Gamespot have finally got round to posting their review. Personally I think it's a better one because as well as pointing out the good things they also focus on some of the games flaws, making it an unbiased review.

They gave it 8.6/10. A fair score I should say based on their review.

LCS Review at Gamespot

Rockstar have just sent me a little application that you can install on your PSP to enable the custom soundtrack option on Liberty City Stories, the download is just under 1MB and please read the readme that comes in the zip file for full instructions on what to do.

Judging by reactions on various message boards on the interweb, this isn't what fans wanted at all, granted, it's better than nothing, but there are a few major drawbacks to this app.

First and foremost, you can only convert tracks from original audio CD's, so you can't go downloading music from iTunes, or copying your friends' discs, you need the real thing.

Secondly, you can only use these tracks on LCS, they can't be used elsewhere on your PSP.

Thirdly, the program only works on Windows computers, so around 15% of the population have no such facility available.

Fourthly, you choose custom tracks OR radio, not both, you'll need to go back into the options again if you want to switch between the two.

With reports also flying around that Rockstar are allegedly deliberately delaying LCS in Europe to rain on Nintendo's Gameboy Micro parade and Microsoft's Xbox360 release. It's not looking great for consumers as they have to wait even longer for the game.

However, having said all that I'll point you in the direction of the application for those who do want it - Download GTALCS Custom Tracks Loader

Gamespot have uploaded ten videos demonstrating parts the gameplay of Liberty City Stories, check them all out on their media page. All the videos are around 1 minute long and are just over 26MB for high res and 11MB for low res.

On a sidenote, the official strategy guide for Liberty City Stories by Brady Games, the publisher of the guides for previous GTA games is now available. You can order it from Amazon.com, if you're in the UK like myself then Amazon UK have a release date of 30th November on it so you'll have to preorder it for now.

edisoncarter has released loads more cheats for Liberty City Stories. There's way too many to list in this news post, so rather than waste all the page space and slow down loading times, please head over to our GTALCS Cheats page.

I have categorised the cheats to make them easier to find, and all the cheats are displayed nicely with little PSP button images. It's a full graphical list of cheats.

Be aware that there are plenty of other codes to which we are unsure of their function, once they're found out we'll be adding them to the list so keep checking back every so often. Eventually we'll have a complete list.

I'm sure just about everybody who has played GTA3 will remember the sign in Staunton Island which read "You weren't supposed to be able to get here you know".

Kuiosikle over at the GTA Underground has found that the sign is still there in LCS, except with a different message. He's also put together a detailed video along with himself narrating the route to the easter egg. Download the video from our database

The sign now reads "Hello Again" with a silly face under it. View bigger image.

This is also probably the first real easter egg to be found in Liberty City Stories, if you happen to find one yourself, be sure to post it over in our forums with any screenshots or videos.

Thanks to Laz for telling me about this nice find.

That's right, there's some cheats out for GTA LCS. edisoncarter has been up to his old tricks again, and has found the first lot of codes.

NOTE: This post will be kept updated as edisoncarter releases more cheats, new ones from the previous update are marked with "New" in brackets.

Enter the following cheats during gameplay. It is recommended that you do NOT save your game with these cheats enabled.

Weapon Set 1

Brass Knuckles, Knife, Molatov Cocktails, 9mm Pistol, Shotgun, Tec-9, AK47, Flamethrower, Sniper Rifle

Weapon Set 2

Katana, Remote Grenades, Revolver, Sawn-off Shotgun, Uzi, M4, Rocket Launcher, Sniper Rifle w/ laser

Weapon Set 3

Chainsaw, Grenades, Revolver, Combat Shotgun, SMG, M4, Minigun, Sniper Rifle

Health

Armor

Get 0000

Clear Wanted Level

Raise Wanted Level

Random Ped Outfit (New)

White Traffic (New)

Black Traffic (New)

Cars Can Drive On Water (New)

Spawn Trashmaster (New)

These have also been added to our cheats page.

Gamesdomain, now owned by Yahoo have put up their preview of Liberty City Stories, giving it 4.5 out of 5 stars. Overall they've rated it pretty well in everything.

Pros:

Squeezes every GTA nuance into a portable game; Stunning audio; Not bogged down by long loads

Cons:

Liberty City and mob theme getting old; Missions don't stray from standard GTA formula.

Read the full review

Following up earlier this week with their four gameplay videos, IGN have some more content you might be interested in. Links to them are below.

* Checklists & FAQs

* Hints/Unlockables

* LCS Manual (IGN Insider's only download)

* Multiplayer FAQs

* Video Review

IGN have posted four videos from GTA LCS. These are great to watch, especially if you're stuck in Europe like me and have to wait over a week before you can get your hands on the game.

Check out the gameplay videos at IGN.

