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edits
Silver Infernus
Joined 21 December 2010
→Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories
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For those who like to play the ''Grand Theft Auto'' games in sequence of release date, a word of warning: If you are expecting everything ''Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas'' was offering and more, you will be greatly disappointed. ''Liberty City Stories'' actually takes a few steps back, with better graphics and physics than its predecessors but feature-wise, giving the player little more to do than they had in ''Vice City''. This may seem like a weak point in which opportunity could be taken to attack, but it would be more objective to keep this review relevant to what features it does have. However, the ones that do deserve criticism are listed below. | For those who like to play the ''Grand Theft Auto'' games in sequence of release date, a word of warning: If you are expecting everything ''Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas'' was offering and more, you will be greatly disappointed. ''Liberty City Stories'' actually takes a few steps back, with better graphics and physics than its predecessors but feature-wise, giving the player little more to do than they had in ''Vice City''. This may seem like a weak point in which opportunity could be taken to attack, but it would be more objective to keep this review relevant to what features it does have. However, the ones that do deserve criticism are listed below. | ||
Two of the features that really should have stayed in the game was the ability to swim, and the ability to fly helicopters. There have been many a time in ''Grand Theft Auto III'' and ''Vice City'' where the player needed to go near the water to enter a boat and would instead accidentally fall in. Unable to even paddle to safety, Claude or Tommy would then flounder helplessly in the water until they drowned; it seems Rockstar thought it necessary for this to potentially happen to Toni as well. And why should the player not be able to fly a helicopter in this game? Sure, there was the issue of crossing island borders, but all Rockstar had to do was program an invisible barrier between islands until each one was unlocked; or do what they did in ''San Andreas'' and give the player a wanted level once they crossed an island. Or they could just make the player die automatically when they crossed. In the unlikely | Two of the features that really should have stayed in the game was the ability to swim, and the ability to fly helicopters. There have been many a time in ''Grand Theft Auto III'' and ''Vice City'' where the player needed to go near the water to enter a boat and would instead accidentally fall in. Unable to even paddle to safety, Claude or Tommy would then flounder helplessly in the water until they drowned; it seems Rockstar thought it necessary for this to potentially happen to Toni as well. And why should the player not be able to fly a helicopter in this game? Sure, there was the issue of crossing island borders, but all Rockstar had to do was program an invisible barrier between islands until each one was unlocked; or do what they did in ''San Andreas'' and give the player a wanted level once they crossed an island. Or they could just make the player die automatically when they crossed. In the unlikely event that this was Rockstar's way of making ''Liberty City Stories'' reminiscent of ''Grand Theft Auto III'', let me just say that if that were the case, I'd rather have them take out motorbikes, bring back the tunnel between Portland and Staunton, and even make Toni into a fatass again. | ||
I don't know if it's just GTA III-era's Liberty City that I don't like, but I can't make myself enjoy this game. The missions, while not as bad as ''Grand Theft Auto III<nowiki>'</nowiki>''s, should have been much better for a game that was developed in 2005. Especially as a sequel to the killer ''San Andreas'' delivered. Feature-wise, I can understand if Rockstar didn't go as far with ''Liberty City Stories'' as they did with ''San Andreas'', because some of it was overkill. But the missions should at least be exciting. Most of the mission cutscenes are just Toni and one other character talking; very rarely is there a third person present. This makes it feel as if the characters have very little connections to each other, and in turn, Toni has very little connections to them. And just like Claude, it seems he's fallen into the trap of lacking character. Throughout the entire game he was more or less a puppet of Salvatore Leone, and when he did get the chance to make his own decisions, they were quite bland. And just like Claude, Toni finished his story like how he began it. Even if he was now a highly respected member of the Leones, he didn't ''change''. The missions were too rigid, and had no sense of progress; they could be done in almost any order and the player would not be able to know the difference. Even the final mission, "[[The Sicilian Gambit]]", hardly felt conclusive; Salvatore did all the talking, and Toni was just there to shoot stuff. Blowing up couple of boats, killing a few gang members, and shooting down a helicopter certainly wasn't considered exciting enough as a final confrontation. But that's what you get when it's all about Salvatore and Toni's out of the picture. | I don't know if it's just GTA III-era's Liberty City that I don't like, but I can't make myself enjoy this game. The missions, while not as bad as ''Grand Theft Auto III<nowiki>'</nowiki>''s, should have been much better for a game that was developed in 2005. Especially as a sequel to the killer ''San Andreas'' delivered. Feature-wise, I can understand if Rockstar didn't go as far with ''Liberty City Stories'' as they did with ''San Andreas'', because some of it was overkill. But the missions should at least be exciting. Most of the mission cutscenes are just Toni and one other character talking; very rarely is there a third person present. This makes it feel as if the characters have very little connections to each other, and in turn, Toni has very little connections to them. And just like Claude, it seems he's fallen into the trap of lacking character. Throughout the entire game he was more or less a puppet of Salvatore Leone, and when he did get the chance to make his own decisions, they were quite bland. And just like Claude, Toni finished his story like how he began it. Even if he was now a highly respected member of the Leones, he didn't ''change''. The missions were too rigid, and had no sense of progress; they could be done in almost any order and the player would not be able to know the difference. Even the final mission, "[[The Sicilian Gambit]]", hardly felt conclusive; Salvatore did all the talking, and Toni was just there to shoot stuff. Blowing up couple of boats, killing a few gang members, and shooting down a helicopter certainly wasn't considered exciting enough as a final confrontation. But that's what you get when it's all about Salvatore and Toni's out of the picture. | ||