Rarely is a prequel better than the original, but this game is the exception to that rule. It is like GTA III, but augmented with features from VC and SA. The only complaint is that the radio stations are not spectacular. But it is interesting to see the subtle differences in the layout of Liberty City, and interact with many of the same characters from other games. The book is cool, because it mentions efforts to ban motorcycles in the city. I guess they were successful, because there were none in GTA III!
well they should show more skin on the people walking around and they can erect the guys every once in a while and people f@king in the cars would hurt and gays and lesbians making out well that would make it more lebiratre and comftralbe 4 people it can be yummy
The latest PS2 chapter of the Grand Theft Auto legacy arrived amidst startlingly slim fanfare this summer in the form of Liberty City Stories, a PSP original ported over to its immediate predecessor. Rockstar didn't make any bones about this release - realizing that not only were they releasing an old game on a new system, but that they were actually taking away functionality, rather than adding to it, LCS was introduced at an original price point of $19.99 amidst much rejoicing from the general public. Speaking personally, that move alone changed my "wait and see" attitude about the title into an immediate purchase on launch day. Kudos to Rockstar - you probably could've gotten away with releasing this thing at full price, no doubt to great profits considering the completely recycled gameplay engine, maps and vehicles contained within, but you took the more honorable route and delivered a midsummer gift to your hardcore fan base.
Yep, aside from the storyline, the audio selections and a few very minor gameplay tweaks (the inclusion of motorcycles, for instance) this is an entirely recycled game. Top to bottom, it's the sights, streets and sensations of Grand Theft Auto III wrapped around a new set of missions, newly distributed hidden packages and a strangely familiar new protagonist. Toni Cipriani should be familiar to anyone who played through GTAIII - he's the momma's boy who handed out odd jobs from his family restaurant midway through the first section of the game, and Liberty City Stories is the tale of his short, deliberate rise to that small semblance of power. Seeing as how this is meant to be a direct prequel to GTAIII, you'll find dozens of little hints, nods and foreshadowing to the events that transpire in the series' first PS2 jaunt, which really made me ache to go back and play chapter three again.
However, aside from a few recurring characters and (obviously) locations, the direct links to the activities in III are few and far between. In my eyes, that's a big missed opportunity - I would've loved to have seen not only the backstory and events leading up to that epic first story, but also some of the things that went on elsewhere in the city during the course of the game. How cool would it have been to bump into the nameless lead character from GTAIII, exchange a few words, and then hear about his successes elsewhere in the city while your own fortunes turned for the worse? LCS was in the unique position to not only deliver a solid standalone tale, but to also expand upon an earlier yarn, perhaps even casting it in a new light. Instead, its storytelling wraps up several years before the explosive arrival of the nameless one, serving as only a traditional prequel with absolutely no overlap. Hopefully this is an area they can address in the future, as the teasers for Vice City Stories have already begun to circulate and one can only imagine that San Andreas Stories won't be far behind.
Despite the outstanding source material and superb pre-existing characters it had to work with, the actual storytelling of Stories does stumble from time to time, which is something that had never been a problem for the series beforehand. Both the pacing and the personality of the story don't quite match up with what had come before, which isn't to say it's a bad story by any stretch of the imagination, just that it's not quite up to the level of the preceding stories. That trademarked unforgiving, sarcastic GTA world view seems tamer this time around, and I'm not sure if that's because I've grown used to the approach or because the tale is actually much thinner than those that came before.
Those same comments could apply to the gameplay system in use with LCS. At its heart, it's the same old GTA - same free-roaming capabilities, same methods of transportation, same theme - but there's something missing that I can't really put my finger on. When I stole my first police car in GTAIII, hit R3 and went on my first vigilante search-and-destroy, it was an almost magical moment. The sky had truly become the limit. I didn't get that same sensation when I boarded a garbage truck and started collecting specially marked dumpsters.
A few of the innovations and new gameplay mechanics from San Andreas are put to use here, specifically the non-numeric health indicator (it's been replaced by a standard life bar) and the ability to change your wardrobe. I was glad to see that some of the more ambitious mechanics had been removed, mostly because I wasn't a fan of the dance levels, long afternoons in the gym to build endurance, or dating levels of GTA:SA, but sorely missed the ability to swim and the inclusion of functional aircraft. Driving your car into a pond of knee-deep water and watching Toni slowly drown is twice as bitter now as it was in Vice City or GTAIII, because you know that the capability was there and it merely didn't make the cut for the handheld release.
One area that I had a hard time coming to grips with was the graphics. I'm not sure if it's the limitations of the engine, the hardware, or the original target console, but the visuals of Liberty City Stories really don't look all that hot. It suffers from what I'd call Final Fantasy: Origins syndrome, in that they've delivered a precise translation of a game that was developed for a less visually intensive system. Origins would've been right at home on the SNES, but fell a little flat on the PSone. Likewise, I'm sure LCS looks outstanding on the PSP, but on the PS2 it's lacking. With that drawback, however, is something of a blessing: load times are significantly smaller in this chapter than they have been in the past. Where a three minute wait after loading a saved game wasn't a big deal for Vice City, you won't wait more than a minute to get into the action with Liberty City Stories. That's a nice tradeoff if you're looking to sit down and goof off for half an hour in between classes or on a lunch break, but if you're a serious player, I'd imagine you'll trade a longer initial load time for a better picture any day of the week.
Hand in hand with the disappointing delivery of the graphics in LCS is the strikingly downgraded quality of its audio selections and radio stations. Liberty City's airwaves feature a substantially smaller selection of recognizable artists and tracks, which may or may not speak to the need to get it out onto store shelves shortly after the PSP's release. Where Vice City and San Andreas were watershed moments for the integration of great music and pop culture references within the confines of an elaborate video game, Liberty City Stories feels like a pale impersonation. Of the in-game radio's selections, only the rap and classical tunes seem to have been given any kind of real attention, and even those broadcasts seem much more shallow than in previous installments.
Probably my biggest gripe about Liberty City Stories is the lack of multiplayer functionality that was built into the game's PSP release. Upon reading reviews of the title, I couldn't wait to try out these first forays into online play within the GTA universe... it sounded like Rockstar had covered all their bases, introduced a little something for everybody and, more importantly, hinted at what might be coming in GTAIV. One would think that continuing this functionality into the PS2 release, maybe even including cross-platform play between PSP owners and PS2 owners, would be a boon for both the portable system and for the in-home console's meager online offering. Instead, any kind of multiplayer functionality was completely removed from the game's home delivery, as developers claimed it "wasn't in keeping with the spirit and story of Liberty City." Why it was included in the PSP version, then, is still a mystery... and the end result is a disappointment for gamers who know the functionality is there, merely commented out of the PS2 translation.
It's that kind of "wow" factor that I think is missing from this entire package. It's a solid game, a continuation of a proven formula, but lacking in that one big punch, one big moment to push it over the top. This felt like a much more shallow, shorter game than Vice City or GTAIII did, when in actuality it took me exactly as long to finish 70% of Liberty City Stories as it did to break 90% on Vice City. I've got to attribute that perceived shortness and incompletion to that same lack of "wow." Even the ending seems anticlimactic and lacking in punch, which was one area that I distinctly remember as being wholly satisfying and exhilarating with San Andreas. This is a really fun game, sufficiently lengthy, with plenty of replay value and some outstanding voice acting work. What it isn't, however, is great. And, considering the lineage that came before, that's a disappointment. It would appear that ongoing greatness, like all other things, is not eternal.
"My boys 15 and 16, love this whole series, they have so much fun playing these."
"I love this game! (not as much as san andreas, of course) but i would play it again."
