“Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars”
Genre: Third-person action-adventure
Developer: Rockstar Leeds
Publisher: Rockstar Games
Platform: Nintendo DS
ESRB rating: “M” for mature
Price: $34.99
Grade: A-

Up to now, the chief problem with Nintendo DS titles has been their presentation: a lot of games are either corny or cartoony and fail to maximize the full potential of the handheld’s dual processors. I think DS has suffered from this somewhat and isn’t perceived as a serious gaming tool.

Maybe “Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars” will help change perceptions.

I know, I know — this sounds odd coming from someone who thinks the GTA series as a whole is somewhat hokey. I never gleaned much enjoyment from watching itinerant street thugs tearing around their virtual town seeking something to do. The challenges bordered on boring, and the plots have left me restless and uninspired. (Maybe because my own thuggish behavior as a youth waned from disinterest.)

However, that didn’t diminish my belief in GTA’s overall quality as a vibrant, visually arresting series that improved with each installment. I enjoyed watching each edition more than playing them and dragged myself from scene to scene mainly to see what there was to see, not so much for what there was to do.

“Chinatown Wars” had the same effect; I kept on playing with a measure of awe at the proceedings — the rich colors, the smooth movements and attention to detail — in part because I could not get over the fact a DS Lite was doing all the work.

Yes, “Chinatown Wars” is two-dimensional the way GTA was in its early days — there’s only so much detail that fits on the small screen — but you see the chinked walls, broken glass, blowing trash and characters’ facial expressions in a way rarely presented by other games for DS. The result: “Chinatown Wars” is an experience as much as a game.

“Chinatown Wars” brings gamers back to the same Liberty City they’ve come to love and loathe, but this time the protagonist is a rich-kid smart-aleck named Huang Lee charged with bringing a family heirloom to the gangster types in return for some measure of respect. Lee doesn’t get far before he and the heirloom are separated and Lee’s future looks bleak, but GTA’s plots never have been that simple, have they? After Lee receives a rude welcome, players are introduced to the machinations of Liberty City’s overseers, the Triad crime syndicate, and then receive lessons in how to maintain the city’s thriving drug trade.

The DS screens offer two views of the action, with the top screen providing angles only a weather helicopter might manage. But the ground-level detail in the lower screen will grab your attention and the silly chores assigned through each step of the game will keep it there.

You’ll learn fast that, apparently, there’s an art to throwing Molotov cocktails from several stories up, disabling pursuit cars and eluding police. Negotiating with drug dealers is an important skill to master, too. This made sense to me after finding it very difficult to shoot guns accurately by aiming them with the DS’ stylus, a flaw I attribute to the game mechanics and not my jittery hand.

Then again, I’d like to think it’s not a flaw. Rarely is there a situation where you’ll be better served in “Chinatown Wars” by shooting it out rather than talking, skulking or flat out running away. Your mind, not a machine gun, turns out to be the best weapon.

And so, yes, maybe this time I actually liked a GTA tale, especially on the DS, a console that could use a few more rich gaming experiences like this one.