Few games actually change the way you feel about a platform. They take the established standard and tear it to pieces. Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City (LCS) Stories is one such game. It takes the preconceptions about what a handheld can do and totally ignores them. It provides an experience so large and so complex that it's a wonder that it actually runs at all. The GTA series has always succeeded in sheer scope and complexity, and thankfully, it's no different on the as a handheld. There are no hardcore sacrifices, either. LCS uses the same kind of intricate 3D engine that put the series (and the developer) on the map with GTA III.
With LCS, Rockstar managed to include just about everything fans would come to expect from a console title. The narrative in LCS revolves around Liberty City, the same location from GTA III, so you can visit the same three islands as you could in the PS2 title. And not infinitely-less detailed versions of these islands either. Virtually every alleyway, sidewalk, and structure from GTA3 makes an appearance in the handheld version as well. The only real differences as far as gameplay goes are due to the game's story. The events in LCS actually take place before those in GTA III, so certain structures such as bridges and tunnels are under construction.
Hotter than an Italian Suit
It's been said before, but LCS runs damn well on the PSP. The framerate remains steady throughout most situations, even with scores of civilians roaming the streets. It's not perfect, of course, and it never really exceeds 30 frames per second, but it's still mighty impressive. Occasionally the game pushes so much on the screen at once that slowdown is inevitable, but it's not too bad. Even at its worst, the PSP manages to keep things running well enough to keep you playing relatively unhindered by the burdens of portable technology. As for the load times, well, they're impressive as well. The game only loads on start-up, when loading a save or during cutscenes. Apart from this, there's absolutely no loading when driving around town. Of course, when going from one island to the next there's a five-second pause, but that's very understandable. Battery life is also impressive and clocks in at around four hours.
A Tale of Toni
Most everyone following the development of LCS knows the game stars Toni Cipriani, a hotheaded member of the Leone crime family. The Leones act like the quintessential Italian mafia. Their influence reaches from the lowest street dealer all way up to city hall. At the start of the game Toni has just returned to Liberty City after finishing a job for Don Salvatore, head of the Leone family. Salvatore places Toni under the control of one of his captains, Vincenzo Cilli, who gives Toni his first set of missions. And while the first couple of jobs help orient the player with the city and the game's control scheme, things heat up in LCS rather quickly.
Like every other title baring the GTA name, the action in LCS splits between a series of missions. These missions then divide into subcategories. Certain missions, for example, help advance the story while others simply earn you cash. Some of these cash missions let you hijack a taxi cab or ambulance and actually set off to work in the city. Others let you play the role of car salesman and drive potential customers around the city in testdrives. There's also the chance to play a noodle or pizza delivery guy to earn a little extra coin. One of the best on-the-side jobs, however, has you stealing specific cars and delivering them to a garage for around five grand a pop. Others still grant bonuses such as weapons and special vehicles. There are more, of course, but discovering them is half the fun. The story stages are delivered via the contacts you meet in the game. Once you've been introduced to someone that has some work for you, a letter corresponding to that person will appear on the map. It's then up to you to drive to the contact's place of residence (or imprisonment) to get a mission. At most LCS offers three contacts to inquire about work, but certain times there's only one person to talk to.
So here's the story in brief: the Leone's are at war with the Sindacco and Forelli families, each of which wants to establish itself as the ruling crime organization. The story in LCS unravels through a series of well-directed, excellently-voiced cutscenes. It takes as many twists and turns as any GTA game before it, yet the characters themselves aren't as compelling as those of San Andreas. There's no feeling of genuine camaraderie apart from the loyalty you start to feel for Don Salvatore. It seems everyone just wants to use Toni as a total piece of meat and it's therefore easy to feel somewhat letdown after spending dozens of hours with the well-developed characters of last year's PS2 title. Still, Don Salvatore is the game's saving grace. He gives Toni a reason to do what he's doing. And it's not just for the money or power, but for Salvatore himself.
Still, that's not to say LCS lacks interesting characters. On the contrary, you meet a stable of seriously whacked out characters before the game's end. And you end up working for most of them. Take Donald Love, for instance. He's best known as an entrepreneur, industrialist, and philanthropist, but you soon you discover that the guy's totally insane. He's dirty, cold-hearted and a borderline sociopath. And it's one of your tasks in the game to make sure he's elected as the mayor of Liberty City. Then there's JD O'Toole, owner of a sex club in the red light district. Any mission you perform as a favor for O'Toole (since he's not actually your superior) usually involves pimps, prostitutes, money and lubricant. Sometimes, it even includes grown men in bunny suits. Add to this the remaining 18 or so characters and LCS becomes a sprawling urban epic.
