After being a roaring success on pretty much every console since the first release of this franchise on the PSOne, it's no wonder Rockstar have decided to hit the Gameboy Advance with Grand Theft Auto. Considering the revenue pulled in so far, it's a wonder this title hasn't come sooner, especially since the previous outing on the Gameboy Colour. For those Martians landing on Earth for the first time, Grand Theft Auto is a name synonymous with free roaming cityscape gameplay, with tons of gangsters and all the action you could wish for to boot. Previous incarnations have been slyly humorous and very cleverly executed, besides having compulsive gameplay, so it was no wonder I was looking forward to the portable release. However, after playing it, I wonder if I hyped it up in my own mind a little too much.

The narrative does try to grab you straight away, being a tale of two hoodlums trying to use their ill-gotten gains to make a break and go straight. Your partner in crime, Vinnie, wants to do a few last jobs to get some extra cash and you go along with him against your better judgement. Unfortunately things go wrong and after a few missions, Vinnie is killed by a car bomb. This provokes you to go on a roaring rampage of revenge as you try and find out the who's, whys and wherefores.

I'd like to say that this is a direct port from the PSOne version, but it's not. The story is different to start with and as far as content is concerned, there's a lot more to it. If you remember the original version, it's a top down view of a city, around which you drive or run depending upon the situation. It was mission based but with the free roaming aspect included, so you could go on a driving or killing spree at your leisure. This hasn't changed in the Gameboy Advance version - you can follow the fairly linear missions or you can have a roam around, run people over, crash into cars and so on. The missions themselves are good fun, if a little repetitive, such as having to drive to certain destinations, leap out of your car and collect items and gun people down, or time trials getting from one point to another.

Besides the top down view, you also have a few other bits and bobs in the corner of your screen, providing a variety of useful information. These include the amount of money you have, which weapon is equipped for when you jump out of your car, your infamy rating (the higher this is the more cops chase you) and your health. There's also the obligatory and absolutely essential map, which shows you where to find things and provides the layout of Liberty City, within which you drive. As you play the game, more locales are highlighted on your map, such as your hideout, a great place to buy new weapons, a garage for re-spraying your cars and of course your mission objective. It's all very handy and an easy reference even when you're handbrake turning around corners at a rate of knots.

Unfortunately, this is let down by a few things, such as a really dodgy frame rate and some tedious foot-based nonsense. Coming to the frame rate first, it struck me almost immediately that the screen seemed to jerk as you sped around corners and hit things. It makes proceedings a little tricky to keep control of, particularly when you consider that your field of vision is fairly limited. At slow speeds you're able to see just a short distance in a few directions, but when you get some speed up this pans out a bit. However, it's still not enough to see the liberally populated oncoming traffic, police cars or even the slow moving pedestrians. Hitting cars is a bit of a nightmare, as I almost felt like I was on a pinball table rather than a road. You and the opposing vehicles seem to bounce around the screen quite a bit before coming to a halt, although a nice new addition is the ability to roll some vehicles over if you hit them hard enough.

The pedestrian-based stuff really had me yawning and irritated me quite a bit too. There are many missions where you have to step out of the car and collect objects, interact with bases (usually signified by a flashing blue circle), or deal with people. While I liked the ability to just go up to a stationary car, haul the owner out and zoom off, I was quite narked by the gun-slinging aspect. You can fire your gun in a 360-degree circle when the bad guys are after you, but you'd better make sure you've bought some body armour first and have at least an Uzi with a serious number of rounds in the chamber. Otherwise you're dog meat. Part of the problem lies with the ability to identify your assailants in the mayhem, especially given the rather large bullets that come from your weapon. Are you hitting a citizen, or should you be concentrating on another target? Are those cops or criminals? Is that a baseball bat being swung or a bullet effect? You do have the ability to strafe, but more often than not the enemy gets behind you, so it's back to the tricky 360-degree rotation again. It's all too confusing and often you find yourself dead on the floor with the 'mission failed' sign flashing in front of your eyes.

