Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories Post-Mortem

[Now Experiencing] [Computer Gaming]

There comes a time for all of us when we have to admit that we're just not going to be bothered finishing the last few levels of a game. For me, and for GTA: Liberty City Stories on the PSP, that day is now. And thus, it's time for a post-mortem.

I'll start by saying this: GTA: Liberty City Stories is, hands down, the best game available for the PSP today. Easily. There's really no competition.

If you've played a Grand Theft Auto game before, you probably have a good idea what you're in for in the PSP installment. And if you haven't... sweet Jeebers, what have you been doing with your life?

The Grand Theft Auto format sees you freely wandering through a fairly immense 3D rendered city. You have pretty much free reign to explore, find secret areas and power-ups, take on missions, hijack cars, drive around, kill pedestrians, gang members, or police, engage in car chases, drive boats, go nuts with a rocket launcher, pull off stunt jumps, or whatever else takes your fancy. It's a sandboxy kind of half-sim, half-action game that is an absolute ton of fun. It's been aped by almost every developer to some extent or another over the last few years, and for good reason, but GTA still remains the king of its format by simply continuing to be deeper, larger, and better designed than anything in the competition.

Liberty City Stories operates as a prequel to the PS2's GTA III, taking place in Liberty City and featuring Tony Cipriani as the protagonist. The game takes its city design directly from GTA III, with nearly identical street layout and buildings, with only very minor changes relating to the game being set slightly earlier in time. The missions, bonuses, and radio chatter are all new, though.

It's a fantastic technical achievement on developer Rockstar's part that the game looks, feels, and plays almost exactly the same as the PS2 installments in the series. In fact, in some respects, the graphics are actually better than GTA III, thanks to some clever graphical shortcuts mostly involving motion blurring. All the styles of gameplay from GTA III are present, including a range of "plot" missions, side missions, races, time trials, car collection, and the ubiquitous "R3 missions" (although of course the PSP doesn't have an R3 button) which see you driving ambulances, fire trucks, taxis, police cars, and pizza delivery bikes around to make hard cash and upgrade your abilities.

Liberty City Stories also throws in some new elements that weren't present in GTA III. Some, such as the ability to change outfits, and the presence of motorcycles, are developments from later in the franchise that you may already be familiar with. Others, such as the Trashmaster R3 missions, the ability to work as a car or bike salesman, and some optional rail-shooting side-missions, are brand new to Grand Theft Auto. It's notable, though, that Liberty City Stories, unlike its console cousins, has no flyable vehicles or airborne missions (though that won't stop you from taking down plenty of police-operated helicopters from the ground!).

I've mentioned that the game looks great. It also sounds great, or at least as great as any GTA ever has, with a totally appropriate range of sound effects, sound cues, and pedestrian chatter that really fills out the city with a sense of cohesiveness and place. The radio stations from past GTA games also return, although they fall a little flat this time around - the range and quality of the music on offer is poor, and the total amount of radio available to listen to is completely inadequate for a game of this length and depth. By about two thirds of the way through the main plot I'd started turning the radio off more often than not.

All the main characters are professionally voiced, both for cutscenes and for throwaway lines during missions. Sadly, veterans such as Kyle Maclachlan and Michael Madsen don't return to reprise their roles from GTA III, but you won't notice, as the quality of the acting is about as good as you can ask for given the quirky and expletive-laced dialogue the game is fond of. (Watch out for a cameo by Wil Wheaton on the chat radio station!)

The controls are possibly where the game falls down a little. The PSP's single nub-like analogue joystick is a poor substitute for the PS2's twin analogues, and it took me a long time to get the hang of driving smoothy at high speeds without spinning out every time I tried to change lanes. What's more, like most action games on the PSP that use the analogue, playing for long periods results in some nasty cramps through your left hand (though I suppose this is less Rockstar's fault and more Sony's). Luckily, once you adjust, you can play with a fair degree of precision, and I don't recall being frustrated by missions because of the controls more than I was by the mission design.

Speaking of mission design, the quality of the missions throughout the game varies dramatically. Nothing in Liberty City Stories approaches the cinematic thrill of some of the best missions from San Andreas, but by and large they're of appropriate lengths, appropriate difficulties, and seem meaningful. One in particular, "Karmageddon", where you drive a firetruck around aiming for as much damage to other vehicles as possible within a time limit, is so fun that I suspect it'll make a return in GTA IV or Vice City Stories. (The developers obviously realised that, as it's one of the few missions in the game that you can replay again and again after finishing it.)

The ambulance and firetruck missions, notably frustrating in past GTA games, seemed to me a lot easier in Liberty City Stories, although it may just be that I'm well practiced at them now. However, some of the end game missions are not as well done, featuring timers that aren't well explained, multiple stages to the mission, and long lengths, making replaying them after a failure a significant chore. There's also a fair few moments where the plot falls apart, leaving you wondering why you're bothering to do the missions assigned to you and what, precisely, you're going to get out of it. And it's worth mentioning that the third of Liberty City's three islands is just as poorly laid out and frustrating to navigate as it was in GTA III, making the final missions of the game that much more irritating. Myself, I never finished the last four missions. Maybe some day.

Whatever sins the game may have, it makes up for by including, for the first time since GTA 2, a multiplayer mode. You can play wirelessly against other friends who have copies of the game in a variety of game types including deathmatch, king of the hill, and a kind of "capture the flag" variant involving limousines. I've had the chance to play these with two or three players, and they're a ton of fun, that I can only assume gets even better with more competitors. Sadly, there's no option to play over the internet, so you'll have to actually find other people with a copy of the game in real life. It's worth noting that although Liberty City Stories was ported to the PS2 as a budget release, the console version is completely missing this multiplayer option.

All in all, Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories is one of those games that's almost good enough to justify your PSP purchase all by itself, and if you already own the handheld, you should definitely have a copy of this on your shelf.