This must be a sign of the apocalypse. Rockstar has ported a handheld game to a console. Yep, a bit weird. But if they were going to port a game from the PSP to the PS2, Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories was probably a good pick: it is one of the best-reviewed PSP games so far. And while the intervening nine months have not been as well used as it might have been to make the game more at home on its new platform, the gameplay is still all GTA.

Once again you step into the shoes of Toni Cipriani, a lower-level mob soldier. This story is actually a prequel to the original Grand Theft Auto 3 game (the one that brought GTA into the modern gameplay era and made it a super-franchise) and many characters from the later games will pop up as you play. You’ll be doing a bit of work for the Leone family as they make a grab for total control of Liberty City (the game’s stylized Miami) and the work is not of the hourly or managerial type. The Leones are into all the vices and the streets are their place of business.

Unless you’ve been in a Turkish prison for the last few years, you probably know a bit about the gameplay in any Grand Theft Auto game. Starting with GTA 3, it is a franchise that features open-ended gameplay that lets you do everything from steal cars to patronize hookers and then beat them up to get your money back. Its violence against law enforcement officers has created a huge controversy and the game is blamed for everything from juvenile delinquency to a drop in the gross national product – all patently false of course. While GTA games are not exactly socially uplifting, only a previously unstable mind would latch onto the game and consider it a pattern for their lives.

Taken for what it is, a crime fantasy in the vain of the Godfather or The Sopranos, Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories lets you take on the role of a mob enforcer and do all sorts of thing we would never dream of in real life. It is like almost any combat game: it is fun to play, but any time training with the Army will teach you that you would not want to do it for real.

Missions in GTA: Liberty City Stories include main-story missions that advance the plot while side missions allow you to earn a few extra bucks for yourself. On missions you’ll be destroying things, driving and making liberal use of a variety of weapons. Since this is a GTA game, vehicles tend to be the stars and you’ll get to use dozens of them. The quirky way you can hijack a pizza delivery vehicle or an ambulance and then just go out taking the place of the drivers on the job is still here and just as entertaining.

Okay, let us establish now that this is a budget title … and it looks it. Graphics for Grand Theft Auto have never been the franchise’s strong suit, but Liberty City Stories is a new low. Resolution is pretty weak. It definitely shows its roots as a handheld game port. Fortunately the sound is at least close to the quality of other console GTA games.

The missions in Liberty City Stories are a bit shorter and simpler than the other GTA console games, just as might be expected on a handheld system where play sessions tend to be of limited duration rather than the marathon play sessions common on consoles. Even so, there are well over a dozen hours of gameplay to be had in Liberty City Stories. Not a bad value considering the game’s $20 price tag.

Where the game has been improved is in the area of controls. With a second analog stick and additional buttons the game’s play markedly improves over the PSP. The right stick now allows the play to take control of the camera and makes some types of missions much less frustrating than with the PSP’s hobbled control set. Not to say that Rockstar has completely fixed the poor targeting system that has been a regrettable fixture of all the GTA games, but it is better than the PSP version. What GTA: Liberty City Stories lost on the way to the PS2 console is the multiplayer for four players. It probably had something to do with the lack of wireless capability of the PS2 – which you can’t blame it for. Not many people walk around with a PS2 and TV looking for a game.

So, even at $19.99, is Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories worth the money? I’d have to give a qualified. “yes.” Sure it is a cheap way for Rockstar to give fans a dose of GTA and make a few shekels while we all wait for Grand Theft Auto 4 on the next gen consoles, but if you like GTA in any of its PS2-or-later versions and have tired of the same missions over and over, I don’t think you’ll be really disappointed with GTA: Liberty City Stories’ slightly inferior production values. There is nothing new here in gameplay, but you’ll probably enjoy the new missions. A solid but unspectacular B- score.