• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

GTA Chinatown Wars: first DS title given an 18 rating (UK) - no cut!

MMaRsu

Banned
I remember Bish banning me because I said :"I can't wait for Vice City Stories to come out on Ps2"after R* said that VCS would stay exclusive to PSP.

Oh well.

:p
 

rhino4evr

Member
This will be the last time RockStar releases a game like this on the DS. I see no reason why this should be a success. I only see ultimate failure in it's future. The DS userbase is extremely family friendly, GTA on DS is going to be like Conker on 64..a complete failure sales wise.
 
Dash Kappei said:
24yby8o.jpg


(don't remember who made it, it was someone on GAF)
 

Spiegel

Member
cw_sasuke said:
1 Mil after 2-3 years isn`t really much for such a Game. PSP software sales for western devs are non.existent, there is enough reason for not doing San Andreas Stories on PSP after all those years. If there is a Wii GTA, it will be excklusive...not a PSP port lol.

One million and with the game not being exclusive is pretty good. Also it's having some fucking legs. The game debuted outside of the top 20 (we have no number but it was less than 150k for sure) and now it's passing the million

In UK is >300k and <600k

So GTA Ds selling also a million in US would be a huge dissapointment? I wouldn't say that.
 

Opiate

Member
It is true that GTA:VCS sold considerably less than GTA:LCS, but this may be the franchise more than the PSP system itself. GTAIV is clearly going to sell less than GTA:SA -- very likely significantly less, perhaps 5 million or more -- so the franchise is in retreat on all platforms.

We'll see about this DS version, but I think the days of GTA doing 20 Million across all platforms are done.
 
Props to Nintendo for allowing an 18 & older only game on the DS.

Now c'mon Rockstar . . . release some form of GTA on the Wii. How about just porting the previous gen GTAs onto the Wii with some upgrades?
 

RobertM

Member
speculawyer said:
Props to Nintendo for allowing an 18 & older only game on the DS.

Now c'mon Rockstar . . . release some form of GTA on the Wii. How about just porting the previous gen GTAs onto the Wii with some upgrades?
Or how about that PC version with mods, doesn't that sound better?
 

Dash Kappei

Not actually that important
Opiate said:
It is true that GTA:VCS sold considerably less than GTA:LCS, but this may be the franchise more than the PSP system itself.

I think that more of a factor was Liberty City Stories getting a PS2 port thus a lot of people waiting for the
superior
Vice City Stories PS2 edition.

I just don't see this franchise as a good match with the DS crowd: doesn't fit with the family friendly line-up nor it does with the hardcore crowd seeing the game as an afterthought/lite-version of the franchise.
500k for each major territory I would consider as pretty good, considering the game iirc costs even more than the usual DS software.
 

Dash Kappei

Not actually that important
I can't believed I was going to trash this game, I'm so fucking pumped now and definitely going to buy it.

Kikizo's 5-pages deep hands' on


-There are still alot more informations on the article itself, so detailed to warrant a read even after my quotes and tidbits!-

