Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars Hands-On

The most detailed hands-on playtest of the hottest DS game this year, complete with HUD diagrams and new screens.

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By Adam Doree, January 20, 2009

About the only exciting thing to be announced at Nintendo's E3 briefing last year was the DS-exclusive Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars. In the ever-expanding ocean of software made for non-gamers, the mention of one of gaming's most revered brands stood out as one of the highlight announcements of the whole show, in fact.

Now, the game is basically finished and gearing up for its release in March. We recently went back to Rockstar for an in-depth hands-on playtest with the game, including levels and features that none of the previous magazine articles have been able to check out yet. As you might expect, we've piled on the detail, ensuring there's really no stone unturned and providing HUD diagrams and stuff that the other regular game sites really wouldn't dream of doing the overtime for.

With no sign of the long-rumoured San Andreas Stories in sight, all eyes return to the East Coast; although Chinatown Wars takes place in the same modern-era Liberty City we've journeyed through in Grand Theft Auto IV (in terms of islands, the map is the same as in GTA IV, with the omission of Alderney - and it's all open from the beginning), the first thing to note is that Chinatown Wars is a completely distinct adventure, written by Dan Houser and Rockstar Leeds creative director David Bland, with no crossover to the storyline of the Bellic contingent (we definitely won't "run into Niko", we're told in no uncertain terms).

After all, in Liberty City, there are many people struggling with their own issues and storylines. Chinatown Wars presents a more over-the-top, intentionally funny city with a more colourful palette, telling a story that doesn't intend to be as serious or as deep as Niko's, but set in a world that's still positively GTA.

Rockstar Leeds is pretty much the handheld specialist of the Rockstar group - it handled the PSP GTA games, and now it's pulled out all the stops for this DS debut. Twice as many people have worked on Chinatown Wars as on the previous PSP titles, and there's been plenty of input from Rockstar North and New York. Rockstar says it's one of the biggest DS games ever made, with more "lines of code" - some 800,000, apparently - than even San Andreas on the PS2. So even though the number of visual and (more noticeably) audio assets squeezed onto the DS game card can't compete with more grown-up storage media, the scale and complexity of the title is pretty much in the same league - and it shows.

And that's not to say that it's visually some poor relation. In fact, there's little you can point out with Chinatown Wars in the way of technical sacrifice, and quite honestly we think about it as a console game rather than some handheld side project.

So who's causing trouble in Liberty City this time around? Huang Lee, a member of the Triads, is flying in with a ceremonial sword - the Yu Jian - from his recently assassinated father; his intention is to deliver it to his Uncle 'Wu' Kenny Lee, who has Triad leadership in his sights - and perhaps find out who was behind his father's assassination.

So far, so cliché. But this is GTA we're talking about: Huang may be silently portrayed, but as a character he may well rival Niko and Roman. Respect and tolerance aren't high on Huang's agenda. He's sassy and impatient; this 'sacred sword' is more a "stupid thing to deliver," he comments in the game's intro sequence. While his father would have liked to be remembered by him as honourable, the truth is that he was a drug dealing, drug taking, womanising gambler - and the sword was not passed down through the generations, but won in some random poker tournament.

Nonetheless, the sword is still highly regarded among the Triads. So much so that, with hopes to inherit the leadership position of ageing Triad boss Hsin Jaoming, Uncle Wu has already promised it to him, before Huang even arrives. Perfect set up for Huang to get ambushed upon his arrival at the airport? You bet. Uncle Wu isn't the only guy wanting to lead the Triad groups, and the sword is stolen.

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