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Reviews » GTA: Liberty City Stories [PS2]

You know her. That one girlfriend you had. For the most part you don't like to talk about it. I mean, she was annoying. Really annoying. She wasn't really funny or smart, and she didn't even look that great. Sometimes she just seemed retarded and made you angry to the point of breaking nearby things. But damn if she didn't have some skills in the sack. So despite all of the bad, you can't help but have some fond, if dirty, memories of the bitch.

GOOD NEWS! Rockstar Leeds has apparently captured your old girlfriend, boiled her down to binary and made a game out of her! Liberty City Stories is the game that the reasonable people who didn't buy a PSP have been waiting for. Now ported to a system people actually own, the PS2, anyone can enjoy her for the low, low price of $20 US. Damn it's sounding more and more my old girlfriend...

But back to the point: LCS is the story of Toni Cipriani, a minor character in GTA3, as he returns to his home of Liberty City in 1998 after doing some time for the Leone family. In this story Salvatore really is your friend, and the two of you attempt to gain back ground you have lost from other groups in your way, such as the greasy Sindacco and Forelli families, the Triads, the Yakuza, the Diablos, and more. This is no doubt meant to be at least slightly compelling, but in practice the story missions of LCS fall into one of a few categories.

1. Boring, retardedly easy cookie-cutter missions

2. Asinine, incredibly hard cookie-cutter missions
3. Complete horseshit.

Anyone claiming the game is too short is clearly a raging idiot, and possibly under the influence. By the time you finally earn your ticket out of Portland, you'll never want to go back. And interestingly, you don't have to. Missions are pretty localized to their originating island. This is nice if you're dying a lot, but limits the grand scope of some of the more entertaining missions of GTAs past.

But at least the cutscenes and radio stations provide the same wit and charm we've all come to expect, right? Well... not really. The cutscenes are just boring, and what you can tell is intended to be amusing just comes off as tedious. It's like watching a blockily rendered version of M*A*S*H. Thing is, you can just skip them all and not miss... anything really, the mission briefs will tell you everything you need to know, and it's not as if you need emotional motivation to chase down a helicopter and kill a bunch of triads or something.

And while you can count on the return of Lazlow to entertain you, he does so for about 7 minutes total before the radio stations loop. Remember, this game came from PSP, where storage space and load times are an issue. The licensed content sucks pretty bad too. I hope you like DMX, because for the life of me that's the only song I recognized on the damn thing. The longest radio playlist probably belongs to MSX. But if you can stand listening to that, you've got bigger problems anyway. I turned off all the radio stations within an hour. Thumbs way down.

The spawning and AI are pretty infuriating too. Wanted levels don't apparently operate under any logic currently understood. Police spawning is... spotty at best. At the same wanted level, say, 3 stars, you may have no cops on your tail one second. Reach the next intersection and you will be raped by seven patrol cars at 120 MPH. Escape to an alley and cops will disappear - maybe. If you emerge, they'll probably respawn. Probably. Bribes don't seem to work instantly, the cops on your tail for a level 2 offense will continue to wail on your car even if you're down to one. If this all sounds confusing and inconsistent, well, it is. To boot, Rival gangs are even more annoying, with 37 weapon-toting goons perpetually ready, itching to fire at you for so much as farting towards their part of town.

It's important to understand this is a direct PSP port. All they did was cut out multiplayer and slap it on a DVD. What does that mean for us? Well, it's ugly. Hideously ugly. It's basically the ORANGE AND DARK IS GOOD effects overlay from San Andreas dropped on top of GTA3. The result is blurry, incredibly dark, foggy, and far too busy. It does widescreen, but that's it. Those hoping for progressive scan (like me) are in for a letdown. In fact, when your HDTV tries to interpolate the thing itself, the effect is such that your ammo meter and other small details are almost entirely illegible! Hooray! I actually loaded up ol' GTA3 and compared, and it looks better. Simply because it doesn't try as hard with reflections and fog, 3 looks much cleaner. Think about it, and it's not hard to see how LCS actually looks better on a tiny, sharp LCD.

There's a lot of "odd job" missions in this one too- Car Salesman, Bike Salesman, Noodle Delivery, Pizza Delivery, firetruck o' death, Avenging Angel (like San Andreas gang missions, only worse!) and they all seem half-baked. So if you're into tedium, Rockstar got your back. At least the firetruck one is good. Bulletproof firetruck + 3 minutes + Destruct-o-meter = party all night.

So what the hell? I've panned this thing for several paragraphs, this must be the worst shit ever! WRONG, capitán, remember my shitty girlfriend metaphor? Well, LCS has some skillz. And it's pretty much the same core reason every GTA game has been fun; you make your OWN fun. You can do what you want on the 3 wackily extreme environments we'd all come to love from 5 years ago. Think about it, you're back in Liberty City. Slightly changed, but mostly the same, I find it an ENORMOUS relief after San Andreas to be dropped back into a familiar area. None of the packages, pickups, or insane jumps are the same though... you're not getting any freebies. Police bribes are, of course, moved too. This wouldn't be a problem if the police weren't retarded. It gets a little old having to do an insane stunt every time you want a bribe.

But, most importantly, since it uses what seems to be the Vice City revision of the GTA engine, you can do it all on motorcycles. This simple addition lets you look at Liberty in a whole new light, and Rockstar Leeds has milked that fact for all it's worth; many packages and stunts are impossible without Kinevel-like motorcycle prowess and testicular fortitude. Weapons are carried over from VC as well, with the Colt (now called the Magnum) returning as the OG's weapon of choice. The only disappointment with this arrangement is that while VC style helicopters are supported, they aren't supported for YOU. Guess you'll just have to keep more rockets on hand to make yourself feel better.

So while you can easily tell that Rockstar: The New Class developed it, LCS turns out to be a lovable game despite all its faults. Just skip the cutscenes, turn off the radio, and don't worry too much about the story missions and you've got a game well worth your Jackson. It's worthwhile to note that this was a case of precision marketing by Sony and Rockstar; the wrong price could have broken this game in my eyes. But they chose wisely, and it's a damn good value. That tells you a lot about what they know about gaming demographics. On one hand, the PSP owners, who will pay 50 dollars and up for a UMD game to play on their 250 dollar handheld that they only take as far as the toilet most days. On the other, the guys who aren't dropping 300 bucks to buy a PRETTY good game. So we get it at its actual value.

So how does it feel being profiled, all you PSP suckers? Ah, whatever. If you bought it for 50 bucks, hell, if you bought a PSP just to play it, well, I'm not going to make fun of you because I’m sure you feel bad enough already.

HAHAHA! Just kidding, you are such a tool. Thanks for making this port possible, Uncle Pennybags! Does that caviar taste real good?

GTA: Liberty City Stories - PS2

Presentation

It's Vice City visuals with more blur and less associated wit. Not as bad as I’ve seen but not real good compared with what we've come to expect, and what the PS2 is easily capable of.

Gameplay

Standard GTA, you can't do anything particularly well, but you can do a wide variety of it whenever you want. You know the drill. Hampered by dumb missions and insane cops.

Replayability

Again, it's GTA. Missions are a lot more fun the second time around. Even if they are dumb ones, you'll be able to get a few goes out of this. Or just mess around endlessly, whatever floats your boat.

Value

The big selling point, is that it sells for so little. There’s a lot of games vying for your 20bux right now, but this is well worth that.

Overall

A big pain in the ass. In Liberty City. With motorcycles. Dammit.