Grand Theft Auto (GTA): Liberty City Stories for PlayStation 2

One of the nice things that Rockstar began to do was to port their best selling Grand Theft Auto games from the PS2 to the PC and Xbox respectively. Given another 9 months of development time, they were able to clean up the graphics and really make it look like a cleaner game. The result was a product that sold pretty well because Xbox and PC owners could get in on the GTA goodness and the improved graphics and draw distances at worst made the game seem like it belonged on those platforms, at best it changed the landscape of the game to a certain degree. So I wasn't surprised when I saw Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories ported from the PSP to the PS2 just last month. However, unlike Rockstar's previous ports, a lot less was put into the game. The result was a game that left me with a really bad taste in my mouth. At least 50 Cent: Bulletproof didn't have a pedigree, which made it easier to spot a mile away for more seasoned and discerning gamers like myself.


Story

The story of Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories is set in the aforementioned Liberty City around 1998, which is a fictional New York. You are Toni Cipriani and back on the scene in Liberty City, itching to make a name for yourself with the infamous and powerful Leone family. Don Salvatore takes you in and puts you to work serving Vincenzo and the stage is set. Like many other Grand Theft Auto games, the plot will twist to the point where you'll feel almost like a loner in Liberty City as you take missions from wide host of characters most of whom you can't really trust. Overall, I thought the story was knit together rather well. While it's shorter than many other GTA games, I think it's rather self-contained and doesn't digress into outlandish missions as were seen in San Andreas.


Gameplay

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories is your classic 3rd person shooter. You control Toni Cipriani as he explores the expansive Liberty City. At first, just about everything is closed. The Callahan bridge isn't finished construction allowing you access to only one island, ammunation stores are closed, and no matter how much havoc you wreak upon the city the authorities won't send the FBI or military after you. But as you talk to folks around the city and do various tasks for them, new areas and armament options open up.

The game mechanics hearken back to the days of GTA III and Vice City. Weapons are obtained by finding them hidden all throughout the city, at your safe house, grabbing weapons held by other people, or by buying them at the local ammunation. Weapons are wide ranging from weaker weapons like bats, butcher knives and pistols to more powerful sub machine guns, full machine guns, and various explosive devices. However, most of the weapons are all in other GTA games and you really won't find any uniquely powerful weapon in Liberty City Stories. Money is obtained by completing missions, or by simply killing people on the street and grabbing their cash. You transport yourself throughout the city mostly by car or motorcycle. As always, you can "borrow" another person's car and drive off with it to your location of choice. Vehicles handle and take damage differently so many times you're left choosing which vehicle serves the purpose of your future task the best. As always, the more crime you commit, the more interested the cops will be in detaining you. Your wanted level is based on 6 stars. Zero stars means they won't care about you at all, whereas 6 stars means the army is coming after you. After you reach 2 stars, you're going to need help removing the wanted level because you cannot simply "walk it off" like in San Andreas. Located all throughout the city are police bribes that lower your wanted level by one star. In addition, you can change your clothes or get your car sprayed to completely remove your wanted level. If you get hurt, there are red hearts scattered about the city which restore your health and body armor that add additional protection. Overall, the basic gameplay mechanics are the same as the pre-San Andreas games. Toni Cipriani cannot swim and he cannot improve any stats by working out. It's rather disappointing.

Missions are at the core of Grand Theft Auto games and Liberty City Stories is no different. While exploring the city, different symbols appear on the map. The ones with letters and the occasional symbol are missions. You travel to that location, step on the yellow circle and the mission starts, usually in a cinematic sequence explaining your task. The more missions you complete, the more options become available to you and the game really takes off. Eventually more than one mission icon appears and, while this game does run on a rail at times, at least you're given the option of deciding which mission you want to take on next. Missions typically last between 10-20 minutes and have you doing something as basic as drive Don Salvatore to a location on the map, to the more complicated wacking the Mayor of Liberty City. Compared to other GTA games, Liberty City Stories lacks a lot of unique missions as seen in other games, but they are pretty fun nonetheless.

In addition to the missions that advance the story, there are side missions that can either improve your character stats or just earn a ton of cash. The R3 missions, a staple from previous GTA games, returns for an encore. When you get into special vehicles like police cars or ambulances, you can click the R3 button on the controller to activate a special mission. Once completed, you're given a stat boost in a particular area or something special happens. I really grow weary of R3 missions simply because they take too long to complete. The ambulance mission alone takes close to 2 hours to finish, and that's if you finish it on your first try. Other tasks also include finding hidden packages, which reward you with weapons at your safe house, rampages that net you extra cash while at the same time quenching your blood lust, and street races to get your adrenaline pumping. You can also locate and perform all the various unique jumps as well. Finally, if all this doesn't appeal much to you, you can improvise your own mission, leaving a path of destruction and do everything in your power to lower your wanted level and get away with all your bad deeds. All these tasks though aren't unique to the GTA series. In fact they all appear in the last 3 GTA games. So it's rather disappointing that you're really not doing anything new or interesting in this game, just the same old same old.