Mission: Eclectic
The missions themselves offer an eclectic mix of good, bad and all sorts of terrible. Most of the objectives in the game revolve around destroying things, collecting things, or getting to places when pressed for time. At first, missions will include only one of these objectives, but later include all three. The best missions in the game clump toward the end of the story, while the lesser than cool objectives sit near the beginning. And by less-cool, you should understand that they're mind-devastatingly bad. See, you face about the same level of opposition at the beginning of the game as you do toward the end; only you're severely ill-equipped to start. There's nothing like fending off 16 bloodthirsty contract killers when all you have under your coat is a pistol and a shotgun. Such is the case in a mission titled "No Son of Mine" where the opposition hires more than a dozen machinegun-packing killers to off you.
But the worst case of LCS feeling totally unbalanced is a mission where you're stuck in a large room with over a dozen chainsaw-yielding maniacs. Everything about this mission seems intentionally engineered to annoy. True, at that point in the game you should be carrying a pistol, shotgun, and machinegun, but the situation feels awkward, unfair, and totally ill-conceived. Eventually you'll figure out the strategy, but there's so little room to maneuver that the mission just feels annoying. It also doesn't help that a chainsaw kills you instantly. If you're wearing body armor, it'll simply knock you down, at which point everyone in the room surrounds you and hacks you to pieces the moment you try and get up.
And then there are the peripheral problems that greatly affect how missions pan out. Police offers, for instance, seem to ignore every dangerous character but you. Most missions require a specific degree of homicidal action or destruction of property, all of which draws the attention of the police. Which is fine, really, but things get increasingly less-fine when you find yourself blasting cops in addition to enemy gangsters and pistol packing civilians. Hell, even this would be fine if the damn cops would shoot at anything besides you. But no, cops in Liberty City act as though they're completely blind to violence, unless caused by one Toni Cipriani.
Fortunately, there are plenty of satisfying missions to more than out-balance the bad. As mentioned above, most missions adhere to the trusted formula of destroying and collecting things, with the only difference between positive and negative assignments being balancing and circumstance. In one mission, for instance, you need to scare a union leader into helping the Leone family. This involved the murdering of her chauffeur and the hijacking of her limousine. Once she hops in the limo you need to drive haphazardly until she agrees to work for Don Salvatore. Perhaps the coolest mission in the game, though, is the last -- where you're riding shotgun in a speedboat and battling enemy ships and even a helicopter. The action is fast, furious and very engrossing.
Another cool assignment involved the assassination of three celebrities. You're actually given the mission by a mysterious figure posing as a priest. Each celebrity is trying to make it to a radio station to promote an upcoming film and it's your job to stop them. One is coming in by boat, another by car and other by helicopter. It's great fun hunting them down, blocking their means of escape, and launching high-velocity explosives at them. Yet another mission involved Donald Love's campaign to become mayor. We had to drive around town in a campaign van promoting Donald Love by hitting specific neighborhoods. What made it fun was the fact that another political figure has a van too, and is winning back the territories you've already won over. It basically becomes a totally satisfying territorial race.
It would have been nice to skip a few story missions but that's not the case. The only choice given to you is what order to complete them in. Once you've completed all missions for a particular contact their corresponding letter will disappear, leaving you to seek work from whichever contact is still on the map. Once you've exhausted all your contacts, though, that's when you usually get a quick call on your cell phone from Salvatore or someone else that requires your expertise.
Driving Mr. Leone
Traveling between the three islands that make up Liberty City is a source of joy and frustration. To start, the driving mechanics in LCS feel smooth and refined. In fact, just throttling through corners and alleyways is one of the best ways to spend time in the game. Each car, truck, and motorcycle handles differently, adding a great deal of depth and strategy. Should a mission require a sturdy ride with good handling, then you go for the Patriot. On the other hand, if a mission requires speed and there's no fear of being shot or rammed, then it's best to go for a sports car or nimble motorcycle. And there's plenty to choose from, too. LCS packs over 70 different vehicles, including scooters, fire trucks, ambulances, speedboats, vans, armored transport vehicles, big rigs and more.
You can also choose from four different camera perspectives to get the best angle while driving. Certain encounters require the precision of the first-person in-cockpit view while others are better suited to the third-person. About the only complaint when it comes to driving is that it's hard to see when your vehicle is on fire (almost destroyed) in first-person mode.
And then there's the radio. Most of LCS takes place on the road so it's fitting that you be given a decent selection of tunes. The game boasts 10 radio stations brimming with talk shows, reggae, dance, hip hop, rock and yes, even boy bands. Each station features six or seven tunes, including officially licensed tracks from about every genre available. A good chunk of the humor and wit in LCS comes from the group of DJs that rule the airwaves in Liberty City. There's so much social commentary packed into the game that it's possible just to drive around town and cycle through available radio stations just to listen to what's new. Cooler still, every major event in the game (most of which you cause personally) is echoed throughout Liberty City through a number of special bulletins. This lends the game an even deeper sense of realism and helps make LCS one of the most immersive games available.
