Getting my hands on a PS2 copy of Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories was harder than I thought it would be. The lengthy wait was worth it, though, and as I gently pulled the box out of its plastic shipping wrap, I could pretend for a moment that it was 2006 again.
I last played Liberty City Stories on my brother's PSP some baffling 19 years ago, the bite-size prequel to GTA 3 that returns players to the mean, mafia-run streets of Liberty City, this time as low-level Leone family devotee Toni Cipriani. Zipping down the streets past smooth textured, angular apartment blocks might not be the most high fidelity adventure the Rockstar series has to offer, but it's a glimpse back to a sillier time when these games benefited from a much lighter touch in general. I don't expect GTA 6 to have this level of immaturity, but maybe there's something to be said about how GTA has always done a brilliant job of making mundane things outrageous – and the other way round.
