grand theft auto - Chinatown Wars

I must be the only one who didn't like this. The whole expansive feeling that made GTA 3 and 4 so great is now smushed into a tiny top-down view. Granted, that's how GTA 1 and 2 were laid out as well, but in my view 3 and 4 were much better games.

I dug this more than any other GTA (never played the first two), largely because the controls weren't awkward as hell and because there was no half-assed stabs at pathos and/or poignancy to be undermined by the sophomoric humor. Also the humor is genuinely funny more often than not, which can not be said of III through IV. It's a shame it hasn't sold better.

i agree with that, especially the humour part - it is totally, totally hilarious.

hell yes, the street racing guy is a hoot, but III and Vice City were just as funny imo. It was only SA and IV that toned downed the humour.

Whilst I think this is a great rendition, I'd take III, VC, SA, and either IV over it anyday.

Heads up - Best Buy is dropping this to $20 on Sunday, which is definitely low enough for me to go out and grab it.

huh, ppl are selling blatant copies on amazon marketplace

Seller: JUSTAMI04
Rating:87% positive over the past 12 months (38 ratings.) 38 lifetime ratings.
Delivery: In stock. Dispatched from United Kingdom. International delivery available. See Delivery Rates. See return policy.
Comments: ''BRAND NEW'' ''CARTRIDGE ONLY'' ''FOR USE ON DS LITE ONLY NOT DSI'S'' ''NO BOX OR INSTRUCTIONS'' these games have never been played but they have been tested. we bring them to you with no box so we can give you the best possible price!!! ( « less

wow, for $20 I'm there. I'm kinda hoping this plays as a really built-up Dope Wars, with the dealing part; well, Dope Wars with a cool driving/shooting game built on top.

That's exactly what I assumed this was. The zero punctuation review kinda killed my interest, honestly.

pfft zero punctuation

zero punctuation will kill your interest in everything. i just watch it for the lolz.

yeah, trying to mine truth out of ZP is like watching South Park for nuanced political analysis

off topic, but found yahtzee's 'i'm not racist' beat on the resident evil review, and the 50 Cent game, rrrrrrrreally unfunny and actually kinda racist actually. has soured me on what i had previously thought a halfway-funny charlie brooker clone.

he lives in australia, innit

xpost yeah, that was pretty gross and kinda put me off.

he did some pilot for an internet-based show where it's him and two other dudes talking about games. the cranky gamer shtick fails him miserably when he's actually on camera. guy just comes off as a whiny, obnoxious twat.

I'd never heard of Zero Punctuation, but I watched this episode b/c of this thread, and it seemed ok but not enough to turn me off of the game (at $20 or so, not at $35).

this seems really good

does it get any easier to drive? If I look at the bottom screen to check my route I crash my car, invariably into the fuzz

getting pulled out of a moving car by a cop standing on a street corner is pretty annoying, particularly if you've just got away with buying 20 bags of heroin and then incurred a wanted rating by swerving to avoid a maniac and accidentally dinging a police car

unfortunately the driving whilst trying to look at the map is one of it's downfalls.

(for me anyway)

From what I understand, there is a way to get the map onto the top screen standard gta style - go to the options and have a look

just checked it. thanks. what it does is put the gps arrows on the road itself. also you can select radar on too, which shows important locations at the sides of the screen. Pretty damn good really.

wow, that sounds great! I picked this up last weekend but won't get around to it until this summer; still, it's good to hear about the gps on the road. If only they'd add this on console versions---I think one of my big problems with GTA4 is that my tv is pretty small and so it was very hard to get around using the gps b/c I couldn't really see it! So I'd crash a lot just b/c I'd be staring at that. Whereas, say what you will about Fable 2, the trail of dots was awesome for negotiating without a map.

haha was anybody else really ready for what you had to do when they first drove a car into the water/

From what I understand, there is a way to get the map onto the top screen standard gta style - go to the options and have a look

this is much better, thanks

Still quite hard to drive, just because the roads are so narrow compared to what I'm used to

laffed at there being a mission called "Dragon Haul Z", but got quite annoyed when I kept fucking it up

Yeah - the thing that is stopping me from getting into this game is the driving - it just fucking sucks :(

Apparently this is coming to the psp in the fall. It seems like a weird fit, as one of the big selling points is the touch screen mini-games. It'll be interesting to see how it's different though.

I really should actually play this.

And now I have. I like it! Pretty much what everyone said above - goofy fun, great stylus use. Tweaking the "car distance" and top-screen GPS arrows made it much better. Amazing mileage out of the DS hardware, especially considering there is no loading!

car distance?

I got this too, began playing it but then started Chrono Trigger for the Players' Club. So I'll be coming back to this soon. It seemed fun, did the first few missions, was sad to see the girl killed so soon.

Not 100% sure but I think it tweaked the overhead zoom setting while driving (further out for more cars) which made it more playable, but probably bogged down the framerate more. There was also a weird setting for "auto-steering" that I turned off once I realized it was on by default, I think that helped too.

Need to play this again