GTA ported to PS2 from PSP with rebuilt Liberty City. GTA gameplay is intact but visuals show the portable origins. A good option for fans without a PSP wanting to experience the narrative sequel to GTA III in the same city.
Your verdict
Category
Open-World4 players18+
Description
A 2006 PS2 spin-off ported from a game originally designed for PSP. Rockstar Leeds returns to Liberty City a few years before GTA III, casting players as rising boss Toni Cipriani. Shorter than the mainline entries, but also denser, with a map handled with notable confidence.
Grand Theft Auto - Liberty City Stories review
4/5
Art direction
★★★★★
"Striking"
MAX
Music
★★★★★
"Legendary"
4/5
Story
★★★★★
"Captivating"
This prequel rebuilds the Liberty City of 1998, three years before the third game's events. The art direction plays on this time gap: the Callahan Bridge, still under construction, cuts off some districts, scaffolding fills streets that will later be finished, and the city shows itself as an organism in the making.
Across its radio stations, the game rolls out an unabashed eclecticism, from rock to hip-hop by way of opera and hilarious talk shows. This perfectly written diversity brings the streets of Liberty City to life with a delicious realism. This licensed, caustic soundtrack redefined the place of music in the open-world game.
Back in Liberty City after having to lie low, Toni Cipriani returns to work for the Leone family. The story is a mob chronicle in the Italian vein: orders from an aging don, clan rivalries, and above all an overbearing mother who deems her son unworthy, grafting a bitter family comedy onto the climb through the underworld.
Gameplay
"Excellent"
Fun
"From the very first seconds"
Diving back into a sprawling metropolis, free to do anything, from car chases to improvised missions to simple wandering: that's the whole essence of the criminal sandbox. The total freedom and the urban chaos deliver an immediate, ever-renewed pleasure. Rich, biting and packed with surprises, an open world you never tire of.
Addictiveness
"Obsessive"
Roaming Liberty City on foot or behind the wheel, taking on a quick mission and then letting yourself be drawn into a free activity weaves an open playground whose distractions you chain together endlessly. Unlocking neighborhoods, weapons and safehouses revives the urge to explore. The handheld format trims the ambition and the driving stays stiff, but this criminal freedom keeps an immediate appeal.
A console port of the portable Grand Theft Auto entry set in Liberty City, transposing the criminal sandbox and its scope into a dense format. Still fairly widespread in the West, its interest lies in this status as a companion to Rockstar's great saga rather than scarcity. An accessible piece for open-world fans wanting to complete the GTA line on the console.
Better with friends
A criminal sandbox also lived around the screen, the pad passing while others whisper missions, spot hideouts and laugh at the wipeouts. The shared fun springs from the spectacle of urban mayhem and the dares you invent: who lasts longest against the cops, who pulls off the wildest stunt? With no competitive mode, it's the playground's freedom that gathers everyone.
A cult cover
True to the series' DNA, the cover assembles a mosaic of vignettes — faces, cars, Liberty City neon — cut like a comic strip. This graphic checkerboard condenses, at a glance, the criminal effervescence and the irony of the open world. Instantly legible, the design seals the pop, urban identity of the whole saga.
A questionable morality
Climbing the criminal ladder here means borrowing every vehicle without asking, running shady errands and sowing cheerful chaos across an entire city left at your mercy. The game wraps it all in a sharp satire, which never stops the player from stringing together crimes with a delighted grin, perfectly at home in the role of the thug.
