Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars
by Jamin Smith on Monday 18th Jan 2010

Missions are as well designed as they are varied, and feel like a genuine evolution of the missions in the original GTA games. Defending territory, hunting down members of other gangs, collecting cars, winning street races – it’s all here. A large portion of your time spent in Chinatown Wars will be spent drug running, which will act as your primary source of income in the game. This is a surprisingly hands on affair, giving players the opportunity to physically deal dope, as opposed to just being a drug courier as with other games in the series. 

All drug dealers need a place to lie low however, and Huang has as good a place as any. An apartment not only acts as your safehouse, but also as a mini hub of sorts. Here you can save the game, check emails offering new missions and side quests and replay completed missions for better times and scores. Each time you boot the game up, your crime sprees will start from here. Once out and about in the city, you can use your PDA to check GPS, emails, change the radio station and have a gander at the long list of statistics the game has been tracking since you started playing. I want to hammer home that this is a full GTA game, with everything you'd expect from the series included. 

Anybody familiar with the series will know that the game started life on the Nintendo DS (and more recently the PSP) meaning that the game has been designed with the touch screen in mind. Chinatown War’s migration to the iPhone is not without its flaws however, and can at times play rather awkwardly, partly due to the touch screen itself, and partly due to the lack of a second screen. Driving is a particularly cumbersome affair, with controls that never allow you to feel fully in control of your vehicle. I’ve yet to decide whether the automatic road-alignment is a blessing or a curse, but it felt more restricting than helpful at times. I won’t dwell on this point however; as this can be turned off at any given point.

Combat is clunky too, with the shooting being of particular annoyance. A lack of targeting means that Huang will simply fire in the direction he is facing, and taking down opposing gang members can often take an embarrassingly long time. It’s never game breaking, but in a game that’s otherwise fantastic, it sticks out like a sore thumb -- much like the famous ‘scratch on a brand new Ferrari’ analogy that’s thrown around all too often in games journalism. 

As a £5.99 iPhone title though, GTA Chinatown Wars is one hell of an accomplishment, and Rockstar should be showered with drugs and hookers for bringing it to the App Store so successfully. It’s the little things that stick out in my mind; hailing a taxi, hot wiring a car using the touchscreen, listening to your own music on the radio, the plethora of swearing. This is the authentic Grand Theft Auto experience, and for those that have played the DS version, a very faithful port. A few annoying flaws hold the game back from a perfect score, but as a package, iPhone games don’t come any more expansive or entertaining than this. 

 

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