Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars announced

[MattyBoy]

Rockstar Games have issues the following press release this morning at the E3 conference in Los Angeles:



Rockstar Games is proud to announce Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars. Developed by Rockstar Leeds in conjunction with series creators Rockstar North, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars will be available on the Nintendo DS in North America and Europe this winter.

"This is a game that will deliver a rich, fast-paced and intense 'Grand Theft Auto' experience that will be truly unique to Nintendo's handheld platform," said Sam Houser, Founder of Rockstar Games. "Rockstar Leeds, along with the team at Rockstar North, has built upon a decade of progressive design on Grand Theft Auto, and has created something fundamentally fresh and immersive."

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is an entirely original entry into the critically acclaimed Grand Theft Auto series, and brings a new level of interactivity to its sprawling open environments. With the use of the DS touch screen, players will navigate their way through the streets as they uncover the truth behind an epic tale of crime and corruption within the Triad crime syndicate, delivering the unprecedented amount of depth that has become a true trademark of the franchise.

For more information about Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, visit the official site.

[Jeffrey]

It's latest issue has a huge feature on the DS game, of which has been condensed into these bullet points, via gaming forum NeoGAF.

• True GTA game - sandbox gameplay, open-world environment, gritty crime narrative.
• M-rating
• Isometric camera angle
• Cel-shaded polygons w/ black borders
• good touch-screen implementation - "tasteful" minigames, streamlining interface
• UI based on a PDA - hub for email, contacts, map, music player, GPS, stat-tracking
• stats uploaded to Rockstar Social Club website via Wi-Fi
• finger-sized icons
• missions designed for shorter periods of play, arcade quality
• aiming with control pad, auto targeting with R button
• subtle autosteer
• if you fail a mission, you can jump back to the action sequence
• chain gun, flamethrower
• good portion of Liberty City is modeled in the game (different routes than console games)
• no probems with load times, draw-in or frame rate
• lots of pedestrians, cars, etc on screen
• Wanted system - objective is to disable police cars any way possible
• real-time weather effects, 24-hour day/night cycle
• lots of radio stations to listen to (more instrumentals than vocals)
• 800,000 lines of hand-optimized source code (hey, the people like the info, right?)
• no details yet on multiplayer/Wi-Fi features

Sounds good to us. What do you think? More soon, we reckon.