Rockstar Delivers the Goods on the DS.
Rockstar has really outdone themselves with Chinatown Wars. From the graphics to the game play you can really see that they put a ton of love and time into this game and it really payed off.
The game begins with you getting ambushed and left for dead in a sinking car. Immediately it introduces you to the nice little touch mini games that are used on the bottom screen by making you "break" through the windshield by tapping on the screen. The game is chock full of little moments like this that really are a nice addition and dont feel tact on at all.
The city is fully 3d and taken directly from GTA 4 so any fan of that game will feel immediately at home. The graphics really are amazing for DS and it does make you feel like that you are in a living breathing city, from random people getting into fights on the street to having the metro ride over you as you drive through the city.
The gameplay pretty much plays exactly like the old GTA top down games but the missions are actually varied and interesting to do. One example is when you have to "rescue" another Yakuza who is dying in an ambulance. When you steel the ambulance if you bump into things or the cops smack into you he starts to go into cardiac arrest. This makes you have to tap on his heart on the bottom screen repeatedly so he doesnt flat line. This turns a regular jack and chase mission into something new and creative.
The newest edition to the GTA series is the drug trading system which is really fun to do. Youll be able to buy all kinds of different drugs from one dealer and sell them to another for a profit. Its a nice way to make money and with a large amount of property to purchase throughout the city youll be urged to make as much loot as you can to buy it all. Having cop busts happen randomly at the end of a deal adds a nice touch to it, making you actually feel like youre doing something bad rather then just selling insurance or something:).
The story is regular GTA fare with your father being killed and you struggling to find out the killer while helping your uncle rise in the ranks of a criminal empire. You wont be wowed by it but it does a good job of moving you along.
The only real technical problem I came across was the FR slowdown during large cop chases. This really only seemed to happen when their was a ton of stuff going on so its definitely not game breaking but I felt it was worth mentioning.
At the end of the day though if you didnt like previous GTA games chances are you wont dig this one either since it plays basically the same. If you do love GTA though then you will be blown away by this great game that the developers obviously put a lot of time into. So if youre still on the fence about buying it hopefully this review might have helped you out a little.:)