Game: Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories
Console: Sony Playstation 2
Developer: Rockstar
Release Date: 6th June 2006
Bringing the series back to Liberty City and it's three islands which are plagued by transit problems, Liberty City Stories has a familiar protagonist in Toni Cipriani. Having completed missions for him in GTA III (set in 2001), we get a glimpse of how he rose up the mafia ranks to become second only to Salvatore Leone. The game is set in 1998 and has a few clever references to future events such as motorcycles (which were banned in III), Lazlow says that soon LCFR will feature Chatterbox 24/7 and the player must help Donald Love to become the media mogul that he is shown as later on.
The story begins with Toni Cipriani coming out of hiding and needing to prove himself to the mafia who have provided him with somewhere to live. As the player continues to do missions, Toni gains their trust and helps them with various gang issues and personal problems. Some of the cast are familiar from GTA III, and others are newly introduced and manage to die off before getting the chance to live long enough to see the events of the earlier game.
The types of missions featured in the game will be familiar to fans of the series; there's a lot of driving people around, shooting anyone who gets in your way and doing ridiculous things for other people's gain. Although I didn't have a particular favourite mission in the game, there weren't many that I disliked or found too difficult. With 70 main story missions there's no shortage of things to do in the game, but it doesn't last as long as you might think with 10-12 hours being a fair estimate of the time it takes to complete.
Controlwise the game is pretty similar to other 3D GTA releases; driving feels very much like GTA III used to, with no flying of planes included. There's auto targeting available, but it's less effective than San Andreas's targeting as it glitches out every now and then and fails to target or shoot people who are attempting to kill you. It's not something that happens too often in game, but it's enough to fail a mission or two for players.
There are a few other glitchy moments in the game which make it seem a little more rushed than other installments of the franchise. I had some trouble with getting stuck in the ground, and a garage door repeatedly failing to open. Admittedly, the game was ported from PSP to the Playstation 2 so this could account for some of the problems. Overall though it feels much more like a PS2 game than something for a handheld.
In terms of vehicle choice and features the game feels a little like GTA III+. There's new cars and minigames bu they're nothing massively new and only enhance the feeling of the game a little past that of GTA III. For those that haven't played the previous games, it'll feel like a step backwards from San Andreas but there's a lot of clever references and updates to the older game style to enjoy for those that have.
Graphically the game isn't that different from GTA III; it's got the same style of graphics and HUD. Improving the graphics of the game would have seemed strange with the events set before those of GTA III. Musically Liberty City Stories has the most unremarkable soundtrack of the entire GTA series as none of the radio stations really have any great songs and I find myself listening to the talk radio station most of all. The voice acting in the game is fairly good although the animation in the cutscenes isn't quite up to its standards.
Overall GTA: Liberty City Stories makes for an interesting prelude to the events of GTA III and provides a nice way to rediscover Liberty City without having to replay the earlier game. Full of the usual tongue-in-cheek humour and references to earlier games, it fits perfectly with other installments of the series and has one of the strongest plots of all the games. It's score here reflects its similarity to GTA III but also that it has enhancements and improvements upon that formula too.
Rating: 85/100
Grade: B
Console: Sony Playstation 2
Developer: Rockstar
Release Date: 5th March 2007
The second GTA prequel to be ported from PSP, Vice City Stories explores the islands of Vice City in 1984, 2 years before the events of the GTA: Vice City. The game makes several changes both to the ideas from the first "Stories" game and the game on which it is based. While the overall gameplay is much the same in most places, there's a new assets system with which players can buy property and build a crime empire, and the handling of cars in the game is much closer to that of San Andreas.
The story revolves around Victor Vance, brother of Lance who stars in Vice City and makes an appearance in this game too. Victor is attempting to make money to support one of his brothers who is unwell and after getting kicked out of the army, turns to a life of crime to do so. Along the way he meets various other financial burdens and is seemingly constantly in demand for all manner of missions.
Variety in the missions you're given may sound like a good thing, but the easier missions such as racing ATV's for a fun night out and taking a friend to pick up baby clothes soon get tiring. The more serious missions tend to be a lot harder than those of Liberty City Stories, often asking ridiculous things of the player such as many difficult objectives in a row, or losing 5 wanted stars after a long mission.
The storyline of the game isn't much better in this respect; most of the characters you meet are useless to Vic's main quest and only provide more obstacles to his actually being able to support anyone. Despite the fact that this game has less missions than Liberty City Stories it seems to drag on far longer without much need to, and there's so many different minigames and side quests that the story seems to lose focus because of the need to introduce you to all of them.
The business acquisition in the game can best be described as a mix between the original Vice City's purchase system and San Andreas's Turf war system. To take over a business from a rival gang you must destroy a car in front of their premises, and then shoot all of the defending gang members. Once a building is yours you can choose which type of business you wish to run from it. From time to time other gangs will attack, requiring your attention to defend the business. With 30 businesses overall in the game, it seems like something added to pad it out, more than because it was a good idea.
Usually in Grand Theft Auto games a few sensitive issues are addressed with some social commentary or parody of sorts. These parts are to be taken with a pinch of salt and perhaps carefully considered as to what the developers are trying to say. In Vice City Stories, this approach is altered slightly as nearly every social issue imaginable is addressed in an almost uncomfortable manner, unlike other games in the series. This seemed to be a little distasteful and almost an indication that they had run out of ideas.
Graphically the game is pleasing to the eye and there are some crucial updates from the original game whilst retaining the feel and look of the older game. The choice of music on radio stations is very good and possibly one of the best in any Grand Theft Auto title of the 3D universe. General voice acting is good and adds to the lively feel of the game's streets. The presentation of the game is very much its best feature with a high overall standard to it's look and sounds.
Overall however, the poor plot and mission range as well as the lack of focus and overabundance of side missions and objectives makes Vice City Stories difficult to enjoy as much as the original game. With 59 main missions it's not a very long game but feels much longer than it needs to be and side missions only really serve to pad out the game, in case its length is compared to Liberty City Stories near perfect pacing.
Rating: 68/100
Grade: C
With these two prequels signalling the end of the 3D era of Grand Theft Auto games it's important to remember how far the series came. The transition from a top down view to 3rd person also marked the transition to being a best selling series with 75.1 million copies of 3D era games sold. While GTA III, Vice City and San Andreas were the main titles to peak gamer interest, Liberty City Stories made for an interesting take on events preceding III and its a shame that Vice City Stories couldn't finish the run of extremely good games on the same level.
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