A Spanish magazine recently revealed more information about Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars for the Nintendo DS. First, the game will apparently be much larger than most expected, featuring nearly all of GTA IV's Liberty City. Here's a quote:

“Even though many people believed that Chinatown Wars would develop only in the Chinese neighborhood the game uses nearly the whole map that appears in GTA IV. The districts that appear are: Dukes (Queens), Bohan (Bronx), Broker (Brooklyn) and Algonquin (Manhattan). The only neighborhood from GTA IV that doesn’t appear is Alderney (Jersey City).”

This is good news, especially for those (see: everyone) who thought the map would be very small. I hope they are actually using the same layout as well - Grand Theft Auto IV did an amazing job at creating a living, breathing city, even in just the street design. Nintendo Everything also translated the below information from the article, explaining more about the game and going deeper into what is apparently the bread and butter of Chinatown Wars: drugs.

• Camera can swivel 360 degrees
• Trains will pass overhead in the city, cars will circle, pedestrians will be walking, etc.
• GPS seen on the touch screen while you move through the city
• PDA allows you to gain access to the map with more details as well as the goals of missions
• You can mark points that you want and the GPS will always tell you the shortest legal route to the destination with yellow or blue arrows
• New discoveries (such as gas stations) are added to the map
• Top screen brings you all the action, while the lower screen will let you control elements like the PDA, GPS, the radio, access to the people on the map, or using Motolov cocktails and grenades.
• Drugs have a big importance in the game
• Drug system can be compared to Drugwars
• You have to control the stock of drugs, buy them in one neighborhood and sell them in another - good way to make money in the game
• You are given a map so that you know what people demand and at what prices
• Like other GTA games, in Chinatown Wars, you can catch a taxi - whistle into the microphone so the taxi will stop

They are just begging for trouble here. If any system has a deeper kid base than the Nintendo Wii it's the DS, and with an in-depth drug system that looks to be a major aspect of the title they can be sure to have special interest groups freaking out like never before.

Then again, they make their living on the edge, so I'm sure they have it all worked out. Anyone else pushed even closer to insane hype for this game? With this, Dragon Quest IX, and the DSi, the DS looks to have a bright year in 2009.

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