Liberty City Stories brings you back to the city we all know and love, with some updates to make any GTA fan proud.
The guns and driving are what you expect from a GTA title. Bikes, cars, trucks, boats, helicopters, planes, hovercrafts, and even a mission-specific robot are among the drivable or pilotable objects. There are tons of guns, and like all recent GTA games, you can only hold one of each type. You'll come to love the SMG, M4, Pistol, Sniper Rifle, and Rocket Launcher as your complete armoury. Although the missions follow the same formula as past games, Vice City Stories introduces a new element: empire building. This works by starting a gang war on one of the 30 enemy-controlled businesses around town, trashing the place inside and out, and then buying the property at a reduced price. You can choose from Loan Shark, Protection, Prostitution, Drugs, Smuggling, or Robery properties, although only the first three are available right off the bat. Each property type can be repaired, upgraded, and worked for. They all have their own mission type to improve your reputation in that business, which will earn you more money. You will be rolling in dough (and bullet proof vehicle spawns!) if you can capture all 30 empires. The most appealing part of this is that the money is delivered to you automatically, meaning you don't need to run around town picking up your cash. You will however, need to run around to defend your businesses from attackers. Three or four successful attacks by the enemy on a single business will result in the total destruction (and total loss) of that property. You'll need to repair any damaged businesses before they become a sitting duck for the enemy. The game is not without it's cons however. While driving fast, you'll see buildings and textures popping in from nowhere, and the audio frequently skips as the UMD struggles to keep up with the massive amounts of data being streamed off it. The load times are fairly long when starting / exiting the game or entering / exiting a building, and you'll even find the occasional crash during these loads. All of this is tolerable, and the latter is very rare. All in all, this is a superb entry to the GTA franchise. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories should not be missed by ANY PSP owner or GTA fan. And if you're neither, mooch off a friend to try it out. You may like it.