WeazelMan311 reviewed Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories for the PlayStation 2...

...and gave it a 5.5.

Another chapter in the Grand Theft Auto series, and this one was a giant step back. Granted, it was originally on the PSP, which has less buttons than your average controller, but porting it to a console without making any improvements seems like a huge mistake.

Gameplay
The gameplay in LCS is far more simple and dull than in San Andreas. In fact, it's not even as good as Vice City's. For whatever reason, there are no helicopters or planes to use; absolutely nothing you can fly in, which really limits the variety of missions. There are motorcycles, but they are the exact same ones from Vice City...how original. The weapons are pretty limited, but at least there are more than GTA III. It's the same old auto-targeting system, with a very awkward way of manually aiming. You have to press the L3 button to bring up the reticule, and then use the left analog stick to aim it. The right analog stick is not used for this feature, which boggles my mind. However, you can use the right analog stick to look around, which is better than nothing.

There are absolutely no new gameplay elements in this game, which is highly disappointing. A lot of the missions are pretty similar, in that you have to get from Point A to Point B and back again, while killing certain people and dodging the cops. Of course falling into the water will kill you, which is probably the stupidest video game element I have ever seen. I was so glad they fixed that in San Andreas, and pissed off they put it back in LCS. the extra mini games are boring and not even worth trying, and there is far less to do than in the past two GTA games. Anyone going straight from San Andreas to LCS will be absolutely disgusted.

Graphics
The visuals in this game are a joke, which is because they hardly did anything to the PSP-style graphics. On a small screen they look pretty good, but on a regular size TV screen they look bland, blocky, and blurry. There is not much detail to any of the landscapes, and character models are as ugly as ever. The draw distance is decent, however, but other than that, there's not much good to say here.

Sound
The voice acting in this game is alright, but what sucks is that it's so quiet and muffled half the time that you can't hear it over the sound effects. There is no adjustable slider in the menu either, only for radio and sound effects. Pedestrian comments are very boring and repetitive; I must have heard the same one 95% of the time. The radio station talk shows are funny, but there aren't many good tunes to listen to.

Value
This may seem like a great deal for $20, but think wisely before you buy this. The main story is shorter than the past two GTA games, clocking in at under ten hours. And you will probably not even want to play through it again, either. There is not much to do after you complete the story, other than go for hidden packages and unique stunts, which is old material.

Tilt
So, basically, if you don't own a PSP and are a big GTA fan, this might be a good buy. I somewhat enjoyed playing through a different story, even though it was bland and uninteresting. Like I said before, the missions are a bit repetitive but a fan of GTA III should enjoy playing through the familiar territory.

Get the full article at GameSpot

---