GTA: Chinatown Wars Hits iTunes Store
A steal at £5.99 for the whole game - minus multiplayer and PSP missions.
Rockstar's handheld Grand Theft Auto classic, Chinatown Wars, has hit the Apple iTunes store today for use on iPhone and iPod Touch, costing £5.99 and offering a mixture of the Nintendo DS' touch controls and the PSP's widescreen format.
Usually, Grand Theft Auto games get a lot of publicity before release, and that was certainly the case for both DS and PSP iterations of Chinatown Wars. However, SPOnG had a little preview of the game running on an iPod Touch last week, and was told that the studio didn't know when it would be available on the iTunes store, thanks to Apple's secretive approval process.
For your money, you get to play almost the entirety of Chinatown Wars, using a virtual touch-enabled joypad to move Huang Lee around the map. There's no multiplayer in this version, and the PSP-exclusive missions have also been stripped, making this more of a fully-touch enabled version of the DS original.
You can also create your own custom soundtrack for the game, using the iPhone or iPod Touch's music playback function. If you create a playlist called “GTA” in iTunes, you can replace the radio station music with your own chosen songs.
At £5.99, it's a comparative steal next to the DS and PSP versions, which both sell for around £29.99 brand new and on PlayStation Network. SPOnG was told last week that Rockstar had considered splitting up the game into bite-sized chapters, but this release is the entire game (minus aforementioned segments) so it must have decided against it.
First impressions of the game are positive – Svend SPOnG isn't used to the whole virtual touch analogue stick deal, but once you get used to it the game becomes as enjoyable as it was on other systems. The difficulty has been toned down a bit to compensate for the new control system as well, which is handy because Svend kept crashing his cars all over the place. We just don't think he's got the muscle to be a Triad, really.
You can grab GTA: Chinatown Wars on iPhone or iPod Touch at the iTunes store now. SPOnG will be reviewing the game for your pleasure soon too, just in case you want to know how good it is before you splash your cash.
Usually, Grand Theft Auto games get a lot of publicity before release, and that was certainly the case for both DS and PSP iterations of Chinatown Wars. However, SPOnG had a little preview of the game running on an iPod Touch last week, and was told that the studio didn't know when it would be available on the iTunes store, thanks to Apple's secretive approval process.
For your money, you get to play almost the entirety of Chinatown Wars, using a virtual touch-enabled joypad to move Huang Lee around the map. There's no multiplayer in this version, and the PSP-exclusive missions have also been stripped, making this more of a fully-touch enabled version of the DS original.
You can also create your own custom soundtrack for the game, using the iPhone or iPod Touch's music playback function. If you create a playlist called “GTA” in iTunes, you can replace the radio station music with your own chosen songs.
At £5.99, it's a comparative steal next to the DS and PSP versions, which both sell for around £29.99 brand new and on PlayStation Network. SPOnG was told last week that Rockstar had considered splitting up the game into bite-sized chapters, but this release is the entire game (minus aforementioned segments) so it must have decided against it.
First impressions of the game are positive – Svend SPOnG isn't used to the whole virtual touch analogue stick deal, but once you get used to it the game becomes as enjoyable as it was on other systems. The difficulty has been toned down a bit to compensate for the new control system as well, which is handy because Svend kept crashing his cars all over the place. We just don't think he's got the muscle to be a Triad, really.
You can grab GTA: Chinatown Wars on iPhone or iPod Touch at the iTunes store now. SPOnG will be reviewing the game for your pleasure soon too, just in case you want to know how good it is before you splash your cash.
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