Liberty City mini

At the beginning of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, Huang Lee, the spoiled brat son of the leader of Liberty City’s triad gang, is mugged, beaten up and left for dead. Given this is GTA we’re talking about here, the territory isn’t entirely unfamiliar.

After all, revenge stories of one degree or another are as common in the series as the sex-‘n’-violence scandals Rockstar routinely causes by releasing GTAs and … well, just about anything else they put their name to.

For its part, Chinatown Wars was spurned by concerned parents and right-wing politicks even before its release, simply because of its platform. And as bizarre as it feels initially to, say, sell five grams of coke to a hard-up street dealer or see F-bombs (of which there are plenty) flashing across the screen of your tiny DS, it all quickly becomes second nature.

That being said, I’m absolutely floored by how much stuff Rockstar Leeds crammed into this cartridge. This isn’t GTA-lite—it’s a full-fledged (and f’ing gorgeous) Liberty City in pocket-sized form.

Yeah, some sacrifices have had to be made, but that’s to be expected. Chinatown Wars‘ well-written (and often damned funny) cut scenes don’t have voice acting (because, y’know, that would be next to impossible), the radio is instrumental only, the level of detail is obviously toned down from that of the massive GTA IV.

Of course, the immediately noticeable change is Chinatown Wars‘ top-down perspective that’s a distinct throwback to the series’ PC roots, before the 3D revolution of GTA III that changed gaming as we know it. And while Huang is no Nico Bellic, he’ll still call people out when they’re full of shit and has a likeably sarcastic character all his own.

In essence, Chinatown Wars feels at once intimately familiar and completely fresh. This is definitely a GTA built from the ground up.  Aside from the graphical and flourishy cutbacks, you’ll be using the stylus—a lot. The set up has the action playing out on the top screen, while touch-screen tasks and navigational components are handled on the bottom.

The core function of the stylus is to use your PDA, which has a host of GPS, e-mail and other functions. So, when you get an e-mail from a dealer selling dirt-cheap heroin or your struggling Triad uncle about saving the family business, you can just tap a link at the bottom of said message and the GPS will plot the fastest route to get there.

This alone makes Chinatown Wars not only stand out, but also one serves as of the best innovations the series has ever come up. It makes things SO much easier, it’s almost ridiculous.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg as far the stylus goes. You’ll be using it to rev engine motors on boats, hotwire cars, disarm bombs, make (and then throw) Molotov cocktails, play lottery scratch offs, pay bridge tolls and, yes, deal drugs.

I’m not sure why it’s taken Rockstar so long to create a drug-dealing minigame in a GTA game, but, frankly, they should have though of it sooner. And since there are dealers (who all somehow fortunately have your e-mail) all over the city, it’s never long until you get a message from someone desperate to unload some hard drugs for $1, $5, $10 a pop…which you can then turn around and sell elsewhere for $1000 each.

Maybe it’s Rockstar’s own ironic commentary on today’s economy (as usual, their twisted barbs on American pop-culture and society are both razor-sharp and numerous), maybe they just wanted to stir up the next controversy.

At any rate, dealing drugs is a blast and a great way to break up your time with the main story missions and I fully expect to see it in future games from here on out.

Outside of the stylus, controls are handled, for the most part, very intuitively. The game’s smattering of vehicles all handle differently, and the basic actions are handled in a straightforward way. It’s only when you’re trying to lob a Molotov out the window with the stylus while careening down the street or something that things get a bit tricky.

I’ll be honest. There’s absolutely no way in hell I could talk about everything in the game in an 800-word review, so let me just say this: The game fully delivers all the snark, maturity and violence (read: chainsaw) you expect from GTA on a platform no one expected. Chinatown Wars isn’t just extremely impressive—it’s a no brainer.