This is the time when reviews of Liberty City Stories, start pouring in. IGN kick us off with their review, with the subtitle "A full-fledged criminal underworld ready for all to explore. And hey, it even fits in your pocket."

Few games actually change the way you feel about a platform. They take the established standard and tear it to pieces. Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City (LCS) Stories is one such game. It takes the preconceptions about what a handheld can do and totally ignores them. It provides an experience so large and so complex that it's a wonder that it actually runs at all. The GTA series has always succeeded in sheer scope and complexity, and thankfully, it's no different on the as a handheld. There are no hardcore sacrifices, either. LCS uses the same kind of intricate 3D engine that put the series (and the developer) on the map with GTA III.

The review also contains some new screenshots. IGN rated the game 9 out of 10, while the average reader score is currently at 9.3.

1UP.com have also posted their review in a peculiar artistic format, giving it 9.0. Its user reviews are rather mixed though.

Rockstar have just updated the official LCS site, just received word from them a few minutes ago.

Hey guys,

Thought I'd let you know that we updated the official Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories website .  There is also a new multiplayer trailer.

www.rockstargames.com/libertycitystories

Webmaster@R*

The new trailer showing off the mutiplayer mode is available in Windows Media and Quicktime formats as usual, as well as the PSP version. There are also plenty of new screens on the website, which you can now see on our screenshots page.

Also on the screenshots page are images from the recent IGN article that Rockstar have sent to us.

The three new teaser sites have also been updated:

VIVISECTION

CrowFest '98

PastMaster

Check out the official site.

This time it's true, at lunchtime today the game's UK distributor Gem confirmed it at EuroGamer.

There's no reasoning behind the delay, and so far the US release remains unaffected. Which is still scheduled for the 25th (tomorrow).

We'll update you if we receive anymore news concerning any of the release dates.

Source: Eurogamer.net

UPDATE

A Rockstar representative told the UK based gaming site Pro-G that Liberty City Stories is still on track for its original release date.

The Liberty City Stories section of YourPSP.com has recently been updated to reveal the game will feature Game Sharing. For those of you who are not familiar with game sharing, it means you and a friend can share one copy of Liberty City Stories and play at the same time. It is also very likely that the multiplayer feature will also be available during game sharing.

However, is this a huge feature? The PSP has a mere 11mbps wireless network connection, and it surely does not have enough RAM to store the entire game map and everything else encompassed in it.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see how it plays.

Thanks to Scooby for finding this little snippet of information.

In the latest issue of OPM, the first magazine to have a review of Liberty City Stories, a new multiplayer mode is revealed called Wedding List - A free-for-all scramble to take cars and drive them to designated shipping crates. So it's not too dissimilar from the film "Gone In 60 Seconds" where the protagonist must deliver a list of 50 cars...

In a quote from the start of the review it's clear that LCS still has problems like previous GTA's and even the new weapon aiming feature is deemed "unessential"

Like all the GTA's before it, LCS has many problems. Some of them are caused by the PSP, and some are the same ones that people have been waiting years for Rockstar to fix. Since the game relies so heavily on running and shooting, you'd think that it would be polished to perfection, but it isn't, and the driving mechanics are the same we had in GTA3 and Vice City.

You can now fine-tune your aiming by tapping down on the D-pad and then holding down the L button. But even so, it's the type of feature you'll forget is there, because it's unessential. Many missions require you to wander into a crowded area and pick off specific targets, while everyone around you opens fire, but you can tap R to lock on to a target.

You often have to be quick, because you'll either struggle with aiming or you'll use all your ammo wiping everything out. It is a hugegame and will likely take you 40-50 hours to complete and even then, there are 33 other "games" inside it, that could take a further 5-10 hours.

Thanks to OG_Loc87 on the IGN boards for this.

It seems Rockstar are planning even more teaser sites, Adriaan has done a little research and found 3 more domains registered recently that are all pointing to one of Rockstar's servers.

CrowFest98.com - Possibly a crow festival.

Pastmaster-Game.com - A historical education game, probably a parody of Postmaster.

ItsVivisection.com - Vivisection refers to the dissection of a live animal for scientific purposes.

These domains will probably launch this weekend as it's the last weekend before release.

Gamesradar have today added an exclusive preview for Liberty City Stories that focuses on the side missions for Liberty City Stories. Apart from the usual Insane Stunt Jumps Gamesradar has posted info on the all new side missions that includes Trashmaster, Karmageddon, Noodle Punk and Car Salesman (yes you heard me). They have also posted 5 brand new screenshots.

Karmageddon: Steal a fire truck and then cause as much chaos as you can.

Noodle Punk: Grab a scooter at the noodle restaurant and start making deliveries.

Car Salesman: Earn a commission by taking customers on successful test drives.

Trashmaster: Race across Liberty City to collect all the dumpsters within the time limit and drop it off at the Junkyard.

