GTA Chinatown Wars to have majority of GTA IV map

It pays to know your languages, especially when said languages provide information about your favorite games that can be tricky to come by. Rockstar Watch certainly did reap its benefits, as the site discovered that Spanish magazine Hispana (name may not be translated correctly) claims to know new details about Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars for the Nintendo DS.

If you can read and understand Spanish, check out what the image says:

Translated roughly to English, it means:

“Although many believe that Chinatown Wars was to develop only in Chinatown, used almost the entire map that appears in GTA IV. Apparently neighborhoods: Dukes (Queens), Bohan (Bronx), Broker (Brooklyn), and Algonquin (Manhattan). The only district that does not appear GTA IV is Alderney (Jersey City).”

Despite some obvious grammatical mistakes, one can glean that the upcoming GTA game for the Nintendo DS would come with most of the map from Grand Theft Auto IV.

But watch out! More details are said to have emerged from the Spanish magazine. According to Nintendo Everything, GTA: Chinatown Wars would also have the following features:

• Camera can swivel 360 degrees
• Trains will pass overhead in the city, cars will circle, pedestrians will be walking, etc.
• GPS seen on the touch screen while you move through the city
• PDA allows you to gain access to the map with more details as well as the goals of missions
• You can mark points that you want and the GPS will always tell you the shortest legal route to the destination with yellow or blue arrows
• New discoveries (such as gas stations) are added to the map
• Top screen brings you all the action, while the lower screen will let you control elements like the PDA, GPS, the radio, access to the people on the map, or using Motolov cocktails and grenades.
• Drugs have a big importance in the game
• Drug system can be compared to Drugwars
• You have to control the stock of drugs, buy them in one neighborhood and sell them in another - Good way to make money in the game
• You are given a map so that you know what people demand and at what prices
• Like other GTA games, in Chinatown Wars, you can catch a taxi - whistle into the microphone so the taxi will stop

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is set to arrive (tentatively, at least) before the end of January 2009. Looks like it’s going to be BIG. Not as big as GTA IV, but perhaps bigger than any Nintendo DS game before it.

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