New details for Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars on DS have finally been revealed. You may remember GTA: Chinatown Wars from it’s unveiling at E3 2008 during Nintendo’s Pre-E3 Press Conference. The game was barely mentioned and no footage or details were shown other than the game’s logo, but that still got people talking and speculating on the game. Lots of people thought they may go back to a top-down, isometric perspective like the classic GTA games including Grand Theft Auto 1 and Grand Theft Auto 2.
Well according to Kotaku, that is true. The game is seen from an isometric perspective, but it will also be in 3D. Hooray! This is all revealed in the new issue of Nintendo Power, although it has not been verified so details can change.
But for now, here is what we know about Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars:
* It’s a true GTA game with sandbox gameplay, an open-world environment, and a gritty crime narrative.
* It will get an M for Mature rating.
* The game is seen from an Isometric perspective.
* Graphics are cel-shaded polygons with black borders.
* The game has a good implementation of the touch-screen.
* Includes “tasteful” mini-games (no Hot Coffee) and a streamlined interface.
* The User-Interface (UI) is based on a PDA (which played a very prominent role in Grand Theft Auto IV) with hubs for email, contacts, map, music player, GPS and stat-tracking.
* Stats of your game can be uploaded to the “Rockstar Social Club” website via Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection so your in-game actions and accomplishments can be tracked. And most likely compared against the stats of others.
* Missions have been designed for shorter periods of play for handheld convenience. The missions are apparently “arcade quality”, whatever that means.
* Aiming is done via the directional pad while the R Button auto-targets.
* It’ll be easy to jump back into the action sequence if you fail. Again, convenience is apparently the name of the game for the DS version.
* Weapons will include a chain gun and . . . flamethrower!
* A “good portion” of Liberty City is modeled in the game and includes different routes than in the console games.
* The game apparently contains no long load times or draw-in or framerate issues. In other words, it’s polished.
* There are lots of pedestrians, cars and other activities going on around you just like you see in console games.
* Wanted system – objective is to disable police cars any way possible
* Contains real-time weather effects in addition to a 24-hour day and night cycle!
* Amazingly, it will include lots of radio stations to listen to. Although as you might expect, the radio will include more instrumentals than vocals.
* GTA: Chinatown Wars apparently includes 800,000 lines of hand-optimized source code.
* No details yet on multiplayer and/or Wi-Fi online features.
Update: First screenshot scan via VGchartz.