Rumor: GTA Chinatown Wars is cel-shaded, isometric, M-rated crime drama

[wraggster]

... With "tasteful" minigames. Indeed, Nintendo Power has published the first comprehensive preview of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, according to details provided by NeoGAF poster botticus. The relayed information (in handy bullet-point format), describes Chinatown Wars as a "true GTA game," which is to say, a Mature-themed sandbox game concerned with all things criminal (just like the survey said). The DS technology limits gameplay to an isometric camera angle with cel-shaded visuals, though the load times, draw distance and frame rate are reportedly sound; and weather effects, along with a day and night cycle are in tact. The preview claims there are plenty of on-screen pedestrians and cars -- speaking of: there are multiple radio stations, mostly juiced with instrumental tunes. All in all, "800,000 lines of hand-optimized source code" are packed into the tiny cart.

What else? Chinatown Wars is said to return players to a sizeable portion of Liberty City (wild guess: Chinatown?), though the map has been altered from the console version. Missions also will be shortened and can be easily restarted upon failure. The D-pad is used for aiming, while the R-button activates auto-targeting; and there's "subtle" auto-steering built into the driving controls. The touchpad will be used for the aforementioned minigames, in addition to navigating the PDA-like UI, which includes email, contacts, the map, a music player, GPS, and stat-tracking (stats can be Wi-Fied to the Social Club). Now, how about some, uh ... scans? (Or better: screens! C'mon Rockstar, with this game scheduled to release in mere months, throw us a friggin' bone or two!)

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/09/19/ru...-m-rated-crim/

[trugamer]

auto-steering!? Why is that even needed?

[Sir_Voe]

Screenshots:
http://www.gamekyo.com/Webmasters/Im...4532_0_big.jpg

http://www.gamekyo.com/Webmasters/Im...4833_0_big.jpg

[gutbub]

That description makes it sound cooler than what I was expecting. Too bad my DS only sees the light of day for homebrew. The last DS game I bought was Pokemon Diamond, which I traded with some other things to get a Dreamcast.

[davidcrew]

d-pad for aiming? Lame.