Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories is an installment of the Grand Theft Auto series, and as of July 2006 is the best selling game so far for the PlayStation Portable. It was released in the United States (U.S.) on October 25, 2005 and in the United Kingdom (UK) on November 4, 2005. The official site credits Take-Two Interactive companies Rockstar Games, Rockstar North, and Rockstar Leeds in the creation of this game.^[2] The game has since been followed up by Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories.

A port for the PlayStation 2 was released on June 6, 2006 in North America for a recommended retail price of US$19.99, June 22, 2006 in the UK and the rest of Europe for GBP £19.99 or EUR €29.99, respectively.^[3][4] The pricing of the PS2 port is less than half the typical price of a big name new release title (the first three PS2 installments of GTA debuted at US$49.99 each). The PS2 port does not feature the multi-player mode or custom soundtrack ripping capability of the original PSP version.

General

The game is set in Liberty City (the same city featured in Grand Theft Auto III). However, it takes place in 1998, three years before the events of GTAIII. Toni Cipriani is fresh back in the city after laying low for several years, having offed a fellow mobster as a favor for Don Salvatore Leone. The grateful Salvatore puts him straight back to work. During the course of Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, players can accept a variety of missions from many people, including Salvatore, Salvatore's wife Maria, JD O'Toole, wise guy Vincenzo "Lucky" Cilli, and even Toni's own mother.

The ways to get from island to island have also been tweaked. A ferry now runs from Portland Island to Staunton Island, and the tunnel that connects the islands in Grand Theft Auto III has not yet been completed - only the section of the tunnel that runs from north Shoreside Vale to south Shoreside Vale is open. The Callahan Bridge (the bridge that was blown up in Grand Theft Auto III) has also not been fully constructed yet. Only after the mission "Driving Mr. Leone", which occurs at around 19% completion, can you actually traverse the bridge as its construction progresses.

In addition, motorcycles were previously permitted in the city. The official Liberty City Stories website reveals that motorbikes were banned by the turn of the 21st century, due to a public ordinance supported by the Maibatsu Corporation (which marketed the over-sized Maibatsu Monstrosity in GTA III) in order to promote the use of automobiles in the city.

Characters

Main article: List of characters in Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories

Weapons

• Slot 1: Hand: fists, brass knuckles
• Slot 2: Melee Weapons: knife, baseball bat, chisel, fireman's axe, katana, chainsaw, hockey stick, Meat cleaver, nightstick, screwdriver, machete
• Slot 3: Handguns: 9 mm pistol (Glock 17), .357 Magnum (Colt Python)
• Slot 4: Shotguns: shotgun, stubby/sawn-off shotgun, combat shotgun (SPAS-12)
• Slot 5: Sub-Machine Guns: TEC-9, MAC-10, micro-SMG (IMI Uzi), MP5
• Slot 6: Assault rifles: AK-47, M4 Carbine
• Slot 7: Heavy Weapons: Rocket launcher (RPG-7), Minigun (M-134 Gatling gun), M60 machine gun, flamethrower
• Slot 8: Explosives and Incendiaries: hand grenade, remote grenade, Molotov cocktail, satchel charge
• Slot 9: Sniper rifles: PSG-1 (laser scope), basic sniper rifle
• Slot 10: Other: Detonator(used with remote grenades and car bomb), camera

Radio Stations

Main article: Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories soundtrack

Liberty City Stories features ten radio stations, which comprise a mix of both licensed music and tracks created specifically for the game. The ten radio stations are as follows:

Graphics

As stated in an IGN preview, "Rockstar dropped Renderware in favor of a brand new in-house engine to best utilize the resolution, texture density and particle effects of the PSP".^[5] RenderWare has been the game engine behind every GTA since GTA III (which includes GTA III, GTA: Vice City and GTA: San Andreas).

Multiplayer

The PSP version of Liberty City Stories has a multiplayer mode, for up to 6 players through WiFi ad-hoc mode (same area). The game features 7 modes of wireless multiplayer gaming, in which various pedestrian and character models from the single player mode are available as player avatars. Rockstar decided to remove these modes from the PS2 version.

