Wheelin' & Dealin'

Rockstar sure are an interesting company. It's been only a few weeks since we got the first real gameplay footage of GTA: Chinatown Wars (due out next Wednesday), but even this was nothing more than a teaser. Now, with a mere five days until release, they've finally given us something a bit more substantial. In a world where we get massive previews, years before the launch of some games, Rockstar's ability to keep everyone in the dark about their upcoming projects is kind of astounding!

The video shows off a little of the drug dealing part of the game. Okay, so we already knew that you'd be driving around the city with various illegal narcotics, trying to find the best prices (ala Dope Wars), but we didn't know exactly how it would control. Well, now we know, and it's a little worrying. I'm not sure I like the idea of pulling out my stylus just to drag a bag of coke from one sack to the other or select menu items, but this seems to happen a lot.

You see, early DS developers felt the need to shoehorn in touchscreen support, just because that seemed to be the novel new feature of the system. We got excellent titles like Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, which were entirely touch-screen-free, except for every now and then when you'd be required to pull out the stylus for a few seconds. Thankfully, they realized how stupid this was, and many accepted that a DS game can be great even when using only the d-pad and buttons. There are still many fine games that rely heavily on the touch screen, but these ones were clearly designed specifically with it in mind.

However, we must remember that this is the first Grand Theft Auto game to appear on the system, so Rockstar haven't had a chance to figure out what works and what doesn't. I just hope that everything can be accomplished without having to constantly take out my stylus, but I guess we'll have to wait to find out. Apart from this, the rest of the game looks pretty sweet. We only got little snippets before, so even this short trailer seems to show off a lot. The game sure runs smooth, and moving the mini-map to the lower screen should allow them to make it a bit bigger without obscuring the player's view.

But anyway, it's only a few days until I have it in my hands, so I'll hold off on any further opinions until then. For now, here's the video for you to check out: