Welcome to Chinatown!

I don't know why, but ever since I was younger, I've been fascinated by the idea of "Chinatown". The idea of a mini-Chinese culture in the middle of an American culture is, for some reason, really interesting. As a kid, the only real experience I've ever had with them was in movies. A little older, I've been to Chinatown in New York, but wasn't as impressed as I think I deserved to be.

Cocky sounding, wasn't that?

Either way, this has one major point I'm leading to... I love GTA Chinatown Wars. This is the first GTA game for the DS and I think it did a terrific job. It brings everything GTA was famous for, in mobile handheld form. The funniest thing is that I suck at driving in this game like I do in any of the other ones.

I've heard a lot of people complain about the overhead view of the game and I have to say I disagree. In the end, GTA 2 was my all-time favorite and the entire thing was done from a bird's eye view. At the time, it made it a lot easier to see, and while Chinatown doesn't have a great view, it still brings back that slightly vintage feel [which is really popular these days, or so I believe] More people were complaining about the gunfire, but I've found nothing wrong with it, expect that maybe it's too easy to fire. It seems like if you point yourself in the general direction you need to be in, the game will auto-lock your line of fire onto the nearest hostile person. Both easy but still enjoyable for those huge gunfights.

In the end, they intergrated the entire DS-ness into the game well. You use the stylus for a number of things, from cutting into car doors to check for drugs to searching dumpsters for weapons, and let's not forget! Hotwiring cars! Gotta admit, one of my favorite things to do is hotwire cars. I wish there was a chop shop in the game...

Sadly, the only real means of income, aside from being a cabbie [if you're any good at it, which I am not] is drugs. I'm quite the little drug dealing Chinese bastard, as I make a few thousand every time I actually run drugs from one dealer to the next. It's all about supply and demand, an incredibly simplistic yet impressively used idea. Some drug dealers will sell you drugs for cheap while others will need them so badly they'll pay oodles. [Yes. I said oodles.]

In the end, if you play your cards right and keep some loose cash [like a few thousand] you can turn your tiny stock pile of cash into a few houses all around the city. I have.

In the end, there's so much pro to this game and not a lot of con. Gotta love it.

I'm kinda not in the mood for much blogging, so I think we're going to leave it off there... Because I can.

So think on that philosophy. Or don't. I don't care.