Return to Liberty City

But, like, before we ever went to Liberty City.

I've said my thoughts on several of the 3D Grand Theft Auto games, and my most recent dive into Vice City Stories was very disappointing. But I was undaunted and still desired to play all of the games in the same continuity. So it only made sense to play Liberty City Stories next.

LCS takes place two years before the escapades of Claude Speed. You play as Toni Cipriani, a boss from III. He's just returned from a forced extended vacation and wants to return to his previous job in the mob. He was a high ranking member of the Salvatore Gang, another major player in GTA3, the first island especially. Claude kills him, in fact. Much to Toni's chagrin, he has to work his way back up doing menial jobs for someone who later tries to kill him. Along the way, he deals with striking laborers, perverted double agents, enemy mobs, and a deranged billionaire. He interacts a little bit with small time gangs, but everyone Claude messed with has a tiny role in 1998. In the end, everything goes well for him, and it only took widespread devastation to do it!

The gameplay is surprisingly solid. It shouldn't be, but Vice City Stories was such a step back that a game that came out before it is a better experience. It's still not perfect, but it's playable. For starters, there are significantly fewer side missions. Selling cars was boring and tedious, and I gave up trying to find Triads to blow up, but the side stuffs were sparse but enjoyable enough. Cars still slide too much, and tires got flat too often, but they were built sturdy and reliable. Sadly, we still need to double tap to shoot.

The music isn't as good as any game in the franchise. As GTA3 before it, the music isn't licensed and original to the radios. That means the tracks are very hit-and-miss, and I found myself flipping channels too often. I thought the DJs were more fun, but they relied on sexual innuendos too much for my old, boring, ace taste. The talk radio station remains a great reliable.

I don't want to spend too much time on a throwaway experience, so let's get to the numbers.

Plot: could have been GTA3. Toni is kinda boring, but his actions make sense and have direction. I still don't know why Claude did anything. I'm not entirely sure who or why the villains were the bad guys, though. 7/10

Gameplay: better than VCS. It's amazing what happens if you take away terrible gameplay mechanics in a Rockstar game. 10/10

Music: fitting. I felt like I was in 1998. I've never been to New York, so I can't compare. I don't recall any good songs I'd add to a playlist or quotable jokes. 8/10

Art: Fine. It's a Rockstar game that's just Liberty City. It worked then, and it works now. Good luck dealing with the pop ins and weather. 8/10

Charm: Rockstar. It's a Rockstar game that's just Liberty City. It worked then, and it works now. Enjoy the callbacks to other games! 9/10

Sadly, double tap shooting and the same PSP controls hamper the experience. I also hated the location of the third safe house. It's so out of the way and a pain to reach. Who put that there!? -6

Adding all of that together, Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories is a solid 36/50.

The whole time I was playing this, I was thinking how much better it is than VCS. It's baffling that they made VCS worse since it came out afterwards. I also wish this had been the GTA3. A character with a voice, compelling story, fun side quests, and the ability to explore previous areas is weirdly worth mentioning in a review. Obviously, it's not perfect, but it's worth a playthrough. I also wonder how it looks on native PSP, without emulation settings affecting it, or the PS2 version is probably pretty good. In case you're curious, I did 99 percent of the game.

So the question is, will I play GTA Advance? I looked it up, and the side missions are even more optional than ever. So it's just forty one story missions in a strange Liberty City that's clearly the LC but is somehow bigger than the LC despite taking place between the other two LCs. What a sentence, and what a thought! Either way, though, I have to let summer end first!