You'd Better Look Around

I meant to write something new sooner than this but could not stop playing Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars.

It has all the atmosphere of GTA IV and a surprising number of the subtleties.  The Map of Liberty City familiar from large scale game is largely present.  I do wonder if I would be quite so blown away if I did not mentally fill in some of the missing parts of the more detailed map, but the game is great in it's own right.

This picture fails to do the game justice.

The game's sounds give it it's atmosphere.  There are many different styles of music and while it only comes in simple loops each piece evokes the type of music it represents brilliantly and never seems to get monotonous.  The comments shouted as you walk down the street, the sound of gunfire and car engines and the occasional train passing overhead.  It is a rich, urban, aural tapestry.

The gameplay is perfect, too.  The Gunplay and fist fights work well, stealing a car is candy from a baby.  If the cops are after you there are degrees of wantedness and these decrease if no cops see you for a while or, more often, when you force a police car to crash and burn.  If you are driving slowly any policeman on foot near you, including one who has just bailed out of a smashed car, will pull at the door handle.  This is brilliantly done and even though he's only a tiny figure on the screen you can really see him straining at that door.  If you don't get away fast enough he pulls you out and you are busted.  If you just manage to get away you will drive off with the car door swinging open (another great touch) and as you speed around the next corner you can almost feel the car leaning as it turns, again due to great use of minute images.

Great (grown-up) humour.  Imaginative tasks to perform.  Superb use of the touch screen... I could enthuse all day!