Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories is the 2005 PSP game set in 1998, three years before GTA III. You play Toni Cipriani, returning to Liberty City after lying low and working his way back up the Leone crime family. It was the first time a full 3D GTA ran on a handheld, and a PlayStation 2 version followed a year later.

Trailer

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories Trailer

Video uploaded by GameSpot on YouTube, not an official Rockstar Games channel.

Toni Cipriani, Before He Gave You Orders

Anyone who played GTA III knows Toni as a mission giver behind a restaurant counter. Liberty City Stories rewinds to when he was still proving himself to Salvatore Leone, and shows how the city looked before the events of 2001. Familiar characters appear younger and lower down the ladder, which is the whole appeal of the Stories games.

A Full GTA in Your Pocket

Fitting a 3D open city onto a PSP in 2005 was the real achievement. The map, the radio stations, the mission structure and the free roam all survived the move, with shorter missions to suit handheld sessions. It set the template Vice City Stories and Chinatown Wars would follow.

The Liberty City of 1998

The city sits between the GTA III map and its own history: the Callahan Bridge is intact, districts unlock in a different order, and several landmarks appear before the damage seen in 2001. Playing it after GTA III is the closest the series has come to showing the same city at two points in time.