Easter Eggs

• Grand Theft Auto: Vice City References: In the beginning of the "Biker Heat" mission, a poster above the bed that Maria is sitting on is of the fictional rock band "Love Fist", the band which Tommy Vercetti befriended and completed missions for in Vice City. There is an advertisement in Shoreside Vale for a movie about the life of Sonny Forelli; who was the main antagonist towards the end of the game. A poster in Staunton Island shows an advertisement for a new Candy Suxx Movie and a poster for a new Love Fist concert appears on a billboard in Shoreside Vale next to the airport.
• Bully Reference: there is a graffiti in red in Portland Staunton Island and Shoreside Vale which reads "Bully" , another game from Rockstar (although it must be noted that Bully was released about 8 or 9 months after LCS).
• Grand Theft Auto III Smiley Face Reference: There is a parking lot on the top southwest corner of Staunton Island. Look for a white staircase in between the parking garage and the parking lot entrances on the southside. Go up the staircase and jump on the short cement railing. Then turn east and jump up on the roof over looking the parking lot (Liberty Tree Building) and run across the roof to the other side where you will see a courtyard. Jump down into the courtyard and run to the very end of the courtyard to the northwest. Then on a wall at the end of a courtyard has a white picture of a smiley face and says 'Hello Again'. This is the same spot where in Grand Theft Auto III, where a sign says "You aren't supposed to be here." In the PS2 version, it says "You cant get enough of this alley can you?"
• Game of Death and Kill Bill Reference: After completing the "Crazy 69" mission, you will receive the "Dragon Jumpsuit" at your safehouse. This is the same article of clothing that Bruce Lee wore in the 1973 film Game of Death, and a suit in Kill Bill. The title of the mission, "Crazy 69", is also a reference to the "Crazy 88", a team of martial artists from Kill Bill who thought 88 was a good number to call themselves (Bill says that there aren't actually 88 in the opening of Vol. 2).
• Pulp Fiction Reference: In the "Overdose of Trouble" mission Tony must deal with overdosed wife of his boss,Maria just like Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction.
• Madd Dogg's CD: At the Portland safehouse, there is a billboard advertising Madd Dogg (The rap 'superstar' from San Andreas) and a re-release of an old CD (The sign says "Digitally Remastered" on it).
• Candy Suxxx Reference: Billboards for "Let Me Bounce" can be seen around the city, starring Candy Suxxx, a prostitute-turned-porn star from Vice City.
• Graveyard Headstones: In the cemetery behind the church in Staunton Island, many of the headstones have names of characters who were killed earlier in the game. The ones you've killed in Portland show up as regular gravestones. Most of the known personalities you kill later on will have their own, more ornate tombs, with humorous taglines.
• Toni's weight reference: In the game, many characters tell Toni he is too thin, this is probably why he is overweight in Grand Theft Auto III.
• ZIP: Random Landstalkers will spawn with ZIP boxes in the trunk.
• Chinese Food: After completing the "Wong Side of the Tracks" mission, there will be a cup of Chinese food in the Portland Safehouse.
• San Andreas Reference: The mission Wong Side Of The Tracks is a reference to a San Andreas mission titled Wrong Side Of The Tracks. Also, The Mainframe billboard features Barbara and Michelle, who are girlfriends of Carl Johnson.
• Bo Selecta Reference: In the mission "Ho Selecta" it is obviously taking its name from the UK comedy show Bo Selecta whose main character Leigh Francis aka Avid Merrion is from Leeds which is where the game was developed. Alternatively, this could just be a reference to the Artful Dodger song; "Rewind", in which Craig David sings the words, which had already begun being used in UK slang before Leigh Francis used them to name his program.
• Manhunt Reference: After finishing the mission "Portland Chainsaw Masquerade", Toni is given an outfit called "Coveralls" which includes coveralls and a hockey mask which is a reference to the game Manhunt which features people dressed in coveralls and a variety of masks wielding chainsaws.
• Taxi Driver Reference: After completing 100 fares for the "Taxi Driver" side mission, you will unlock the '76 Bickle taxi cab. This is in reference to the 1976 film Taxi Driver, where Robert DeNiro plays a character named Travis Bickle.
• Many other missions have names derived from movies,such as Don in 60 seconds,Big Rumble In Little China,The Shoreside Redemption and The Portland Chainsaw Masquearade.

