GTA : Chinatown Wars
Rockstar Games | 2009
Back in the early 2000’s Rockstar Games partnered with a small UK based developer, Mobius Entertainment, to bring various Rockstar owned IP to the mobile gaming market place. (Max Payne, The Warriors).
Rockstar Games subsequently acquired Mobius Entertainment which became Rockstar Leeds, a studio with a talented and very experienced mobile development team.
At some point it was decided that Rockstar’s mobile specialist studio should be allowed to develop a spin-off title of the, by now, hugely successful GTA IP which of course Rockstar are most famously known for, and thus GTA: Chinatown Wars was born.
In many respects it was a brilliant idea. On the one hand, an already hugely successful IP on console and PC, and on the other hand the newly flourishing mobile space with very few high quality adult/mature titles available to it.
Another way of viewing it however, would be that it was hugely risky to be targeting a platform who’s main demographic sits outside of the age rating the game would receive.
However you look at it, it certainly seemed a brave choice for both Rockstar Games and Nintendo.
The Game itself
My own personal role on the title was as animator, this covered both in-game as well as ‘cinematics’.
The game was a great deal of fun to develop and truly had the retro throwback feel to the original GTA with its top down perspective.
The game was later ported to the Sony PSP with a few added frills that the more powerful Sony handheld could manage; Later still it would also find its way onto IOS, Android and Kindle Fire.
I still to this day think this is one of THE BEST titles available for the Nintendo DS or Sony PSP; but perhaps I’m a little biased 😀