"The audio is equally impressive, with some great tunes to be heard on the game's variety of radio stations"

This should be interesting to see what they can cram onto the cart.  What cart has the most licensed songs on it so far? EBAgents?

In the PSP GTA:LSC they had a whole range of new radio stations (with very limited playlists) -- like a Bollywood station.

From Game Informer: (I prefer this method of losing wanted stars)

Ditching the cops just got a heck of a lot more dangerous. With “Chinatown Wars”’ new police chase logic, players will spend a lot more time behind the wheel of the car driving for their lives. Rather than evading police cars until you’re in the clear like in past GTA games, players must now lower wanted levels by disabling squad cars without killing the cops. Turning Unit 52 into 52 Pickup won’t be easy; your best bet is drawing the pursuers into oncoming traffic or running them off the road. Put your Allstate agent on speed dial, because these frenzied chases will undoubtedly spike the number of car accidents in Liberty City.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-g54XeSEEQ

Video. Wow, looks great in motion.

Descructoid-preview

The game looks great, even on the small DS screens, but doesn't look like the Liberty City you've come to know. It has a more cartoon-style feel, hand-drawn with hard lines around objects and characters that make them pop on out in the tiny viewing area. But it will feel familiar to anyone who has played Grand Theft Auto IV, and has navigated its streets. Dukes, Bohan, Broker, Algonquin, and Happiness Island -- they're all here, with a scale that's comparable to what you're already familiar with.

For one, the driving mechanic is tweaked a bit for the handheld. It has a more arcade-style feel, and the game will even lock on to a rail to make navigating through traffic a bit easier. (You can, of course, go off the rail and smash into cars ... but more on that later.) There's even a new burnout maneuver, done by holding the emergency break and spinning out before you boost forward leaving a trail of fire behind you. And while I didn't see or use any, I'm told that boats and motorcycles will also be drivable.

On the subject of driving, get used to it -- you're going to need to be proficient if you're going to evade the fuzz. The police evasion system in Chinatown Wars is unique, unlike it's been in any Grand Theft Auto game before it. Once in the sights of the law, players will now have to disable police vehicles that ramming into them at full speed. Taking out the vehicles lowers the wanted level, but you'll have to be careful -- in one mission I rammed a police car into a side rail, causing me to disable the vehicle ... which then exploded. My wanted level went up considerably, considering I had just killed an officer.

On foot gameplay is also more frantic and arcade-like, and in the few shootouts I engaged in felt more like Smash TV than any Grand Theft Auto I had ever played. With this in mind, Ramapage missions are back, and look to play a decent role in Chinatown Wars but within missions and as side-games. Chinatown Wars features a target system, which was as simple as facing an enemy (or a group of enemies) and firing.

OK, so I think you get it; Chinatown Wars looks like it's going to be no joke. The interesting mix of modern Grand Theft Auto elements with the classic, as well as some brand new DS functionality, make it an irresistible package for those with even a passing interest in the series.

With that said, don't be surprised if Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars helps get the DS into the hands of a few players who haven't already

Dvader said:

This is going to cost $30 right?

No idea. Out Friday 20th here though.

DS games are expensive here. I usually import but the UK pound is in mud at the moment so there is no point.

Lots of videos here:

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=Vipercake2895&view=videos

Play.com is selling it for £18 Europeans. Out on the 20th march.

1up-review

Altogether, Chinatown Wars is what I expected -- it takes an understandable few steps back from GTA4, but also takes a couple forward (a touch screen can do that). It's a well-honed "core" GTA on the handheld, not merely a one-to-one clone of its console parents.

A-

Eurogamer-review

Well, if Chinatown Wars does nothing else, it presses the DS harder than virtually anything else you can buy for it. This is GTA on a smaller screen, but by no means a smaller scale. GTAIV's Liberty City may have been cut back to two islands (the best ones), but they're massive, diverse playgrounds, teeming with cars, pedestrians, the series' trademark missions and side-games, wonderfully rendered in surprising detail by an engine that ranks among the best on the platform. And with the addition of touch-screen gimmicks and a significant new drug-dealing component, the loss of things like the comedy voiceovers and talkshows are hardly felt.

On balance though, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is a triumph, not just in terms of bringing a difficult game to a new platform intact, but because it actually improves it in the process, and demonstrates a mastery of DS form and function. Those hoping for another gritty, complex narrative spine bound in the flesh of an openworld action-adventure may be disappointed by the rather more frivolous and silly antics of the Chinatown Wars cast, but even cynics should be converted by the huge, densely packed action playground we've been given instead. Overall this is GTA as it first was, with the inherited wisdom of GTA as it's been since, finished off with all sorts of things that would happily belong in a GTA of the future.

10/10