It's not all bad though, as there are some improvements in the gameplay over the original. You quite often find yourself on plenty of other missions besides the linear, story-driven one. As you explore the city you find skull symbols, which once driven or walked over open up a new world of money-making opportunities. The missions generally involve being given an Uzi and taking out as many opposing gang members as possible in a strict time limit, obviously without being nailed yourself; these are quite good fun and a great opportunity to increase your arsenal. I like the way jumping into certain vehicles gives you the occasion to earn some dough too - stealing a taxi means you can earn a few bucks getting people from one side of town to another and also helps you familiarise yourself with the street layout! This comes in pretty handy for the racing challenges too. Also, you can find and collect up to a hundred packages scattered throughout Liberty City, which grant you new items for every tenth package you find. It's just a pity that this variety and extra thought hasn't stopped the remaining gameplay being otherwise frustrating and tedious.

This is reflected in the graphics, which, given the incredible standard set lately with titles such as Fire Emblem, Astro Boy and Mario Golf, are rather lacking. The opening sequences and story pages are well drawn and certainly portray the character of Grand Theft Auto, being crudely hewn caricatures of the characters in the narrative. This continues throughout the game but runs alongside some, dare I say it, mediocre visuals. You can see Rockstar have really tried hard to pull off a from above, faux-3D cityscape. This isn't too bad in that you can see the fronts and sides of buildings as you drive around or past them, thus helping them be easily recognisable as you get used to the layout. It's just a shame that once you get down to the images your eyes are almost solely resting on - the cars, streets and people - it starts to look a bit shabby.

The cars are abundant, and come in a great many varieties including police cars, ambulances, red sports cars, green Ford Fiesta look-alikes, trucks, buses and so on. I have to admit, it is hard to make a car look interesting when viewed from above, being a fairly bland bonnet, roof, boot affair, but perhaps some attempt could have been made to give chrome a bit of a gleam, or make some damage visible besides steam coming out of the bonnet. I have to admit they look quite cool when you smash into vehicles and make them roll, but this doesn't happen often enough to make up for the lack of the rest. For all that, they are easily distinguishable and you're not likely to steal a Fiesta when you can see there's a hotrod on offer.

It's not quite so easy to differentiate when it comes to the people though. Once you're out of the car, your character is represented by a head and shoulders shot, interspersed with some dynamic looking legs when you break into a run. The variety is increased further when you swing a baseball bat or shoot a gun, but it's pretty much the same visual as all the other goons wandering the streets. You can only really tell them apart by the colours they wear and some are so similar that you'll be nailing cops before you realise that the crims have done a runner. Then, of course, you've got to contend with a higher 'infamy' rating than you wanted. Besides the identification problems, the head and shoulders just look fairly plain, unappealing and uninteresting.

One of the main staples of previous Grand Theft Auto releases has been the sound, particularly the radio stations you can tune into and the often-amusing DJs you hear on each. As you can imagine, the Gameboy Advance sound system isn't up to much at the best of times, so there is none of the trademark humour through sound bytes and the snatches of tunes are short, on a loop and not that well put together. To give Rockstar some credit, they did try and vary the themes depending on which car you get into, which reflects the radio station the driver may have been listening to, but this novelty wears off fast when you realise how short the continuous loop of each is.

Then you've got the general sound effects within the game. When you gun an engine it doesn't roar so much as meow, but a meow from a cat with laryngitis. The sound varies from car to car but still doesn't quite make the grade. The crashes seem to be denoted with what sounds like bursts of static and the gunfire reminds me of some particularly nasty sound effects from my old Acorn Electron. There are voice samples, which raise the bar a little, but they're so few and far between as to be drowned out in the cacophony.

The lifespan of the title is reasonably short too. It's not just that it has no multiplayer option or that the story drags on a bit, or even that the bonus missions get repetitive. It's also a case of the gameplay becoming a little tired, monotonous and a bit frustrating. In fact, overall I have to say I am disappointed. After the thrills and spills of the first PSOne outing and the incredibly good sequels, the Gameboy Advance version leaves a lot to be desired. If the story had a bit more humour, if the gameplay wasn't so jerky and the action so hard to control, if the graphics had a little extra polish on them and if the sound wasn't so bad, it may have been a great port. Although it tries so hard to equal, if not better, the PSOne version, particularly with the inclusion of the extra missions, it fails. It will still appeal to the diehard GTA advocates but fans of the Gameboy Advance will be able to tell in a second there are much better titles out there.

Reviewed by Dave Wynn for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).