September 19th, 2008

First Details on GTA: Chinatown Wars

Published at 3:07 AM PST

Nintendo Power recently got a chance to sit down and play Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, as we reported earlier this month. They published some details of the game in this month's issue of the magazine. We currently don't have a scan of the magazine, however thanks to botticus over at NeoGAF, we do have the information revealed by the magazine:

  • True GTA game - sandbox gameplay, open-world environment, gritty crime narrative.
  • M-rating
  • Isometric camera angle
  • Cel-shaded polygons w/ black borders
  • Good touch-screen implementation - "tasteful" minigames, streamlining interface
  • UI based on a PDA - hub for email, contacts, map, music player, GPS, stat-tracking
  • Stats uploaded to Rockstar Social Club website via Wi-Fi
  • Finger-sized icons
  • Missions designed for shorter periods of play, arcade quality
  • Aiming with control pad, auto targeting with R button
  • Subtle auto steer
  • If you fail a mission, you can jump back to the action sequence
  • Chain gun, flamethrower
  • Good portion of Liberty City is modeled in the game (different routes than console games)
  • No problems with load times, draw-in or frame rate
  • Lots of pedestrians, cars, etc. on screen
  • Wanted System - objective is to disable police cars any way possible
  • Real-time weather effects, 24-hour day/night cycle
  • Lots of radio stations to listen to (more instrumentals than vocals)
  • 800,000 lines of hand-optimized source code
  • No details yet on multiplayer/Wi-Fi features

If your wondering what an isometric camera angle is, it's the same camera angle used in Rockstar Leed's port of Max Payne to the GameBoy Advance:

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars will be hitting your DS sometime this winter.

UPDATE: The screenshots that were in the magazine, have now been posted.

Source: NeoGAF