to the one featured in "San Andreas", which is a great thing. However you cannot run while aiming, so when engaging in combat this can be an annoyance. Liberty City is packed to the brim with vehicles, over sixty in total, they include trucks, boats, motorcycles and tanks. The fighting-system is a step-down from "San Andreas", Toni simply dishes out a two, maybe three hit-combo at the most, and that's it. You do get a change of outfits as well, ranging from Jason Voorhees and "Kill Bill" suits to chicken-costumes and wise-guy clothes. Aside from the lengthy-story, there are many side-missions to perform along with unique-stunts and rampages, so this will be in your PS2 for quite sometime. Also, after everything is completed you can always grab a tank and obliterate the city or go on mass-killing sprees, so the replay value is high.

The graphics are pretty-dated by now, but considering this is a port from a hand-held console, that will be obvious. Games like "God Of War" and "Black" have set the standard high for PS2 games. So when popping this in, don't expect anything mind-blowing. It is however, better looking than "Grand Theft Auto III" but doesn't really compare to "Vice City" or hold a candle to "San Andreas". Voice-acting is top-notch, as with every GTA title, and the dialogue is hilarious, the verbal-fight between Salvatore and his wife, Maria is priceless. Toni is also voiced well along with Donald Love, it's pretty-much flawless in that department. The radio-stations in this entry are mediocre at best, aside from The Liberty City Jam, nothing else really sticks-out, I would have preferred more Rock music, some "Alice In Chains" or "Sepultura" would have been nice. As for the controls, they work like a dream, like the other titles in the series, the camera-system is fine overall, but in some cases it can be a pain, especially when you are trying to shoot a target and the camera pans too far behind you or ahead of you.

The downfalls are that after going from "Vice City" to "San Andreas" and experiencing all the new things that had been incorporated, going back to this is a bit of a letdown. Sure riding motorcycles and cutting pedestrians up with chainsaws in Liberty City is cool, but taking out the ability to fly and swim is ridiculous. Plus, the PSP version had a multi-player option that has been taken out of this version, leaving that in would have increased the play-time even more-so, I don't know why they took this out.

All in all, for a mere twenty-bucks, you can't go wrong with this game, sure it's not the prettiest, but the game-play is awesome, it's not short and you get to decapitate hookers with katanas. What's not to love? Go out there and buy this bad-boy, it'll be a crime not to.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/20/06