From the Gameboy Color on, Rockstar has released a Grand Theft Auto game on Nintendo’s portables. While the GBC and GBA games may have felt like mere ports of their PS1 cousin, the DS effort was done with passion. The developers really took to the DS and implemented such features as the touch screen into the unique, original and critically acclaimed Chinatown Wars. That proves Rockstar can create quality handheld experiences with Nintendo, and is more the reason why they should be working on an all new 3D GTA for the 3DS.
This would provide Rockstar with multiple opportunities, like giving Nintendo players a 3rd person camera view for the first time. With the power of the 3DS, a console-quality GTA game should be expected, meaning fully 3D cities, loads of sidequests, fun driving mechanics, a solid single-player campaign, and a robust online multiplayer mode. I’m confident that this project will eventually happen, the bigger question to me is when. Chinatown Wars came late in the DS’ life, Rockstar needs to get there feet wet early on in the glory of the 3DS.
Some may say that developers out there are already beating them to the punch, and honestly I wish they were. But they’re not. ‘Saints Row: Drive-By’ a title announced at e3 for the 3DS, which is part of a GTA-clone franchise said to be rather good, has been revealed to also be an Xbox Live Arcade game that leads up to Saints Row 3. This gives me ideas that the title will not be a full-fledged sand-box adventure, or even have the same gameplay as the others. Instead, I believe it will be more of a mini-game compared to its brothers.
Theres also ‘Driver: Renegade’. While the original was a soley-driving based game, the second and on started to toy with on-foot game play and combat, similar to GTA. Up until the last entry in the series, which went back to soley in the car playing with a new switch cars on the fly mechanic. With the descriptions of this game being biased towards driving only, and no mention of on-foot gameplay what so ever, leads me to believe this game too will feature no out of the vehicle gameplay. This is less of a bummer though, since the Driver franchise has steadily gone down hill over the years.
With all taken into consideration, lets face it. Rockstar is the originals and kings of open-world sand-box games. Grand Theft Auto is their bread and butter, pride and joy. If required skills and effot go into a 3DS iteration, a gem could be in our hands. Lets hope Rockstar realizes this soon, and we get a GTA 3DS sooner than later.
