It's been a long time since we've posted any news about this game, in fact our last post back in June was calling for your votes for the Golden Joystick Awards.

Well, that award ceremony happened today and is now all over. The event was not as successful as Rockstar might have hoped, though they did walk away with the Golden Joystick for Handheld Game of the Year which is quite an achievement.

Well done Rockstar!

Source: C&VG

Once again a Grand Theft Auto game has been nominated in various categories at the prestigious Golden Joystick Awards. The awards which are the biggest prize up for grabs in the UK videogame industry, will take place on October 27th.

Of the 16 categories, Liberty City Stories has nominations in five of those; Ultimate Game Of The Year, Soundtrack Award, PlayStation Game Of The Year, Handheld Game Of The Year and Multiplay Game Of The Year.

As well as these nominations, Rockstar Games are included in the Publisher Of The Year, and Grand Theft Auto IV is included in the One To Watch For 2007

Head over to C&VG to Cast Your Votes

Much of our US readership will now be enjoying Liberty City Stories on their PS2. And a lot of our worldwide readership may well have received the GTA mailing list email by now. If you haven't yet received it, or didn't bother reading it all, you won't have seen that Rockstar have updated the official site...


IGN brought you that trailer yesterday, and have now also put up a video review, amongst other content such as a guide.

LINKS:
Official LCS site
IGN LCS Game Page

After IGN posted their "hands-on" the other day, they've now posted an actual review of the game and are the first website to do so. The game is officially released across the North American continent tomorrow.

I covered most of the 'new' features when summing up the hands on preview last Friday. To summarise yet again, the improvements we have are slightly longer draw distance, slightly improved frame rate, and higher number of concurrent objects on screen.
As well as this we have the far superior control over Toni, as this time we now have the two extra shoulder buttons and right analogue stick on the PS2's controller.

You probably aren't bothered with the review now but IGN have posted a further 5 screenshots so take a look at them. Links below.

IGN LCS PS2 Review
IGN's 5 New Screenshots

IGN have got their dirty little hands on the PS2 version of Liberty City Stories. They basically don't have anything negative to say about it, aside from the evident lack of multiplayer features. Which Rockstar supposedly said they removed as "it didn't fit in with the story."

IGN claim in their preview that it will take the average gamer around 15-20 hours to play straight though, just completing the main storyline and not bothering with side missions or other objectives.
One big plus for the PS2 version over the PSP is the far superior controls, thanks to the PS2 controller's extra shoulder buttons and pair of analogue sticks, the controls are just like those of the previous iterations. One other advantage is the fact you'll be playing on a bigger screen too.

Interestingly, IGN state that nothing in terms of the graphics has been improved, it is all exactly the same as the PSP version, apart from very slight enhancements to framerate, draw distance, and the number of objects on screen.


As well as the preview, IGN have also posted 8 new screenshots and the official PS2 trailer. You can check all these out by clicking the links below. Hopefully Rockstar will send us some unwatermarked screens soon though.

Also I'd like to point out that the trailer still has the June 6th release date for North America, it is literally just Europe that is affected by a two-week delay. Which currently has no valid reason.

Some mis-informed fansites are saying LCS has been delayed worldwide, while others are giving incorrect release dates. So to reiterate, here are the official release dates:
North America: June 6th
Europe: June 23rd

LINKS:
IGN Hands on
8 New Screenshots
LCS PS2 Trailer

Bad news for PS2 owners in Europe as Rockstar have pushed back Liberty City Stories' PS2 release again. The release date for the game is now June 23rd.

Currently there doesn't seem to be a valid reason why it should be delayed. I can't imagine why, after all, it's virtually a straight port from the PSP version, just without the multiplayer features. The US release of the game seems unaffected as of yet, so we assume it's still a June 6th release for them.

We'll keep you updated on any reasoning behind this delay. Stay tuned.

Source: Eurogamer

There's been very little in the way of any media to do with the Playstation 2 release of Liberty City Stories. One magazine here in England that I did notice that has a review of the game is issue number 82 of PSW, which contains a 4-page article.

As expected, nothing new has been added to the game, it is a straight-forward port of the PSP version, and in fact it will actually ship with less features, as the multiplayer modes have been taken out, although this was somewhat obvious as PS2's don't have an AdHoc mode, although some 2-player action San Andreas style would have been nice.

To be honest, the only pros over the PSP version have to be the slightly sharper graphics and faster loading times, thanks to the PS2's superior power. Not to mention you'll also get to play it on a much bigger screen. If you already have the PSP version there probably isn't much point in you buying the game unless you're a hardcore GTA fan.
Having said all that it is a cheap game whatever country you are in, only £14.99 here in the U.K, while in the U.S. the game apparently sells for .99, and in Europe, €19.99. I will try and get myself a copy of the magazine to get a few quotes directly from it.

If like me you're more eagerly awaiting Vice City Stories, or indeed GTA4, then check out our forums for all the latest discussions. Some popular topics include our legendary GTA4 Wishlist, which has so far amassed over 750 replies and has had over 28,000 views. I get many requests to add these to the GTA4 section of the website but this simply cannot happen due to it's popularity, however, I may get the forum staff to get together a choice few wishes that seem to be popular so we can post those up on the website.

Stay tuned for more updates! And don't forget to keep your eye on both Multi Theft Auto and SA-MP, as both multiplayer mods are being updated quite often now and are evolving well with new features coming along nicely!

Rockstar Games have finally annouced the release date for the Playsation 2 version of Liberty City Stories.


That's June 6th, 2006 for North America. and 3 days later on June 9th, 2006 for Europe.
Yes, European's have to pay an outrageous price for the game, almost twice that of how much it costs in the US...

Take-Two Press Release

Rockstar sent out their latest broadcast via email earlier this morning, those of you who actually scroll to the bottom of emails (thanks for reminding me Adriaan) will know that the LCS competition winners have been announced.
Quoted from the email:


Rockstar telling us to "stay tuned" for the release date announcement and first media... So I guess that means sometime this month they will release all the information. I'm pretty sure there will be some sort of big announcement very soon anyway, so definitely stay tuned for the latest GTA news right here.

Earlier today Take2Games published their latest press release, and the conference call has just finished.

In the press release, we can confirm Liberty City Stories has an almost certain release date of 28th April, an exact date wasn't given but...


Take2 also re-confirmed that a new GTA PSP title is due out this year, presumably in October, it still remains titleless.
And in 2007, sequels have been confirmed for "several of Rockstar's most successful franchises". We can presume one of these would be another Grand Theft Auto title, at least that's what we're all hoping for.

We'll keep you posted on any further announcements on a next gen GTA game.