Nometet.com says: 78%
This game had the feeling of coming home to an old friend. It’s been a while since I traveled the mean streets of Liberty City and thankfully, a lot has remained the same.
Not only does the setting take us back to Grand Theft Auto 3, so does the graphics and gameplay. Gone are the stat building, the real-estate buying, the pimping out of cars… that’s all gone and has been replaced by simpler times.
Seeing as this is a port of a PSP game, I expected a lesser Grand Theft Auto than the last two. Graphics aren’t that great, characters are blocky and everything has a nasty, blurred wash to it. I don’t remember GTA looking this bad but I’m too lazy to put in GTA 3 and check it out.
The gameplay is simplified as I mentioned before. This game sticks to pretty much straight missions without any of that fancy extras. This isn’t inherently bad seeing as the game does a good job of keeping things varied and action packed and even adding a few new things as to how the missions are completed such as a “scare” meter.
The music, unfortunately also takes a hit being a PSP game. The great majority of the tracks are just drivel that no one has probably ever heard of. I thought that San Andreas’ soundtrack did a bad job of capturing the period it was in but this game wins hand down. Voice acting is also on a small budget without little to no recognizable names. This isn’t that bad because all the voice acting was done very well.
The story flip flops so much that it’s hard to keep track of why you’re working for so and so. Being a GTA game, the plot is full of jokes, backstabs and very strange characters. A bunch of characters from the past make cameos and it’s fun to see the GTA world tie in together. I really can’t complain because this is the kind of story that I expect from a GTA game.
Well seeing as this is a big step backward from the previous GTA games, the price and the fact that it might be a long time before GTA IV comes out makes this trip back to Liberty City a pleasant one.
Review by Smerlus