All in all, this was the first PS2 Grand Theft Auto game that left me bored before I could finish all the missions. In the end, just finishing the game felt more like a chore than a quest to see what's coming next. While most of the missions were unique in their own way, the lack of innovation really deflated my experience. It felt like I went in a time warp back to 2001 and the older Liberty City from GTA III. While this game is a PSP port and is presented (and priced) like a GTA III expansion pack, it just doesn't have the aura that it had five years ago. There's only so many times you can drive that ambulance around for 2 hours driving people to the hospital hoping that you don't get flipped over on level 15 just to be able to sprint for a longer period of time. I guess the other hardcore Grand Theft Auto fans will like this more than me, and the price tag is certainly appealing, just don't set your expectations high in the gameplay department.


Controls

Those of you familiar with the controls in Grand Theft Auto III and GTA Vice City should feel right at home with Liberty City Stories. The left analog stick moves Toni around from his 3rd person perspective. The right analog stick moves the camera, albeit opposite of the direction you'd expect it to go, but that's only a minor complaint. The face buttons do special actions like jumping (Square), running (X), shooting (circle), and getting into a car (triangle). The L2 and R2 shoulder buttons cycle your weapons, while the R1 shoulder button targets your enemies. Finally, the L1 shoulder button centers the camera. Inside a vehicle, the controls are pretty basic, where the left analog stick moves the car while the face buttons perform actions like accelerating, braking, shooting, or exiting the vehicle. Overall, the controls do the job. While I prefer the controls from GTA San Andreas much more, these controls more than handle the job of controlling Toni Cipriani.


Graphics

While this was a straight port from the PSP version of Liberty City Stories, I have to say that I expected the graphics to be a lot worse. While I'm not into the drab Liberty City setting as I was with Vice City or San Andreas, the technical graphics really weren't all that bad. The resolution was a little rough, but only slightly worse than all the other console GTA games. Besides, the draw distance and frame rates seemed to be a lot better than what I saw in San Andreas. Admitted this game doesn't notch up the speed as much as San Andreas, but at least cars, pedestrians and other objects weren't appearing a split second before you could react to them either. It actually made the gameplay a lot less frustrating in that regard. But aside from that, the graphics still aren't as impressive as other games on the PS2 console. In addition, the environmental effects just don't have the same impact on the game as I'm used to.


Sound

I was rather disappointed with the sound in Liberty City Stories. The music is straight late 90's East Coast, but with the exception of the rap station, there is little name recognition to pump up the atmosphere. You still have a wide variety of choices ranging from rock, to rap, to even classical, reggae, and boy bands. However, the songs and groups Rockstar picked out this time around were terrible. If the radio wasn't on Liberty City Jam, then it was off. Aside from the radio, the music theme of Liberty City Stories is rather catchy at first, but can wear down on you if you expose yourself to it a little too much.

The voice acting, to put it bluntly is terrible; absolutely horrible. With the exception of a few bright spots for Toni Cipriani and a couple other colorful characters, the voice acting is a garbled mess of cliches, over enthusiasm, and really bad Italian accents. Perhaps it's the lack of established actors, unlike the later installments of the Grand Theft Auto series, or maybe it's just a tighter budget. Who knows? But the fact remains that the voice acting was on par with a daytime soap opera or the WWE, not the highest of praise in my opinion.

The sound effects were also slightly below par. Some effects from weapons and vehicles sounded as if they were being recorded through a tube of toilet paper, but the ambiance does lend itself to a pretty immersive city environment and some of the sound effects from the elevated trains and other background sounds really was a positive.


Replay Value

The replay value for Liberty City Stories is in the eyes of the beholder. If you can't get enough of the R3 missions, unique jumps, rampages, and general improvising, then this game can be stretched out long after the story is finished. However, I personally thought the replay value was rather limited and even tedious at times. Seeking out each unique jump while playing in a gameplay realm that I knew was 5 years old (and since has been significantly improved) really didn't compel me to play for hours and hours. Yes it's GTA, but it's the old GTA. It felt like I was playing GTA III again only with a different story.

I was able to get this game for $14 at Circuit City and I cannot say that it wasn't a really good deal since the game normally retails for $20. However San Andreas sells for the same price retail, and used copies can end up matching the $14 I paid if you know where to go. So you have to ask yourself, would you rather play this game or San Andreas? I'd rather play San Andreas all over again from the beginning. Yes I already played through San Andreas already while Liberty City Stories does have a newer story, but the gameplay, specifically the mechanics, are so much better in San Andreas. San Andreas is a classic, whereas Liberty City Stories seems like a money grab from Rockstar. So I guess if you preferred the gameplay of GTA III or Vice City, this is your game and make sure to put away $20 to get it. Others might want to give this a rental. I'm going to go ahead and recommend this game simply because the story is compelling and the gameplay, despite being pretty old, is still pretty solid. But don't expect anything ground-breaking you've come to expect from the GTA series, or else you'll be disappointed like I was.