GTA: Chinatown Wars, Quick Post Script

March 12th, 2009

I recently posted a follow up of my article titled Taking Handheld Gaming Seriously which I originally posted over at Zath, this time I spin the topic around the upcoming Grand Theft Auto installment for the DS. You can find the article over at Zath.co.uk. The following is a bit of a post script to the article, collating my general thoughts on the game.

Just three quick points of reference that I didn’t get to touch upon from the previous article, completely unrelated to the controversy issue.

Firstly, the Chinese theme of this game does interest me and I look forward to exploring its effectiveness within the game. The story of the rich ass, American-born-Chinese gansta does appear to be teamed with the same generics of western folk making Asian orientated movies, but it could be cool. There are Koreans in the game too. Should be interesting how they handle the two ethnicities.

Secondly, how much does this game look like David Jaffe’s Calling All Cars? I reckon it looks surprisingly close. The whole low-res cel shaded DS graphics teamed with the GTA heritage of the 2D top down titles and modern inclusions sound like a fantastically fruitful mix.

Lastly, one of the less explicit points made in my editorial was that activists against violence in video games are actually more important than we realized. They’re some of the only people that accept that video games are an influential medium, and therefore such things as violence should be discussed. Ironically, this is a huge step away from players themselves, many of who adopt the mantra “It’s just a game”. Of course, it goes without saying that you’re probably not one of those people.