For a while, I couldn't place just why Liberty City Stories, a game made 4 years after its parent title, looked somehow worse than GTA 3. Then it hit me: which has superior graphics is depatable, but III, though, had more realisitc (or at the very least, more detailed) textures. Not just that, but III had, oddly for the older game, a lot more vivid, immersive world-building detail: the reflective puddles on the ground when it rains, the shine on cars that reflects accurately when you turn; all living, breathing minutae that are oddly absent in LCS, which, on top of that, has a vaguely more murky texture somewhat closer to San Andreas. LCS was a step back for the franchise in other ways: gone was San Andreas' RPG element, as well as this other crazy new thing San Andreas introduced called Swimming (yup, we're back to sinking like a freakin' stone as soon as we step more than a couple inches into the sea). GTA 3 had a rough, almost hand-made charm to it, and this roughness made it feel authentic. This prequel (akin to having a darling indie movie that gets a Hollywood follow-up) has a lot more stuff to do, more gameplay elements tacked on, but feels slightly on the empty side when stacked against its parent.
All that out of the way, when compared to the imposing shadow cast by many other GTA titles LCS may seem a bit mid, it's still a damn good game in its own right (and for my money, boasts the best theme song so far in the series). A prequel set three years prior to III - and where many of the story missions revolve around setting up the events of - the player assumes control of a younger version of Toni Cipriani (a mission-giver introduced in the original title) as he works his way up from low-level foot soldier to made man to Leone family Don Salvatore's right-hand man. Along the way, you make enemies of pretty much every other gang - mafia and hoods - on the streets of Liberty (many of whose NPC's will attack you on sight afterward) as you vie to single-handedly shift the city's power dynamics and bring Liberty City under Leone influence. The plot is relatively stock and a bit uneven at times, some of the missions might be a dreck (but what game's aren't?), and, on the mobile port at least (where I played it), the touchscreen controls are at times garbage. More than anything, LCS was originally designed as a demo of Rockstar's capabilities on mobile platforms (back when the PSP came out) and wasn't really aiming too high. And that's fine, since what came out of it is still a helluva lot more than average, and is enough to keep me coming back. 7.5/10.
