Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars has finally hit the iPhone, almost a year after debuting on the Nintendo DS. And while it’s not Rockstar’s first game on Apple’s blower cum arcade machine, it is its biggest and boldest yet. Is it worth the price of admission? Read on and find out in our full Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars review.
When we tried out Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars for the PSP, we were pleased Rockstar hadn’t made a straight port of the DS classic. Here though, we’re happy it has: there’s a strange notion that iPhone versions of games have to be “mini” (Even Rockstar’s Beaterator for iPhone fell for this). But the iPhone and iPod touch are so high powered that that shouldn’t be the case, and with Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars, it isn’t.
Everything from the DS beating graphics to the music to the dialogue and lengthy missions push Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars into another level of quality, calibre gaming far above most 69p mindless platformers on the App Store. As with previous versions, you play Huang, a spoiled rich kid newly arrived in Liberty City, who gets mixed up in the Triads. As you’d expect, the trademark GTA hijinks of murder, carjacking and heists ensue, and you’ll find yourself doing everything from dealing drugs to lobbing Molotov cocktails from a helicopter.
Read our Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars PSP first play now
It’s a testament to the faithfulness of Rockstar’s port that Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars is every bit as exhilarating blitzing through them on a 3.5-inch screen with no second screen to help you. You don’t have a large map on show at all times but the radar in the top corner is more than enough to get you from A to B, and the hysterical cut scenes fill the whole display.
You’ll find yourself laughing along, and for a long time: for £5.99, you’re getting a game that’s four times the price on other platforms, and will take plenty of trains rides to complete. It’s one lengthy joyride and proof that the iPhone can be on equal pegging to Ninty and Sony’s handhelds.
But while the iPhone proved to have the perfect controls for console port Super Monkey Ball 2, one glass screen with no other buttons still isn’t quite the ideal way to navigate around the bustling Liberty City. You don’t use the iPhone’s accelerometer: instead, you tear around with an onscreen thumbpad and action buttons in the lower right hand side of the screen. The touchscreen mini games work perfectly – hot wiring a car by rotating the screws and twisting the wires works as well here as it does with a stylus on the DS – but trying to aim and fire in a shootout is a clumsy, irritating process without physical buttons.
Still, it’s a small price to pay for one of the best iPhone – and handheld – games yet. If you’ve hacked, slashed and slayed your way through Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars on any other platform, there’s little new here for you. But if you haven’t, and you’re looking for something with a tad more depth than Doodle Jump, it’s a must play.
