Anyone else had a crack at GTA: Chinatown Wars yet?

[Captain Red]

I know many people didn't like GTA:IV (I'm not one of them, though many criticisms leveled at the game are not without merit) so many may have shrugged this one off. Which would be a shame, because it's one of the best DS games I've played in over a year. It's nailed that "pick-up-and-play-for-a-minute" feeling that so few DS games manage to pull off well.

It's GTA: 2 with GTA: VC's missions structure, property management and saving and GTA: IV's GPS, Taxi fast travel and auto saving system with a sweet drug trafficking system, and stylist mini games thrown into the mix. al perfectly streamlined for the DS. you may not like the sound of mini games being needed to hot wire cars, but successfully hot wiring a car just in time to make a dramatic getaway from the po-pos makes you feel like king shit of badass mountain.

There are some dumb features though though. throwing Molotov cocktails while driving uses the stylist, and requires an extra hand to do probably. I've also heard that the paramedic missions also use the stylist in an annoying way though I've yet to try paramedic missions yet. Oh, and you have to actually whistle into the mic if you want to hail a cab, which I assume is to fill this games embarrassing gimmicks quota.

Still; made my daily bus trips a lot shorter as well as making my method of ignoring the political rants from nut bags and junkies at the local bus stop much more fun.

Anyone else given it a shot?

Edit: Almost forget: You lose cops now by disabling there cars by either smashing them into walls or traffic or shooting out there tires which I though was a neat improvement from just going around the block to ditch 'em in GTA IV.

[wildweasel]

The game seems to return to the roots of what made GTA fun in the first place, by making the game as ridiculously crazy as possible and allowing the player to do nutty things. The minigames are tastefully done and amusing, like an early mission where you get to sabotage someone's car by beating on the engine with a hammer and stuffing a dead fish into the air conditioning system.

I believe this is the game GTA4 should have been.

[Mechadon]

I actually just grabbed the game yesterday. I played it for a couple hours or so...and I can't really make a full judgment yet...but so far I'm loving it. I was looking for a good pick-up-and-play type of game and it looks like this will fill in that void very nicely. My only main complaint right now is controlling the player's direction. I got use to it after a little while but I found it frustrating to move around with the D-Pad sometimes (similar to moving Mario around in the DS sequel to SM64). I think it's just that my hands are too big...I dunno. I found steering while driving to be pretty smooth though. And at first I was getting really frustrated that I had to look down at the bottom screen while driving to see which way I needed to go. Thankfully there's an option to enable the health meter, GPS, and points of interest on the top screen which made me very happy :D

Captain Red said:

I've also heard that the paramedic missions also use the stylist in an annoying way though I've yet to try paramedic missions yet. Oh, and you have to actually whistle into the mic if you want to hail a cab, which I assume is to fill this games embarrassing gimmicks quota.

I did one paramedic mission last night. If I remember correctly, sometimes you have to resuscitate the patient by tapping on their heart if you get too reckless or if your taking too long to get to the hospital (the bottom-screen HUD changes...you'd have to try it out, I can't describe for shit). I didn't find it all that annoying given it only happened to me once while I was doing the mission. As for hailing taxi cabs...I think you can hail them by pressing some button...eh, I can't remember now. I can't really whistle all that well so some other button combination seems to be sticking out in my mind for some reason.

[Captain Red]

WildWeasel said:
I believe this is the game GTA4 should have been.

No that game was Saints Row 2 :p

Actually I kind of like the serious tone GTA: IV took. It made me feel like I was starring in a Michael Mann film.

Edit:
vvv Damn. I really should know this to as I use one almost every day :( vvv

[Sharessa]

Stylus, not stylist. Just FYI.

[destx]

Excellent game, easily the best on the DS (not exactly a difficult feat). But I can never manage to keep to my missions on GTA games, I always end up blowing things up.

[40oz]

Captain Red said:

No that game was Saints Row 2 :p

I heard that game sucked, but I haven't played it yet so I'm not sure. I loved Saint's Row 1, I still play it from time to time. But your description of the game makes it sound really fun. I'll check it out.

[deathbringer]

From what i saw of Saints Row 2 it was like they'd taken San Andreas and stuck in all the ridiculous features people on Forums wished SA had had, like stealing a WW1 biplane with fully-loaded machine guns that you find just laying around, and strafing people with it. (OK San Andreas did have the Mustang with machine guns but the draw distance for people and objects was so useless you could never use them unless you caught a huge truck in the open and could follow right behind it for miles)

Buut i don't have an Xbox so never tried it.

[Captain Red]

JohnnyRancid said:
I heard that game sucked, but I haven't played it yet so I'm not sure. I loved Saint's Row 1, I still play it from time to time. But your description of the game makes it sound really fun. I'll check it out.

I don't know who told you that, it's been getting good reviews from critics and players alike. Even clinical old Yahzee named it his favorate game of the year.

It is to GTA:IV what Painkiller is to Half Life 2.

deathbringer said:
Buut i don't have an Xbox so never tried it.

It's on steam as well, although I don't know if the PC version is any good (I personally prefer my GTA type games on console, but eh)

...but uhh, hey! How about that Chinatown Wars eh?

[Sharessa]

Heh, my friend was telling me about Saints Row yesterday. Sounds like GTA with all the awesome features in those games, all the ones you wish they had, but none of the retarded ones they added in the last couple games.