Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars Review

[nhdog103]

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars Review

Main Developer(s): Rockstar Leeds and Rockstar North
Main Publisher(s): Rockstar Games
Platform(s): Nintendo DS
Release Dates:
NA: March 17th. 2009
PAL: March 20th 2009
Genre: Crime, Action-Adventure
Multiplayer- 1-2 players
Wifi: 1-2 players
ESRB Rating: Mature17- Blood and Gore, Drug Reference, Sexual Content, Strong Language, Violence

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (GTA: CW) is a crime, action-adventure game developed by Rockstar Leeds and Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. GTA:CW is the thirteenth installment in the Grand Theft Auto series and is the fourth release on a Nintendo Console.

Storyline:
The beginning plot is that you, the main character Huang Lee, a spoiled son of a recently murdered, Triad Boss arrive at Liberty City on a plane with Yu Jian, a family heirloom sword that your father won in a poker match. Suddenly, a bunch of assassins ambush you and your escorts kidnapping you, killing all of your escorts, and taking Yu Jian. Next thing you know, you wake up in the backseat of the assassins’ car, overhearing their conversations. You talk to them, they hear you, and then they decide to ditch the car into the Liberty City Lake! Our day just got from bad to worse! Your first job is to use your stylus, crack open a window, and get out of that sinking car. You easily do it, and now your job is to hijack a car and get to your Uncle Kenny’s place. Once you get there, Uncle Kenny is outraged! Kenny had promised to give the Triad Boss, Hsin Jaoming, Yu Jian. That would’ve secured Kenny’s spot as the new Triad Boss. Now Kenny is dishonored and reduced in power due to the loss of Yu Jian, leaving him and Huang working together to keep their businesses afloat.

Your goal is that you, the main character, Huang, is to help your Uncle Kenny become the new Triad Boss, avenge your dead father, and get Yu Jian back from those darn assassins! Will we succeed? Who knows?


Characters:

• Hsin Jaoming- 73 years old. Father of Chan Jaoming. He’s rich and has gotten a reputation as the boss of Liberty City.
  
  
• Chan Jaoming – The son of Hsin Jaoming. Chan is also a part of the Algonquin Triads, a friendly gang. Chan is in the competition with Zhou Ming of Wu “Kenny” Lee (Huang’s uncle) for Hsin's replacement as boss of the city. He thinks he will automatically get Hsin's place because he is son of the boss
  
  
• Zhou Ming – A rich snot and a high-ranking Triad member (who tries to act cool and calm, but is really not). He is also in competition with Chan Jaoming and Wu “Kenny” Lee for the replacement of the Triad boss.
  
  
• Wade Heston - a 45 year old Liberty City officer (officer is used lightly) who is saved by you, Huang Lee during an ambush. Wade Heston is heavily monitored by the IAD for
  using drugs to settle deals and personal matters of his own.
  
  
• Rudy D’Avanzo - a 45 year old mafia gang member who aids Huang in identifying the ‘rat’. He is one of the more minor characters in the game, but is also essential and important to the game’s plat.
  
  
• Lester Leroc – A fat man who owns a burger joint. He is also a Private investigator that is inside the Angels of Death, and performs his own work against the Koreans.

These boss’s that claim to be your friend, may be a pain in the dairy air, but them and their missions are vital to the storyline.


Gameplay:
Missions are probably the biggest and most key part of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars. And trust me, there are plenty of missions for you to complete. The first thing I noticed about missions, is that to complete them you must do them quickly and skillfully. What I mean by this, if you mess up one time, you must start the mission all over again.

Missions are also very diverse. They range from killing enemy gang members to planting a bomb in a building. The first few missions may seem easy, but after a while you will have bullets of sweat beating down your face.

The more missions you do, the closer you will be to getting to those jerks that ambushed you and took Yu Jian. Overall, for each boss you will have the equal amount of missions. This does not mean that each boss has the same level difficulty of missions. Some boss' missions are harder than others.You may like this, and you may not.

The controls are pretty simple. At first they may seem strange, but after a while they will feel like you've been playing Grand theft Auto all your life. Mainly, the controls consist of the 'X' , 'Y', 'A' , 'B', and D-pad, but there are also tons of places in where you can use your stylus. One case is when you have to hotwire a car. You must connect the two wires together, and place them in the right place. If you do this right then the car alarm won't go off, and you will be able to drive off with the car. Things like this may seem like a chore in any other Grand Theft Auto game, but in this Chinatown Wars it is a blast! The first time I was doing this I was so thrilled I wanted to find another parked car so I could do it again. It never gets boring!


Graphics:
The graphics have a unique retro effect that you don't often see in a modern game today. Rockstar did a great job taking a step back and making for the graphics for Chinatown Wars fit in with a DS screen. There is always room for improvement though. In my opinion the graphics got sort of blurry at times and were somewhat annoying too. Rockstar could have polished graphics a little more, but overall not too bad.

Audio:
Rockstar did a horible job with audio. The main reason for this, is because no main characters are actually talking. Characters talk by comicbook-like cutscenes, with 'subtitles'. There is no voice acting whatsoever. This is the main reason why GTA: CW has poor audio.

On a plus side, another form of sound is being able to listen to the radio in your automobile. Almost every automobile has a radio. There are usually 4-6 radio stations to listen to, and the tunes range from techno to rap. The radio adds a nice Grand Theft Auto feeling to the game and can get you more into your mission.


Longetivity:
There are many side missions and minigames, but overall Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars does not have good replay value (longetivity). What I mean by this, is that after I beat the plot, there are options to redo missions, but the thing is you don’t really want to redo the missions. Also, the side missions were somewhat boring and get repetitious after you completely beat them. Therefore, after a while you will probably rarely play this game.

Overall:
Overall, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars isn’t as good as thought to be. At first, you can’t put the game down, but after a while it gets dull and boring and you’re ready to just toss it around. Rockstar could have added a lot more things to make this game better. It is not as big or as good as Grand Theft Auto IV. In my opinion, Rockstar did a fair job with the graphics, the audio was bad, longetivity was poor, and the plot was pretty well constructed.

I believe hardcore fans of the Grand Theft Auto series will be disappointed of Chinatown Wars, but I think new members will like it, and get a feel for the series. Grand theft auto: Chinatown Wars is great, but overall it also feels like a huge piece is missing from it. If Rockstar makes a sequel I hope they can fill this horrible gap in, and not make some of the same mistakes they have made in this game.

Scoring:

Overall Gameplay-8/10

Graphics- 9/10

Audio-7/10

Longetivity-7.5/10

Overall: 31.5/40--C+

~Da Good ~

~The ending has an unexpected twist that you and your friends will never be able to think of
~ Great, natural control scheme
~Realistic features
~Nice story
~Great cutscenes
~Awesome automobiles
~Many side missions
~Great variety of weapons
~Lots of stylus compatibility

~Da Bad~

~Not as much to do after story is beaten
~A lot of missions are somewhat short
~Side missions are mostly boring
~Needs More Main bosses
~Small Liberty City
~Doesn’t live up to its predecessors

[Bounty]

great job, NATE. I would like to point out, though, that this is in the wrong section. Chinatown Wars is for DS, not Wii, lol. I'll see to it that it gets moved.

I've moved it.
And yes, good review on the whole.

[GuruSharky]

OMG this is a great review, u def should get a writer position Nate

[sonic BOY444]

GOOD ONE I REALLY THINK U SHOULD GET THE POSTION but chinatown wars does suck!

[nhdog103]

Thanks for the feedback and constructive criticizm everone! Appreciate it. =)

[gooch]

Nice review!