GTA: Chinatown Wars

Excellent write-up as usual. What's going to be funny is when I get this game how I'll be sneaking my kid's DS away from her to play it.

It is! She's got flower stickers on it and everything.

I'd even take a flowery pink DS at this point. I neeeeed one.

Sounds awesome, Alex. This got me even more excited for the game. I have some GS credit that will probably go towards this immediately upon release.

Game looks horrible (graphically, not content-wise). Surprised to hear a glowing review.

Yeah, I'd almost say that GTA II looked better.

I guess my question would be -- does it take advantage of that look and run with it (a la Team Fortress 2/Good cel-shaded games) or does the game pretend that it isn't pixelated all to hell?

GTA2 does look better, but i'm pretty sure that's beyond the point - GTA2 on the GB colour was graphically fantastic and played like shit.

Framerate, fluidity and fun are more important at this stage, since we've already got an impressive-looking GTA on the market.

Point conceded -- gameplay trumps on portables.

To be fair, gameplay should always trump - it's just that it's easier to forgive slightly wonky graphics when the screen's only a few inches wide.

I say all this, I don't think it actually looks that bad.

Great write up Alex. I got to try this at the Comic Con as well and the screenshots really don't do it justice. It runs exceptionally smooth. I had a blast with it, and the station I tried it at already had a machine gun with about 1000 rounds so I was pretty much making a mess of everything and enjoying riding around on motorcycles. I was actually surprised to see that you could cut people in half with the machine gun. It was pretty sick. Good stuff overall. I was mostly indifferent before but the game looks like the real deal.

Can anyone find any video of this game in action?

Nothing on youtube. Apparently it's being held close to their chest for now.

Do the missions have checkpoints or has an in-game saving mechanic been implemented? I was really looking forward to the PSP versions, then was stunned a handheld still didn't let you save mid-mission.

Also, is "Humboldy River" a typo, or an inside joke?

In game saving according to the Riviello.

Hopefully a sign of things to come. I need to see this game in action, because right now, I can't get past the graphics. I didn't realize it was actually a 3-d engine, so that might make a real difference.

Looks colorful. Is there an option to decrease the color palette?

More details were needed. Riviello is pronounced: "Rihv-ee-eh-yo", right?

OH, THE LOL, IT HURTS!

Favorite anagram for your name: All Evil Ire Ox


http://wordsmith.org/anagram/anagram...iviello&t=1000

I didn't think this game was going to be good at all. Alex's write-up brings hope.

[IMG][/IMG]

Alex, take the above screen shot for example, can your character move along the vertical axis? Are there ladders, overhangs, different levels?

It's really frustrating I can't find a single video of this game anywhere.

There's more gameplay footage here.

http://uk.ds.ign.com/dor/objects/142...ay_022509.html

I can't wait for this. Looks like a lot of fun.

Is it just me or is the trailer in that link for Lost and the Damned?

Works now. looks pretty sweet. May have to rebuy a DS for this.

Glad I held onto my DS now. Since I finished Phantom hourglass I've probably only used it once in the past 6 months.


edit. Thanks for the credit check Alex. It's kinda tragic how happy I am to see my name on a main article.

I was prepared to call shenanigans on your claim that this title didn't look like warmed over dog shit, but I stand corrected. That gameplay footage looks good, and the perspective really works.

You win this round, Rihv-ee-eh-yo.

At 0:19 you'll notice that the lead character is apparently smacking about none other than Hannah Montana - it's like they addressed all of Overlord's complaints!

This looks too good to be true.

Smacking is only one of a list of things I'd like to do to .... errr ... never mind.

I'm suddenly extremely interested in this. The gameplay looks extremely fluid, I was worried it was going to be rigid and outdated. Now I just have to find my DS.

I don't think this has been mentioned here-- there's going to be a Rockstar van touring the country, stopping at Gamestops to let people play this. They're hitting two spots in the Atlanta area next week. I'm gonna try to check it out Friday afternoon.

Locations and dates/times are here:
http://www.rockstargames.com/chinatownwars/tour/

Eh, not coming to Jersey so I guess my store won't be seeing it. Dang, I REALLY wanna play this.

I have no interest in playing GTA on a portable console, but that picture on Alex's article together with the "Like a Renegade" trailer title brought back memories of this 8-bit classic (on Commodore 64 and Sinclair Speccy formats):

www.vgmuseum.com/scans/scans2/renegade_front.jpg

I'm thinking somebody is a fan.

Locals, the GTA van is up here in Roswell this afternoon from 2-7 at the Gamestop at Mansell/Roswell Rd. I'll be checking it out at some point.

Shout out if you're gonna be there, and I might try to meet up.

I played it for about a half-hour today, and it seems to be a ton of fun.

Unfortunately, the two Rockstar drones manning the demo stations, while good guys, weren't really experts on the game. Just hired PR dudes, I'm sure. They knew as much about the game as they'd gathered from playing it on this tour, really. I asked specifically about the multiplayer modes that we haven't heard about yet, and they didn't know. They weren't included in the demo cart that we were playing on.

The five radio stations sounded pretty good, and they seem to have snagged some fairly notable talent for them. The hiphop station had an Alchemist track, and the techno one had Deadmau5.

I was amused that there was a STOP DROP N ROLL move to perform when you caught on fire (Up + Y), and also that policemen would chase you even after you set them on fire. TERMINATORS.

I've been planning to buy it at GS with some credit I have, so I went ahead and put down my $5 so I could get the R* goodie bag. Just checked it out, and I have a GTA:CW tshirt in black, a couple of miniposters, and some stickers. Plus, I'll get the GS codes (which would be on the internet anyway, but whatev.)

Looking forward to playing the real deal in a couple of weeks!

I ordered this of amazon this week. This game is getting a lot of commercial exposure on SPEED Network and everytime I see the commercial I get excited.

just trying to finish retro gaming challenge before next week.

Yoink! Thank you NYC store owners of dubious business ethics. Should've brought my DS to work though. :/ Impressions later in the evening, I s'pose.