Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars

It's difficult to describe just how good Chinatown Wars is - you really have to play it to believe it. By GTA standards, it's a good game, sitting at the same table as its console brethren; what it lacks in driving finesse it more than makes up for with unique features. By handheld game standards, Chinatown Wars is better than it has a right to be, and sets an impossibly high bar for anyone else ambitious enough to try open-world on the DS.

I finished the main missions and did a little tooling around on the side (drug dealing, vigilante and ambulance missions, et cetera) in just under 10 gameplay hours. Which may seem low compared to other GTAs, but the missions in general feel much more concentrated here. The game is brilliantly designed for on-the-go play: all the bullshit of driving long distances, or protracted hunting and protection scenarios, is filtered out, distilling the missions into pure fun. It feels very potent, and satisfying.

Naturally, there are a ton of extras in Chinatown Wars beyond the main storyline, like taking out security cameras, acquiring property, and rampages and so on. I'm not planning on going for 100% completion, but these extras are way more attainable and immediately gratifying than some of the more obtuse collectibles in other GTAs.

Metacritic currently says Chinatown Wars is the highest rated DS game, even boasting no marks below 80/100, and I think that's entirely justified. Unfortunately the game may not get the recognition it deserves until the PSP port - which is really too bad, because the touch-screen stuff in this one puts even some Nintendo implementations to shame.

Progress: 63.52%, finished main story