LCS is a great first outing on the handheld that could, and provides a lot of fun for pre-GTA IV fans.
The Bad: Extremely difficult at times, terrible targeting, radio shows are repeated often, custom soundtracks are a pain to install, various minor technical issues
Being one of the most anticipated PSP games of all time Rockstar had a lot of pressure on them to get the game right. LCS feels like a port of the GTA3 engine, but feels nice on the PSP. Everything you love about GTA is intact here and is a great first outing for the little handheld that could. Like all other GTAs you play as a man who is trying to climb to the top of the city.
The missions are varied and well put together, but extremely frustrating. I had to use cheats a lot since the game is highly unforgiving. They will put way to many guys in one spot for you, and this is due to targeting and shooting issues. When you lock on with R Toni will target the closest target, but camera issues hinder this. If you have someone shooting behind you you have to turn around, tap L to reset the camera, lock on, then shoot. In this amount of time you will be dead. This is probably the biggest issue in the whole game. Most of the same issues are carried over from GTA3 and this also includes graphical issues like pop-up, weird collision detection, and some audio glitches.
The game is surprisingly busy for a handheld game with cars and pedestrians everywhere, you can do everything you could in GTA3 like steal cars, do taxi, police, and fire truck missions. Unlike GTA3, however, you can ride motor cycles. There are a ton of weapons to use in the game, tons of cars, and lots of missions to do. Missions vary from escorting, on rail shooting, protecting, delivering, stocking, and assassinating. The characters in the game are lively and the dialog is awesome. The radio stations talk shows are my favorite part in the game. They are hilarious and completely outrageous like GTA should be. There aren't enough of them though (about 5) and after you get into 5+ hours into the game they get repetitive, and the same goes for the commercials. The songs however aren't very good, and I don't even think any of them are licensed. This can be changed by playing custom songs off your memory stick, but it requires a weird converter on your PC and isn't very user friendly, but its there and I love it. In fact LCS was the first PSP game to use custom soundtracks so kudos to Rockstar for doing this.
The game looks very good for a 2005 PSP game. It looks like an upgraded version of GTA3 which isn't bad, but if love GTA4 and have the pre-GTA4 games you will not like this at all. Some times the game can look really good when you riding into the sunrise and light is reflecting off the water and everything around you. Everything is actually 3D and doesn't look flat and retarded like you might think. So, bottom line, if you want a great GTA game pick up LCS, and its even a good entry into the series if you have never played it before.