Insane Stunt Jumps: Use the PCJ600 bike and other new vehicles to soar over the ramps, hills and jumps found around Liberty City.

Links: Gamesradar Preview and new screenshots

*UPDATE* IGN have also added a side missions preview, they look at some different ones, including the following:

AVENGING ANGELS - Put an end to violence in Liberty City, help keep the streets safe.

SCOOTER SHOOTER - Toni and his friendly scooter driver have to take out as many targets as possible within three minutes. He drives, Toni shoots with a Tec-9 with unlimited ammo. Wreak havoc on targets within the city; get as many as you can before time expires.

BIKE SALESMAN - Show the customer exactly what that machine is capable of, but only show off the kind of ride they're looking for!

SEE THE SIGHTS BEFORE YOUR FLIGHT - Get a picture of the tourist in front of their favorite landmark, but make sure to get them back in time for their flight! Quality counts, great snapshots will be rewarded with extra cash.

They also have some new screenshots with their article.

Firstcom music recently announced the theme song for Liberty City Stories "March Popakov Remix".

FirstCom Music has announced that "March Popakov Remix," a FirstCom-licensed track written by John Cacavas and produced by Danger Mouse, was selected as the theme song for the video game Grand Theft Auto—Liberty City Stories. "We are very excited about this placement," says Sam Kling, vice president, Film and TV music for FirstCom. "We believe that FirstCom can bring a lot to the table in the way of quality music for the gaming industry. We are looking forward to expanding our presence in this market over the next year." In addition to theme placement in the video game, the remix will be featured in all television advertising for the game worldwide.

MTV.com also recently had their opportunity to play Liberty City Stories. Most interestingly from their preview is the info on the soundtrack for the game.

This "PSP" edition will feature 10 radio stations, including the return of the hip-hop Playback FM, featuring '90s stalwarts such as Mobb Deep and N.O.R.E. spun by New York's DJ Clue. Also on the dial are the franchise-familiar reggae-fest KJAH, stations for world music, classical and drum and bass, along with one devoted to the works of Giorgio Moroder, an influential electronic-music producer who also composed the soundtrack to 1984's "Flashdance." Two stations feature music entirely composed by Rockstar North, the developer of the console "GTA" titles. Another frequency is all talk, which will likely be the game's funniest.

Source: MixOnline

Preview: MTV.com

Tesco.com, the UK's largest supermarket retailer have revealed the rear box art for Liberty City Stories. Listed on their LCS product page, it's not high quality but we can make out a couple of new screenshots of the game.

Thanks to Neil for the news.

Also in LCS news, popular French gaming site GameKult have posted their article about fashion in Liberty City (translated as "Toni, Victim of fashion"), no new info but they do have a few new screens that weren't seen on the other big gaming sites previously. We'll be adding these screens to our database shortly.

IGN have posted a new article along with some new screenshots.

The article is short and literally just gives a very brief overview of five outfits Toni can wear. They are: Casual, Leone suit, Goodfellas, Antonio and Sweats. IGN's sister site Gamespy have also added a few new screenshots.So not very interesting information here but hopefully we'll get some from other sites later this week.

We haven't posted much about any of the total conversion mods that are in development for San Andreas at the moment. I thought I'd mention this one since the GTA scene is rather dead at the moment.

The 20 strong Dutch team behind Grand Tani Islands have released a video of what they've got in the game so far. And I must say it's quite impressive compared to some other TC's such as GTALVS which haven't got very much done yet, but these guys have.

Download the trailer from their website and tell us what you think. They are expecting the first beta version to be released some time during November.

Source: GTAGames.nl

IGN recently interviewed Gordon Hall, one of the founders of Rockstar Leeds. The interview is arguably better than the one with Frank Vincent, as Hall discusses some interesting things on how they managed to bring such a great and powerful game to the PSP. IGN have also posted 3 new screenshots.

Links: IGN Interview and new screenshots

Even though PEDS is my favourite show of all time, I completely forgot to post about it when it launched. Well it is never too late or too early to post about them and a good time to introduce it from this site is when they just released "Just A Short 4 - Hot Coffee".

Ok, so you might ask what the hell is PEDS? Well it is based on the popular Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and using the wonderfull art of machinima they create a TV series with pedestrians of the city. They are already at episode 8 and are becoming more and more popular in both the GTA world and the machinima community.

They recently released a short where the PEDS discuss some hot coffee (yes, you know what i'm talking about) which is totally funny . If you think you can do the same to what the great folks over at PEDS are doing, why not download Vice City and Liberty City studios over here . On their site you can download all episodes in both low and high resolution versions. If you are fortunate enough to be a PSP owner why not download the PSP formatted versions and watch it on there?

