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'Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (PS2)'. (EAN 5026555305402)

In a nutshell:
The best selling game on the PSP arrives on the PS2 and at a surprisingly generous budget price too. Return to the original city from Grand Theft Auto III, but with all the subsequent enhancements to the series including motorcycles and computer controlled allies.

The lowdown:
It’s easy to see why this is so far the only gaming to be ported from the PSP to the PS2, since this is basically a whole new Grand Theft Auto game, even if it does take place in the same city as one of the previous games. The missions are exactly the same as in the PSP version, which means they’re slightly shorter than usual – originally so as to be better suited to a portable format. The graphics have been improved though with a new silky smooth frame rate, a better draw distance and more cars and pedestrians on the streets. The only problem is that the multiplayer modes from the PSP game have been completely removed, which is a shame, but then Rockstar probably don’t want this to steal Grand Theft Auto IV’s thunder.

Most exciting moment:
As ever with GTA the best bit of the game isn’t the missions but just exploring the city and getting into trouble. If you ever get bored of just random mayhem though there are tons of side quests including the usual chances to be a vigilante and paramedic, as well as pizza delivery man and even a dustbin man!

Since you ask:
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories has already been announced for release this October on the PSP. So far a version hasn’t been confirmed for the PlayStation 2 and nor is there any word of a possible San Andreas Stories. They do seem like safe bets though.

The bottom line:
A miniaturised GTA adventure at a miniaturised price.
Harrison Dent

This is a straight conversion of the first ever GTA game to appear on Playstation Portable. The first thing to say is that if you haven't yet sampled the neon excess of Vice City, or the mindbending scale of San Andreas, there is absolutely no reason to buy this as you can now easily pick up either of those games at a budget price. If, however, you're a diehard GTA vet looking for the next fix, this may just fit the bill, provided you don't come at it with expectations raised too high.

Surprisingly, this doesn't really feel like a scaled up hand-held game, more a scaled down console game. Everything looks and controls in more or less exactly the way that you expect. The series has always benefited from an amazing core game engine, and fundamentally it's no different here. Yes the compromises are certainly there if you go looking for them - the scale is pretty restricted, the radio stations loop more frequently, the colours are muddier, the effects more basic and the streets less populated, but actually the whole thing stands up pretty well alongside the other games in the series.

Liberty City is less interesting as an environment than Vice City or San Andreas, but it does have a certain mafioso charm. The story and missions are pretty basic, but there are plenty of them and you still get the same tingle of satisfaction as you complete them - the game is pleasantly addictive. The bottom line is, if you haven't played GTA in a while, and are just itching to cruise the streets blowing things up, stealing cars and shooting things in a familiar ironic postmodern setting, then you may just enjoy this.

I HATED the GTA San Andreas game - but we're back here with the good format - the classic mafia gangster format on the exact same map as GTA 3 which is cool. Great fun, great missions and as usual there are loads of cheats available online for weapons and other mad stuff.

Having just bought and played GTA Liberty City Stories for PS2 after a weekend revisiting GTA San Andreas I can say that LCS is not fit for the PS2. The game is simply too much of a downscaling. You can no longer free-aim or target people without a weapon. You have limited costumes. The city is pretty much the same (as promised by the name). The missions are too short. The sound quality is bad. The voice-acting is amateurish. It's simply not good enough even for fifteen quid.

I'm certain the game was great on the PSP because its a portable and not half as sophisticated as a proper console. With such a small console a game with the GTAIII engine is an upgrade. But this does not count for the port over for LCS onto the PS2.

In my opinion the game is worse than the original GTAIII in all ways: Graphics, sound, story, playability. LCS would be a big hit on a mobile phone but on a PS2 it doesn't meet the grade. Stick to San Andreas or if you haven't played SA, pay the extra fifteen quid on Amazon to get it. Otherwise, save your money and wait for Rockstar to put together another game.

If you have a PSP, you are better off buying the PSP version of this game. The graphics look poor on a PS2 and the shorter missions are more suitable for playing on a portable console. The PSP version also includes a multiplayer mode, which this one unfortuately does not.

While the side missions from the previous games (Taxi, Ambulance, Firetruck and Vigilante) are there, some features have been removed. You can no longer swim, crouch, buy food/clothes or fly planes and helicopters. This makes it a cross betweeen GTA III and Vice City rather than an improvement on San Andreas.

Be warned that this game contains a lot of swearing and violence - the '18' certificate is there for a reason!

If you have not played Grand Theft Auto before, I would recommend that you try GTA: San Andreas over this. There is not really anything new here but fans of GTA3, who want to find out about the characters' histories, will be entertained.

Been a huge fan of the GTA series right from the begining and was looking forward to getting re-aquainted with Liberty city in this new version. The overall content is as varied an awsome as ever, tons to do and months of fun. My one big gripe is that they seem to have fiddled with the camera angles. You can of course choose your chase angle, or select first person view (In vehicles). But the camera angle always seems to sit too low behind the vehicle, (more so than previous versions). You have the option to raise it using the right analogue stick, but it reverts to low again as soon as you let go. It's OK for most of the missions, but when you are chasing levels 10's and 12's on the firetruck, noodleboy, vigalante missions etc, I found it damned frustrating. So much so, I've put it back in the box gathering dust.