The James Logan Courier

By Rohan Kumar, Courier Staff Writer

Rockstar games is back with another addition to the Grand Theft Auto series. Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars is set to be released for the Nintendo DS on March 17,2009. Chinatown Wars is a third person action game and the first one of its kind on the DS. Usually Grand Theft Auto games are played through an over the shoulder view, but Chinatown Wars features a top-down perspective as if your watching from a helicopter.


With trademark fashion Chinatown Wars is about crime and corruption within the Triads. The story revolves around a twenty-five year old member of the Chinese Triad gang named Huang Lee. Huang lee travels to Liberty City to give his uncle the family heirloom, a sword. When Huang arrives he is kidnapped and left for dead, with his family heirloom gone Huang is thrown into a series of missions to try to retrieve his sword.

The DS offers an entirely new way to play Grand Theft Auto. The player is allowed to whistle through the DS microphone in order to call a taxi in the game. The top screen is used to display all the action going on and the bottom screen is used as a PDA to give details about missions and GPS directions. Aside from the PDA functionality the touch screen will also be involved in activities such as assembling rifles, hot wiring cars and preparing Molotov grenades.

This game also features a revamped police evasion system. In previous games the player was able to get away from a police chase simply by disappearing off the radar, but in Chinatown Wars the cops are more aggressive, you must smash the police vehicle and disallow the cop from following you.