Highly recommended for fans of GTA 3. or for those that want to revisit Liberty City in a more GRAND style.
GTA: Liberty City stories is a SOLID GTA game that combines many of the best elements of both GTA 3 and Vice City to make a "directors cut" of sorts of GTA 3.
First and foremost this IS a port of the AAA original PSP game for the PS2 and it is basically a Straight port with very few enhancements in graphics or features but the gameplay is much improved when played with the PS2s dual shock.
The graphics are a mix of GTA3 and Vice City, they are far more detailed than GTA 3 and have all the Shiny stuff that was present in Vice City but contain fewer polygons when compared to its original 3-D outing GTA 3 on PS2.
IMO the game looks faar better than Grand Theft Auto 3 and is on par with Vice City.
The sound is spot on for a GTA game from the roaring motorcyle engines to the whole atmosphere that Liberty City and GTA 3 are known for.
A big minus is the soundtrack , while not terrible it really is subpar and offers too few tracks for each radio station - agian due in large part for originally being on the PSPs UMD disk.
BUT ive always luved to run around Liberty City with the "opera" songs blarring out the sterio as I cause all types of mayhem and mischief in the streets of Liberty City like Godfather the movie gone wild , but thats just me lol.
Now on too the more important stuff such as gameplay, storyline and the overall fun of the game itself.
Gameplay: faar better than its PSP counterpart thanks to the PS2s dual shock controller.
The variety of vehicles has been greatly improved from both GTA3 and Vice City and most important their are now MOTORCYCLES in Liberty City wich makes the whole game move at a much faster and more sastifying pace when compared to the old clunkers of GTA3.
A big plus in the gameplay department are the MISSIONS, Liberty City Stories contains some of the most enjoyable missions ever in a GTA game.
Although some are a bit short-Im sure in due in part to the fact that this was originally a portable game - all of the missions keep the game flowing much better than GTA 3 and the action really picks up when you enter Stuanton island = lots of BIG explosions that are sure to satisfy even the most jaded GTA gamer.
Although there are more than a few gameplay elements of San Andreas left out such as swimming and wall climbing and others that could have put this title in a much higher ranking.
Storyline: a solid storyline that is faar better than GTA 3s shallow story and is on par with Vice citys but less well written than San Andreas storyline.
The voice acting is very good but doesnt contain any celebrity voices like Vice city or SA.
Overall this is SOLID GTA game that is worth every penny of its asking price and is a must have addtion for fans of the Mafioso/Godfather type vibe and "feel" of Grand Theft Auto 3 and Vice City.