Grand Theft Auto Advance

Grand Theft Auto Advance is an installment of Rockstar's famous open-world series that launched exclusively for the Game Boy Advance in 2004 and returned to the top-down view the series used in its first two entries before it moved to 3D. The game takes place in Liberty City during the same period as Grand Theft Auto III and partly continues its story from the perspective of a secondary character, so long-time fans of the series could see the familiar setting, gangs, and factions from a completely different angle than the big console entry offered. The release fit into a time when the GBA was becoming a popular platform for more extensive action titles, not just simpler arcade games.

Developer Rockstar Leeds managed to carry over, on limited hardware, a substantial part of what made the series popular - an open city split into several islands, completing missions for various factions and gangs, stealing cars, police chases, and an escalating wanted-level system, all packed into a smaller but fully functional map adapted for a handheld console. The controls were adapted to the Game Boy Advance's buttons, and the graphics used a top-down view designed to stay readable even on the small screen, which made the game feel like a full-fledged entry in the GTA family rather than a lightweight handheld spin-off. The player has access to a wide range of vehicles and weapons as well as radio stations with music, very much in the spirit of the rest of the series. The switch back to a top-down view also allowed much more environmental detail and denser traffic to fit on the screen than 3D graphics on the handheld's contemporary hardware would have allowed.

Why play: Grand Theft Auto Advance is for players who want to experience the open world of Liberty City and the atmosphere of the GTA III era on the go, in a form that isn't afraid to return to the top-down view of the series' first entries while still offering a full complement of missions and side content on a handheld console, not just a watered-down taste of the big console experience.