Game: "Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories"

Console: PlayStation 2; also for PSP

Developer/Publisher: Rockstar

Genre: Action

Number of players: One

Rating: Mature

Premise: You again take the role of Tony Cipriani, a mercenary-like thug trying to make a name for himself in Liberty City's underworld. On your way to infamy, you deal with mob bosses, gangsters, hookers and other dregs of society.

Game play: Things haven't changed in Liberty City — if you've played any of the six previous installments of "Grand Theft Auto," you won't get lost.

The only real change: Liberty City's map was condensed for "Stories" to compensate for the PSP's smaller processor, so the designers dropped some familiarities from the "GTA 3" map. This is probably good news for gamers who may have been bored with the excessive driving of "San Andreas" or "Vice City."

There is also now a life bar gauging your health instead of a numeric countdown.

Are you a newbie? Learning the ropes is a cinch — the GTA series has one of the easiest learning curves in gaming, thanks mostly to a fluid controller layout.

As far as the actual game, which was released last October, there's not much to learn. Between points, you drive around to obtain missions that you complete for cash. Committing crimes raises your wanted level, which directly correlates to how hotly the police pursue you. Finding hidden packages spawns deadly weapons ranging from revolvers to rocket launchers at your safe house. The map is filled with bonus missions, from collecting fares as a taxi driver to raining death on townspeople.

Good/Bad: "Liberty City Stories" has improved on its predecessors when it comes to targeting. Aiming at a specific opponent in "GTA 3" and "Vice City" was a crapshoot, but the developers fixed the kinks to improve Tony's accuracy.

The driving physics are also more realistic now but still a little shoddy (especially the powersliding). And thanks to the PS2's much faster processor, the loading times are nearly instantaneous. Unfortunately, that's where the advantages end.

The game may suffer most from ... laziness. It's obvious the developers put zero effort into preventing the inherent snags that come with transferring a PSP game to PS2. The characters and levels are just plain ugly, while the sound is compressed and tinny. These things may not be issues on a small screen with small speakers, but when put on a 29-inch TV screen, the problems are literally blown up.

Tips: Searching for hidden packages can be tedious, right? You can thank me now — here are locations for three of them: the southwest corner of El Tracks; the guard hut on the northwest corner of the Portland ferry terminal; behind the car crusher in the city.

My take: While the game is fun enough, the PS2 version seems like a shill for a lucrative series. That's sad because up until now, Rockstar has been careful of not copping out.

The $19.99 price tag, along with the GTA name, will probably earn this title a few extra buys from series veterans. However, newcomers should just rent this and instead buy the previous installments — new copies of "Grand Theft Auto 3," "Vice City" and "San Andreas" run for the same price. Or you can wait for the series' next phases: "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories" hits stores in October, and "Grand Theft Auto IV" is scheduled for October 2007.

Jeremy Castillo recently received his associate of arts degree from Windward Community College.