[some interesting extrapolated tidbits]
Kikizo said:
Rockstar Leeds is pretty much the handheld specialist of the Rockstar group - it handled the PSP GTA games, and now it's pulled out all the stops for this DS debut. Twice as many people have worked on Chinatown Wars as on the previous PSP titles
think about it as a console game rather than some handheld side project. The scale and complexity of the title is pretty much in the same league - and it shows. In terms of islands, the map is the same as in GTA IV, with the omission of Alderney - and it's all open from the beginning with no crossover to the storyline of Niko Bellic
As is the case with particular DS software that's had genuine time and effort go into it, the screenshots don't do justice to Chinatown Wars. Seeing the game moving and taking the time to play it, it quickly becomes obvious how much painstaking detail has gone into the production of the game, and how the world in motion lives up to the expectations you'd have from the company that brought you GTA IV.
As for the 3D perspective in general, we're sold. It's difficult to get a sense of how well the game works and moves without seeing it in motion, and you can forget any worries about a return to the more low-fidelity world of pure-top down era GTA; there are no tricks here - this is full 3D - and the perspective of the action, while generally from above, is actually very flexible, and supports lots of really nice detail. The perspectives you'll get used to are simply a fitting gameplay consideration. If you want to dapper things up you can also select a GTA IV-style cinematic cam. Whether on foot or in vehicle, the camera seems intelligent and gameplay feels natural, and in fact the 3D view often zooms in closer to the action
The top screen is where all the action happens in 3D, with the bottom screen reserved for the lion's share of HUD elements as well as certain touch-related actions like selecting weapons,
you can tweak where and how HUD elements are displayed on either screen in quite some detail, like having your GPS marked out on the actual road, or just on the map.
The engine overall is really quite impressive and solid for the DS hardware. The frame rate is decent, there's no jerkiness or pre-rendered malarkey, and there's a definite feeling of real-world goings-on with pedestrians getting into audible dialogue with each other, getting into trouble with the law, scrambling for cover when it starts raining, being helped by paramedics when they're injured - it's like the AI simulated realism that we felt in GTA IV, and which is really quite unexpected for this edition of the game
plenty of visual detail - rooftops, detailed skyscrapers and bridges, trains rattling past right in front of your eyes, trees that are really detailed and not fake 2D sprites, telephone cables, street lights, busy and happening streets, all the recognisable joints and brands from IV, and best of all, gorgeous real time lighting and shadows in a full 24 hour day and night system. Even the pedestrians have shadows, and at night the hazy city is phased into cooler blue tones. On top of that there's a full weather system including light rain, heavy rain and thunder storms, and throughout the game you'll notice a variety of 'particle effects' like sewage steam, explosion fire and fog
In terms of controls, things have been kept very similar to the console layout, so if you want to jack a car, it's the Y button. Handbrake is the R trigger.
The best addition to the controls is the left trigger, which resets your view to behind, or better yet, if you keep it held down the camera locks into position to follow the character, which might feel more fluid.In terms of shooting it's auto lock-on, but if you want to specifically target anyone you just hit the left trigger.
The game's actually crammed full of side activities, including the return of favourites like the stunt jump, but moreover there's really a load of other DS style mini-games besides that watery car escape. Huang's PDA, accessed by pressing Select, is another important companion in the game, similar to the cellphone in IV. Email, Mission Briefs, Statistics and Social Club, Contacts (which get added as you progress and meet new people), Multiplayer (via LAN or Wi-Fi, which we'll learn more about soon), Music Player (called Alchemist), and Trade Info (more on that later). The PDA also gives access to Ammu-nation's new online business
Rockstar wanted to return to the fast-paced, over the top police chases of GTA1 and GTA2, and we found the police to be a little bit more persistent than in GTA IV. For every level of star you have, you get a corresponding police car symbol underneath it. To get rid of them, you need to shake them off and disable the pursuing cars by ramming them - they're bad drivers, so they'll take corners badly and hurtle off at high speed if you're successful. Pay and spray is also back in the game. Certainly, you're more likely to get arrested in Chinatown Wars than in GTA IV
Our demoer actually fluffed this mission fairly early on - a handy opportunity to show off not only the mission retry feature (similar to that of IV), but also Trip Skip, a nifty feature that IV could have benefitted from, allowing you to skip an initial long drive at the start of a mission to the end of that journey, and jump straight back into the action.
in terms of the size of the game, Rockstar is estimating "between 20 and 30 hours for the single player game" depending on the player's approach and skill level

Link to the article
 

Dash Kappei

Not actually that important
WTF not even 1 (ONE) person in all of GAF is kinda interested after reading those impressions?

Massive Fail.

edit: I see, there's IGN hands on now in the 1st page, go figure...
well, still Kikizo's articles it's 10 times better and a lot more in depht :p
 

Galactic Fork

A little fluff between the ears never did any harm...
Dash Kappei said:
WTF not even 1 (ONE) person in all of GAF is kinda interested after reading those impressions?

Massive Fail.

edit: I see, there's IGN hands on now in the 1st page, go figure...
well, still Kikizo's articles it's 10 times better and a lot more in depht :p


I'm impressed and interested, butr my interest is more academic than anything. I've never been able to get into GTA games. I hope people give it a chance since it's obvious the team took the game seriously, so if GTA fans just write it off cause it's on the DS, they will probably be missing out.

Also, I wish they'd release some videos.
 
I predict that this will sell better than GTA Advance, but significantly worse than either of the PSP entries.

I just don't think there's that big a market for M-rated content on DS, even if Rockstar gives the game a decent marketing push. But time will tell.
 
Top Bottom