PEDS Video: Click here [ thanks Jordan ]

Wilbur Krinkle from The Netherlands emailed me a couple of days ago, he has compiled a gallery of photos comparing sights in San Andreas with what's seen in real-life. Interesting viewing if you haven't had the chance to see these places up close before.

Wilbur writes:

I've put together 3 picture gallery's comparing Los Santos, San Fierro and Las Venturas with their real-life counterparts Los Angelos, San Fransisco and Las Vegas. The gallery's provide a very good insight in the detailing Rockstar has put into San Andreas.

The URL of the website is http://sancal.lapu.nl

Kind regards

Wilbur Krinkle

In other news, we posted about the MTA Team releasing a "Quality Assurance" video the other day. They also released another one which we didn't mention, so head over to the MTASA Videos page to download Quality Assurance 2.

IGN has recently interviewed Frank Vincent, the voice of Don Salvatore Leone. They have also released 2 brand new videos.

This week the Official Playstation 2 in the UK and OPM previewed Liberty City Stories. Both of them had more or less the same info from their articles. They discuss some of the missions they got to play. One of them is where a priest orders Toni to go and kill a rapper, an actor and a music diva. The priest is most likely called "Father Ned" as they both talk about him further into their articles. OPS2 UK also named a brand new vehicle called the "Hellenbach GT". Mini missions like "Vigilante" will make a return in Liberty City Stories. OPS2 also suggests that Rockstar is lieing about the "no flyable vehicles" in the game. This is only what OPS2 thinks and not what Rockstar is saying.

We have also updated our screenshots page recently.

Links: IGN Interview and New Videos

The MTA Team has just released another video for their multiplayer mod for San Andreas MTA SA. The video shows what they have so far achieved with the racing part of the multiplayer mod. Visit the MTASA Video page to download the "Quality Assurance Video".

Links: Multi Theft Auto, MTA SA, MTA blog and MTA SA Videos

Take Two recently revealed the box art for their upcoming special edition of GTA: San Andreas on the Take2Store. This edition includes the full "M" rated San Andreas, the Introduction DVD and Rockstar's debut documentary film, Sunday Driver.

Rockstar Games is proud to present the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Special Edition. Packaged together with The Introduction and Sunday Driver - the highly anticipated film debut from Rockstar Games. The Special Edition is the complete San Andreas experience.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas- The Introduction

The 30 minute prequel tells the real story behind the legendary Grand Theft Auto series and features the full production value Rockstar is famous for. Look for some familiar faces making a surprise return.

Sunday Driver

An all-access documentary film of the people living the lifestyle and responsible for the artistry behind low riding - SUNDAY DRIVER is a portrait of a community working together to build the ultimate customized vehicles while struggling to legitimize their lifestyle under close scrutiny of the cops.

With an upfront look at the guys behind the chrome, SUNDAY DRIVER exposes the origins of the club, by describing in first person interviews, what it really means to be a Majestic. Dedicated to creating a vision of the ultimate modified automobile, the Majestics come together like no other community to help each other realize their dreams.

The GTA: San Andreas special edition will be released on October 18th in the US.

Links: Take 2 Store, IGN

Just had an email from Rockstar letting us know the official LCS website has been updated. There's loads more information on there now and new screenshots, downloads and audio.

And the long awaited second trailer is now online. Make sure you watch that.

There's also a page on the new multiplayer game modes we found out about earlier. Get Stretch and Liberty City Survivor are there, along with one we haven't heard about so far called Protection Racket. It seems that teams will be swapping between attacking and defending roles each round. Once the attackers have reached the defenders base, they must destroy the four limo's parked inside, after accomplishing that, the roles reverse and a new round begins.

There are 13 new screenshots on the site which I have added to our Gallery.

Two new teaser sites have also been launched, they are Bathtub Gin Still which we already knew about and Electron Zone Radio.

Some useful links:

Official website, WindowsMediaPlayer Trailer, QuickTime Trailer

*UPDATE* IGN have also put up a multiplayer preview plus new screens

That's right, Liberty City Stories will be the first console GTA game to properly feature a multiplayer mode.

The game will support up to six players at any one time, each game takes place on one of the islands. There will be seven game modes, two of which, 1UP got to play with.

Liberty City Survivor (you'll remember the GTA3 radio ad) is basically a Deathmatch. It can be played solo or team, and obviously the player/team with the most kills (or frags if you're an FPS gamer) is the winner.

Another game mode is Get Stretched, this is a version of Capture the Flag, except you'll be stealing the other teams' limousine!

They both contain a multitude of power ups that you might expect from a multiplayer game. These include mega damage, bullet-proof, radar invisibility etc.

We can assume from the article that these multiplayer modes will only be playable in Ad-hoc mode (with people nearby). It's not actually confirmed though so hopefully Rockstar will explain more at some point.

See 1UP.com's Multiplayer Preview for the full story.

And the 7 screens and 2 new artworks