Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories is an action-adventure game developed in a collaboration between Rockstar Leeds and Rockstar North, and published by Rockstar Games. The ninth installment in the Grand Theft Auto series, it was initially released as a PlayStation Portable exclusive in October 2005.[2] A port for the PlayStation 2 was released in June 2006.[3] At the time of release, the recommended retail price of the PS2 port was around half the price of the PSP version,[4] because the PS2 version does not feature the custom soundtrack ripping capability of the PSP version. A port for iOS, Android and Fire OS devices was also released in December 2015,[5] February 2016,[6] and March 2016, respectively.[7]

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories
Developer(s)
Publisher(s)Rockstar Games
Producer(s)Leslie Benzies
Designer(s)David Bland
Programmer(s)
  • Obbe Vermeij
  • Adam Fowler
  • Andrew Greensmith
  • Matthew Shepcar
Artist(s)Aaron Garbut
Ian Bowden
Writer(s)
Composer(s)
SeriesGrand Theft Auto
Platform(s)
Release
Genre(s)Action-adventure
Mode(s)Single-player, multiplayer (PSP)

Set within the fictional Liberty City (loosely based on New York City) in 1998, the game is a prequel to Grand Theft Auto III, and follows the exploits of mobster Toni Cipriani, a character first introduced in said game. The story centers around Toni's attempts to rise through the ranks of the Leone crime family and earn the respect of his boss, Salvatore Leone, while slowly becoming involved in a power struggle among the city's Mafia families. The first 3D Grand Theft Auto game to be released for handheld devices, Liberty City Stories received generally positive reviews from critics. Its successor, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, a prequel to Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, was released in October 2006.

Gameplay
Toni on Staunton Island riding a PCJ-600 motorcycle with a sub-machine gun equipped and with a two-star wanted level.

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories is an action-adventure game set in an open world environment and played from a third-person perspective. Liberty City's layout is largely similar to Grand Theft Auto III,[8] but it also incorporates elements found in Grand Theft Auto III's successors, such as more indoor environments, clothing changes, and motorcycles. In keeping with recent Grand Theft Auto games, the player has more flexibility in terms of moving the camera around for viewing surroundings (Grand Theft Auto III is noticeably limited in that respect).[9] Things that are omitted from the game are the ability to climb and the ability to swim – contact with deep bodies of water is instantly fatal.[10] The overall game's open world, as it is based upon the original Liberty City layout, is considerably smaller than that of San Andreas.

Differently from GTA III, motorcycles are usable in the game.[11] Though flyable aeroplanes and helicopters can be found in Vice City and San Andreas, flyable aeroplanes cannot be found in Liberty City Stories, and helicopters are only accessible through certain exploits.[10]

The PSP version of Liberty City Stories has a multiplayer mode, for up to six players through Wi-Fi ad-hoc mode (same area).[12] The game features seven modes of wireless multiplayer gaming, in which various pedestrian and character models are from the single player mode avatars.[12] These multiplayer modes were removed in the PS2 and mobile versions.[13][14]


Synopsis

Setting

Liberty City Stories takes place in early 1998 within the fictional Liberty City, and forms part of the "3D Universe" canon of the Grand Theft Auto series. Set three years before the events of Grand Theft Auto III, the game's setting features several areas that are different from the 2001 version of Liberty City, including locations that are being constructed, or facilities and buildings that are nowhere to be found by 2001. An example of this is the district of Fort Staunton, which represents a virtual version of a "Little Italy" district, before events in the game later lead to it becoming a construction site in 2001.[15]

Characters

Like previous Grand Theft Auto games, Liberty City Stories features an array of notable actors in its cast. Several characters from Grand Theft Auto III make appearances in the game, receiving notable changes in appearance and lifestyles to reflect who they were in 1998. Although Guru and Sondra James return to reprise their roles as 8-ball and Ma Cipriani from Grand Theft Auto III and Frank Vincent returns to reprise his role as Salvatore Leone from both Grand Theft Auto III and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas,[16] other returning characters from Grand Theft Auto III were voiced by new actors. For instance, Danny Mastrogiorgio replaced Michael Madsen as Antonio "Toni" Cipriani, Fiona Gallagher replaced Debi Mazar as Maria Latore,[17][18] Peter Appel replaced Robert Loggia as Ray Machowski and Will Janowitz replaced Kyle MacLachlan as Donald Love.[17][19]

Plot

In 1998, Leone mobster Antonio "Toni" Cipriani returns to Liberty City after a four-year absence, having been forced to live abroad following his murder of a rival made man for the Leone family. Upon his return, Don Salvatore Leone welcomes him back and assigns him to work under another Leone mobster, Vincenzo "Lucky" Cilli, who dislikes him. At the same time, Toni finds his mother disapproves of his rank in the Leone family, and is forced to stay away from her when she calls a hit on him. After Toni escapes being arrested on a job, he quickly discovers Vincenzo seeks to take his place within the Leone family. When Vincenzo tries to murder him, Toni kills him in retaliation. With Vincenzo dead, Salvatore begins to personally assign work to Toni, including looking after his trophy wife Maria.

