The Shrine

Anyone pick it up?

But of course!

Yeah, I got it Tuesday.

It's very good if you are a fan of the GTA series as is. In other words, there's nothing really new in the game except that it's handheld. There is multi-player but it's only on an ad-hoc network which means I can't really use it since I only know one other person with a PSP.

The graphics look great. I'd say they are on par with San Andreas. Being contained on a small screen helps though, I'm sure. There isn't much slowdown at all. There is a little bit of shearing when you run and it looks lke you have 6 legs, but other than that I am pleased with the load speeds. It generally loads every time you start a mission to play the cutscene and sometimes will load again if the cutscene is long. These loads generally take 3 seconds on average, I'd say.

The gameplay is exactly like every other GTA game. It removes a lot of the stuff from San Andreas like customizing your character and stats, but that's not necesarily stuff I care about on a handheld. There's no swimming and no flying either, which makes it feel like GTA3. Gives it a nostalgic feel. It does include motorcycles which is awesome.

The aiming is as bad as usual. I died a few times already by locking on the guys shooting at me rather than the guy beating me with a bat. The controls are pretty good. The analog stick isn't the greatest on the PSP, imo, so sometimes it gives me a problem but I've been able to win races and do what I need to do with it. I changed my control scheme to use the L/R buttons for the left/right drivebys and use square/X at the same time for the hand brake and this works very nicely.

I like the character you play, Tony Cipriani. The story is basic GTA fare. Work for the mob, kill union workers, pick up hookers, deliver stuff, run from the cops.

Overall, it's really fun and I feel that it's a good buy if you like classic GTA. It feels like a combination of GTA3 and Vice City. It's fun running around Liberty City working for the guy you kill in GTA3.