Of course, this isn't to say that transportation in LCS is beyond reproach. For starters, there's simply too much travel in story missions for those pressed for time. Sure, there's plenty to do when all you have is five minutes, but traveling across three islands (multiple times during some missions) is excessive. Add this to the fact you can't save the game wherever you want (only at three safe houses) and things become very unfriendly. More importantly though, these travel-intensive missions become wildly time consuming -- Every mission in LCS takes only five to ten minutes of action to complete, but then there's the five minutes of travel and two minutes of load times to consider. Plus, some of the missions can be tough, so you'll try each several times. Normally, this wouldn't be a bad thing, but in this case it sucks having to drive from one part of the city to another just to receive your objective, then drive to another part of the island (or another island) to complete the job.
To be fair, LCS includes a taxi cab system where a taxi ferries you back to a mission when you die. But the consequences for using this system are way too severe. To start, you lose every single weapon in your possession. And if you had body armor you lose that also. Certain weapons are very rare and some are just expensive. Either way you never, ever want to lose them. So taking a taxi after losing a mission is a total non-option. It's cool that it's there for those that don't mind spending thousands of dollars on weapons and driving around town to find those rare weapons, but for those who don't want to spend the time or money well, you'll have to load your game and start from scratch.
Take Control, My Son
One of the first things you'll notice about LCS is the control. Apart from a few hiccups, the game controls well for the most part. But due to the lack of a second analog stick on the PSP, manual camera control now requires players to stand still and move the camera by using the analog nub in conjunction with the L button. And while the camera is pretty decent in LCS, it's nowhere near perfect. In fact, you'll probably die several meaningless deaths due to the camera. Whenever in cramped corridors, for example, your perspective may end up behind a wall totally blocking your view of the action. Other times, the camera won't adjust fast enough and you'll wind up getting shot in the ass.
One area that needs serious help is the game's targeting system. It leads to numerous trips to the city morgue. Whenever you need to target a cop or enemy gangster, the camera will often target civilians instead leaving you open to attack. It would have been easier to forgive if this had happened only a few times, but it actually happened constantly. And when it happens at the end of a mission and you have next to no health left, it can get beyond frustrating. Also, the camera locks on to targets when it's not possible to shoot them, say when an enemy is hiding behind a wall or other obstruction.
Another issue that will lead to your untimely passing is the fact you can't run while targeting enemies. Unless you're using a pistol or a particular type of machinegun, you'll need to stand still while engaging multiple enemies in shootouts. This is especially maddening early in the game when weapon selection is limited. Most of the time, you're left to shoot a few rounds, reposition yourself, shoot a few rounds and repeat. Later on, you'll score flamethrowers, mini-guns, and rocket launchers so standing still isn't much of an issue. But damn, until you do get those weapons, this targeting system feels downright broken when in comparison to other 3D action titles.
Liberty City Survivor
Like most PSP releases, LCS makes use of the system's wireless capabilities. Unlike some of these other games though, LCS offers a full-fledged console-like multiplayer experience packed with all the depth and strategy console fans have come to expect. You can choose to play seven different modes with up to four different people. Here's a quick recap on multiplayer for anyone who may have missed previous coverage: In terms of sheer size, the multiplayer experience in LCS eclipses everything currently on the system.
The game literally grants the player full reign over each of the game's mammoth islands. Much like in the single-player potion, players retain the overwhelming sense of freedom that defines the GTA series. Unlike many multiplayer experiences, which often feature cramped arenas, LCS offers players the ability to do whatever they want. Virtually every vehicle and weapon has a multiplayer counterpart, granting matches a near-endless level of replayability. In terms of scope, an average match in LCS goes far beyond that of an average multiplayer game.
The only real difference between multiplayer and single-player modes is the ability to sprint continuously when playing with friends. Speed is, quite obviously, essential when dodging fire from five opponents. Ok, so we lied. There's another difference. Instead of purchasing weapons in a shop, multiplayer offers a series of pickups strewn about each level. These vary from simple weapon pickups to the more exotic Mega-Damage and Radar Invisibility upgrades. Mega-Damage feels especially useful when coupled with a shotgun or rocket launcher. This recipe spells all sorts of disaster for anyone dumb enough to stop and admire the scenery.
Since one of the best aspects of LCS is driving different vehicles, the races in "Street Rage" make for serious fun. You can race on each island with each boasting eight different tracks for a total of 24. Another cool mode called "Tanks for the Memories" has you find a tank somewhere in the city and stay in it as long as possible. Your opponents are all packing rocket launchers so dodging their fire while moving through city streets is tough. One of the more strategic multiplayer modes, "Protection Racket", has you protect a number of limos from attack. Balancing offensive and defensive duties is a fun, satisfying experience. And in "Get Stretch" you actually have to steal your opponent's limos and drive them safely back to your base.
Thankfully, there isn't much lag when playing with four other people. Sure, it stuttered here and there but it wasn't anything too noticeable and hardly got in the way of the game. Multiplayer drained the PSP's battery life far quicker than when playing solo, but there was plenty of juice for more than three hours of play time. Other than that, hopping in and out of multiplayer sessions was a painless, seamless procedure.