Toni soon uncovers evidence that Sicilian Mafia underboss Massimo Torini is orchestrating plans for minor gangs to take control of the Leones' territory, whilst they're engaged in a war with the Sindacco and Forelli families. After helping to escort Salvatore downtown as problems arise, Toni earns his trust and becomes a made man within the Leone family, causing his mother to call off the hit on him. Toni soon finds himself entrusted with killing the city's mayor, controlled by the Forellis, and assisting media mogul Donald Love into becoming his replacement. However, Donald goes bankrupt after he loses to his rival Miles O'Donovan, who promptly has Salvatore arrested on several charges soon after his election. Toni remains loyal to him, and assists him by killing Don Paulie Sindacco as revenge for having Salvatore arrested, effectively ending the Sindaccos. He also destroys the Little Italy district in Fort Staunton for Donald, allowing him to rebuild his fortune for the future, while severely weakening the Forellis, who were controlling the district.

With the Leones now the strongest and sole-surviving Mafia family in Liberty City, Salvatore finds himself targeted by his rivals, forcing Toni to protect him before his trial. Upon being released on bail, Salvatore quickly deduces that Torini organised the mob war and rigged the mayoral elections. Suspecting Torini will likely kidnap Mayor O'Donovan to prevent the charges against Salvatore from being dropped, he joins Toni to rescue him, killing Torini in the process. In return, Salvatore demands that O'Donovan grant his family protection, which he reluctantly accepts to do. Shortly after, Salvatore reveals to Toni that Torini was working for his uncle, and the pair confront him, discovering that he wanted to weaken his nephew's control over the city as revenge for not paying him tribute. With his uncle preparing to leave for Sicily for good and no longer posing a threat, Salvatore settles in with controlling the city, while Toni is appointed as caporegime as a reward for his assistance.

Development

As stated in an IGN preview, "Rockstar dropped Renderware in favor of a brand new in-house engine to best utilize the resolution, texture density and particle effects of the PSP".[20] Until the release of Liberty City Stories, RenderWare had been the game engine behind every 3D game in the Grand Theft Auto III era. Liberty City Stories used Image Metrics for the game's facial animation.

In April 2013, the game was released on PlayStation 3 via the PlayStation Network using the PlayStation 2 backward compatibility.[21]

An enhanced port of the game, with touchscreen controls, real-time lighting, high-definition textures and draw distance, was released in December 2015 for iOS, February 2016 for Android and March 2016 for Fire OS.[5][22][6][7]

Soundtrack

Liberty City Stories features ten radio stations, which consist of a mix of both licensed music and tracks created specifically for the game, and talk radio stations.[8] A feature for the PSP version of the game is the ability to listen to custom soundtracks.[23]

To implement the custom soundtrack feature, Rockstar placed the application called "Rockstar Custom Tracks v1.0" on the official site under the "Downloads" section.[24] This then gave people the chance to use the custom soundtracks feature. The application is based on Exact Audio Copy.[25]

Reception

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories received "generally favorable reviews" on both platforms from critics, according to review aggregator website Metacritic.[26][27]

Sales

In the United States, the PlayStation 2 version of Liberty City Stories had sold 1 million copies by February 2007.[37] In the United States alone, Liberty City Stories' PSP release sold 980,000 copies and earned $48 million by August 2006. During the period between January 2000 and August 2006, it was the 16th highest-selling game launched for the PlayStation Portable in that country.[38] As of 26 March 2008, Liberty City Stories sold 8 million copies according to Take-Two Interactive.[39] The PlayStation Portable version of Liberty City Stories received a "Double Platinum" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA),[40] indicating sales of at least 600,000 copies in the United Kingdom.[41] ELSPA gave the game's PlayStation 2 version a "Platinum" certification,[42] for sales of at least 300,000 copies in the region.[41]

Notes
  1. Ported to Android, Fire OS, and iOS by Lucid Games.[1]

References
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  4. Vore, Bryan (6 June 2006). "GTA: Liberty City Stories PS2 Hands-On Impressions". Game Informer. Archived from the original on 21 April 2008. Retrieved 16 September 2008.
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  7. Saba, Elias (11 March 2016). "Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories released for the Amazon Fire TV". AFTVnews. Archived from the original on 9 October 2017. Retrieved 9 October 2017.
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