Custom Soundtracks

A special feature (only in the PSP version of the game) is the ability to listen to custom soundtracks.^[6] Previously, only Grand Theft Auto games on the Xbox and PC were able to implement custom soundtracks. When Liberty City Stories was released, the custom soundtracks option was featured in the "Audio" section of the menu (by pressing Start in gameplay) but did not have any use. Many people posted on various internet forums asking how to use the feature. At one time, it was thought that these custom soundtrack abilities had to be unlocked, but this would have been very unusual since previous games didn't do this.

A few days after release of the game, Rockstar placed the application called "Rockstar Custom Tracks v1.0" on the official site under the "Downloads" section. This then gave people the chance to use the custom soundtracks feature. The application appears to be based on Exact Audio Copy.

In the application, songs from a CD are ripped, compressed, and converted to files that can be read by the game. Rockstar Custom Tracks (RCT) only allows the ripping of songs that are from a store-bought CD. However, fans have found a way to compress and convert MP3 files that are not burned onto CDs[1]. RCT can also look up and use the names from the FreeDB server if there are no names for the song(s). There must be at least one save file in order for RCT to work. It is thought that this will be used for other games Rockstar will release on the PSP from the name. More details can be found in the PDF in the file downloaded from the official site.

PSP Exploit

In late 2005 a vulnerability was found in the way the PSP version of GTA: Liberty City Stories processes saved games. In December 2005 software was developed to execute unsigned code on PSPs with firmwares 2.00 through 2.60. In April 2006 firmware 2.70 was released and patched the exploit, however, as of January 25, 2007 it was discovered that Sony did not completely patch the exploit, and unsigned code may be run on 3.03 firmware, a 3.03 downgrader was released 3 days after the exploit was found. Also, new copies of GTA: Liberty City Stories patched the exploit as well, preventing it from being executed on other firmware versions. Since then homebrew has advanced to the point that a copy of GTA: Liberty City Stories is no longer needed to run unsigned code except on firmware versions 2.81 to 3.03.

Sony has now blocked the GTA exploit for good with the release of the 3.10 firmware update.

Cheat Device

The GTA: Liberty City Stories Cheat Device is a mod or trainer which allows the player to manipulate gameplay in a multitude of ways, such as invincibility, or changing game constants like weather and water level. Created by Edison Carter, it can be found at his web site.^[7] It also includes a text file application in which the source code can be altered, allowing many different cheats to be put into the game, going as far as to create custom buildings and islands through means of spawning objects in a GUI called "Construction Mode." The last update to the Cheat Device was in October 2006.[2][3] The use of the Cheat Device was blocked by the firmware 2.70 update and by the re-released 'patched' copy of the game as it uses the same GTA exploit, however the Cheat Device returned when Carter released a plug in for the popular PSP firmware emulation program, Devhook. However it lacked many features of the save game version. There is also a Devhook cheat device for GTA: Vice City Stories.

Trivia

• During the Mission, "Cash in Kazuki's Chips", Toni must assassinate Kazuki Kasen as a favor for Kazuki's wife, Toshiko Kasen. Upon arriving outside a building, Toni is ambushed by Yakuza men as Kazuki escapes to Casino North. The building then, is in the property of the Kasen Family. Seeing as both Kasen's die during the events of LCS, Asuka and Kenji takeover their business, making it clear as to how Asuka managed to offer the building to the protagonist of GTA3 during their first arrival to Staunton.
• Liberty City Stories was spoofed on The Simpsons episode Yokel Chords as "Death Kill City II: Kill City Stories".
• During one mission, Toni dresses up with a white tuxedo, resembling James Bond 007: From Russia With Love, the new 007 which is the old 006.

References

Wikipedia information about Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories". It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer). Help contribute to Americola and edit this article.