Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, an excellent game which should shine in the library of any devoted PSP collector. It was really good, and showed the world that GTA can be done on handheld systems. After enormous success, Rockstar decided to port the game to the PlayStation 2, so that more people would be able to play it. And, boy, what a mistake that has been.

The Graphics
Man, this game is unpleasant to look at. The colour gray is obviously a theme in this game, since the game looks almost completely colourless at times. It's difficult to find a spot of brightness on the screen, especially if the game clock is on night time. What's more, the game is blurry as all heck. This game looked fine on the PSP, but when you stretch out a 10-by-20 cm handheld device screen to the size of a regular TV screen, the results aren't going to be pretty. Rockstar, you could've at least put some effort into sharpening out the visuals for this port...

The cutscenes are lacking, compared to the ones in GTA III to GTA: San Andreas. Well, they're the same as they were on the PSP version, but it was okay on there, since the game stretched the PSP beyond its limits, and Rockstar had to sacrifice certain aspects of the game in order to make the game work. And thus, spending less space and effort on the cutscenes was the best thing to do, to make Liberty City Stories for the PSP a blast like it was. But it's something that could've easily be done on the PS2, and they'd have space on the disc to spare. It was something we could cope with on the PSP, but on the PS2, it's unacceptable. What's frustrating, though, is that you still have those loading times when travelling to a different island. They aren't long, but they really break the tension when you have to get somewhere fast. Again, this wasn't much of a problem on the PSP because the reason mentioned before, but on the PS2... Grrrr... After playing GTA San Andreas (which came out before the PS2 version of Liberty City Stories), with free exploration without loading times, this is really frustrating.

Oh, and to go back to that thing about colourlessness, the pause menu is completely devoid of colour. It does feature a full map this time, though, so I guess that's a plus, right...? Eh, I'm just looking for things now.

The Sound
The sound is definitely not PS2 quality. It's like I said in the Graphics paragraph. When you blatantly put something from such a small system, to a TV and its bigger speakers, you're going to have something foul to listen to. It sounds very, very hollow, making me wonder why there couldn't have been put more effort into clearing up some of the sounds a bit. The radio stations were already weak in the original PSP version, so the bad sound quality doesn't help much there, either. The funny radio stations are all there, so that's a good thing. But the songs, ugh. I guess the only station which is somewhat decent to listen to, if you're an Electronic fan, is Rise FM. If you dislike that kind of music, you're out of luck.

The voice acting is top notch, but that's how it's always been with games by Rockstar, so that isn't really anything noteworthy, especially when it's like the only good thing in between everything else which is just terrible.

The Addictiveness
I, for one, didn't like the PS2 version of Liberty City Stories one bit. The main missions are tedious, the side missions aren't exactly 'fun', and while the driving controls are generally good, due to the game having the exact same engine as GTA San Andreas, it will definitely soon bore you. In fact, I can't believe I managed to have the patience to play through the main storyline.

The Story
The story is the only redeeming thing about the port of Liberty City Stories. It's definitely not as interesting as the main games in the GTA franchise, though. For some reason, Rockstar thought that Toni Cipriani was a popular character which everyone wanted to know more about, so you got to play as him in a prequel to GTA III. The story is way more shallow than the story in the main games. You're a small-time mobster with mommy issues, who came back to Liberty City after having layed low a couple of years for killing a 'made man'(a fully-initiated member of the mafia) under orders of his boss, Don Salvatore Leone. After Toni meets his boss, he gets put straight back into work.

The Depth
For everything the original PSP version of GTA: Liberty City Stories had, I'd have easily given this aspect of the game a 8, at least. The original version had a surprising amount to do, next to the quite lengthy storyline. The taxi, vigilante and paramedic missions where there, you could do rampage missions in which you had a goal you had to achieve in a certain time limit, there were health, armour, and adrenaline pickups to pick up, and there were various side missions available.

These missions included selling cars at a dealer, partaking in street races, taking over gang turf, delivering noodles, and cleaning up trash from the streets. All these side missions, paired with the entire map of Liberty City (which was quite big, at the time), the many cars and weapons, and the lengthy storyline, made GTA: Liberty City stories a surprisingly big game on the PSP. The greatest thing about the PSP version, though, was the multiplayer. This was amazing fun. Up to six people could play against each other in several modes through WiFi. This is not a thing on the PS2, so, of course, this is something you'll miss out on, on the PS2.

Another thing that's not a thing on the PS2, is the customizable radio stations. This was great, since the default songs on the radio are terrible. GTA: Liberty City Stories was a surprisingly big game for the PSP, but for the PS2, it's way too primitive. It's missing so many things, and could've used more things in order to make it fun.

The Difficulty
Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories is not very hard. The missions are short, and your character can take a lot of pain before you die. The driving is also easy, because of the great San Andreas driving engine. But, this game can also become very frustrating at parts. For one, the auto-aim is terrible. Like, even worse than it's always been with the early GTA games. When an enemy is ducking behind an object, you can't hit them. Try it, it won't work. You can lock on to them, but you'll never hit them, unless you let them hit you.

Then there's the thing that your enemies duck behind an object to take cover. You... can't... duck for cover. Remember, that useful mechanic that helped make Vice City and San Andreas so great? Vice City, which came out 2 years before this one? It was called 'ducking'. And for some reason, they forgot to give you the ability to duck in this game. So, your enemies take cover behind objects, but you're forced to move out into the open to be able to hit your enemies. Whoa, that's just... bad.

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories was an excellent PSP game, which should've never been ported to the PlayStation 2 like this, because the ugly results of it show. It looks and sounds atrocious, and there are a few things missing which made the PSP version so much fun. I guess the best way to sum up this version is this: It's pretty much devoid of fun. If you feel like trying out Liberty City Stories, do it on the PSP.

Pros:

• nothing noteworthy...

cons:

• atrocious visuals

• weak soundtrack

• lots of stuff missing from the original PSP version

• you get less stuff on a technically superior platform