I’m not a huge fan of the GTA games, up until the amazing GTA Chinatown Wars on DS the only other one I had really played was the first one on PC which I thought that was a fantastic little game, so much fun just mucking around smashing into cars and so on. Just due to not really having that good of a PC or a Playstation I never really kept up with the series until the recent GTA Chinatown Wars. So I guess I’m not the worlds foremost expert on all things GTA but as I said I did really enjoy the first one and maybe that’s why I enjoyed the DS one so much due to it being a return to the series roots. Chinatown Wars was not the first portable GTA , that honor goes to GTA on the Game Boy Color.
 


I was really really looking forward to this game, yay for high expectations being crushed. Honestly out of all the games I’ve got on Game Boy this would def have to be up there as the one I hate the most. As I said I really enjoyed the first game on PC, it was an amazingly fun a new title unlike anything I had played at that stage. The Game Boy version while it looks like they were trying to do the right thing and just give us the same experience as the PC they have fallen way way short. The game is pretty much a complete port of the PC experience and in that lies the problem. Instead of trying to custom make the game for the Game Boy they've just crammed the whole of Liberty City from the PC original into the game which sounds awesome, what sucks is the fact that the city is almost deserted. I swear I’ve gone for 5 mins sometimes walking around just trying to find a car to steal so I can drive around city. I think its great that they managed to bring the full cities into the game and its an amazing effort on Rockstars behalf. But just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.



The key with bringing any game from the console or PC to a handheld system is that you need to play to the systems strengths. Its kind of the same problem a lot of developers faced when the PSP came out. Hell even when the DS came out Nintendo did it with Super Mario 64 DS, sure Super Mario 64 was and is an amazing game, but its not suited to the handheld format that well unlike say New Super Mario Bros. With GTA what they should of done is instead of giving us the full city to play around in is maybe make things smaller, divide the city up into small chunks. With a smaller city you can have the same amount of stuff going on in the game world but as there is less space for it all to be happening in the world seems busier with more people and cars around and not looking like the city has been deserted. Hell even when you get your wanted rating up you can still drive around for a few mins without even seeing a police car. And half the fun of GTA games and I guess most sandbox games is just mucking around and try to cause as much mayhem as possible, not really possible in this game when it takes forever just to find a car to steal or people to kill.



Despite the lack of a people and cars in the game its pretty faithful to the original, all the missions are there, Liberty City is just like they are in the original so if you know the maps you'll know where to go and how to get there. The graphics are nice and it does look good. Music flat out sucks, if anyone ever whines about the music in Chinatown Wars being bad, I dare you to play this without ripping off your ears. Thats the one good thing about it being soo hard to find a car is that you can set it so the music on plays when your driving around. As soon as you get in a car be prepared to listen to some awful tune just play over and over and over again. At least each car has its own music unfortunately they all suck just as much. Controls aren't that great either. A button moves you forward be it on foot or in a car. I can understand that being the case while driving around, but its just retarded when your on foot. And yes I know it was the same for movement in the original PC version. Stealing cars is annoying as well in that to do so when you finally find a car you need to walk up to it, and then press A & Select at the same time. Sometimes you'll get the car, sometimes you'll just stand in front of it look like a twat. All up the controls feel clunky and outdated.



Its a shame that this game seems to have fallen well short. Its a great effort on Rockstars behalf that they managed to do what they did with the game and that is to cram all of Liberty City almost tile for tile into the a Game Boy cart. But its just not worth the cost of the game world being almost barren of life. I would of rather had a small world with lots going on over a large game world with very little happening. Thats just me though. I was really disappointed when I got this game, as I said I was really looking forward to it as I loved the original on PC and the idea of playing a GTA game on the go just made me so happy, its just a shame I had to wait 10 years until the amazing GTA Chinatown Wars for my dreams to finally come true. Oh well enough of that, next week time for something finally Non Game Boy, so I'll see you then, peace out.