The prospect of a full-fledged Grand Theft Auto game on a handheld is an exciting one. It’s also a dangerous undertaking as well. Succeed, and you’re hailed as a hero. Fail, and you’ve got a fan base of over a million gamers to answer to, many of whom are (at least if the media is to be believed) prone to sudden snaps of violence.

Grand Theft Auto’s jump to the PSP comes with the same impact as the series' jump to the PS2. GTA: Liberty City Stories hits the portable system in full 3D and takes advantage of everything the system has to offer. In fact, the presentation is so good that it even manages to outshine GTA 3 in many, if not all aspects. GTA: LCS still has the series trademark art style (complete with giant hands), though the level of detail is more inline with something between Vice City and San Andreas. Animations are incredibly smooth… well, I could go on but I’ll just leave you with this: The game looks incredible.

The game’s voice cast isn’t as star-studded as previous installments, though it really doesn’t matter much. Voice work is really well done and conveys the personalities of each character well. About 10 radio stations are included, adding just one more impressive feat to the game’s already long list. A number of genres are available, including rock, rap and even talk radio. And, if it just happens that you can’t find something you like on the radio, Rockstar has made a program available on their website that will allow you to add your own music collection onto your PSP for use in-game. So, if you feel that the musical talents of Ryan Cabrera have gone unnoticed by Rockstar, you can now fix their oversight.

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories brings the series back to where it all started, Liberty City. Set sometime before GTA 3, the game puts you in the role of Toni Cipriani, who showed up as a character in GTA 3. The game begins with Toni finding himself in the unenviable position of lapdog for the Leone family as reward for pulling the Leone's asses out of the fire. Of course, Toni is not welcomed back to the flock with open arms and he's forced to endure all kinds of menial tasks while slowly working his way back up to the top.

Liberty City Stories doesn't stray too far from the traditional GTA gameplay formula. Again, this is the full GTA experience, complete with side jobs like selling cars and taxi fares, rage missions, hidden objects and even a few mini-games. Or, if structured gameplay isn't your thing, you can spend hours just roaming the city and seeing how much trouble you can cause. The game's scope is actually somewhere between GTA 3 and Vice City, so there's actually a little more to do in Liberty City Stories. You'll once again find yourself rolling through the streets taking jobs from the wretched hive of scum and villainy that help to make Liberty City such a nice place to live. You'll take jobs from members of several crime families, a few small-time thugs and even your mother, whose relationship with her son makes for some of the more humorous moments in the game given Toni's never-ending quest to gain her affection.

Mission lengths are much shorter than the ones found in other GTA games, making it one of the only significant changes to the overall formula. Shorter missions mean that you can squeeze in more game time in the shorter gaming sessions portable systems usually present. It also helps you to get in more game time on the PSP's battery since the game tends to drain it pretty quickly.

One of the few chinks in the overall experience is that it isn't exactly that portable friendly. Yes, missions are shorter, but everything else stays the same. A big issue is the lack of save points. At the beginning of the game, the only save point is Toni's apartment, which takes some driving to get to if you're on the opposite side of the city. Naturally, more save points will open as the game progresses, but it's just a little too much to go find the save point if you have to leave quickly. A "quick-save" option really would have helped in this instance since the PSP's Sleep Mode still drains battery life.

One element nearly every GTA fan has wanted was multiplayer and Liberty City Stories finally gives it to them. Multiplayer matches take place in Ad Hoc mode and include Deathmatches, races and other assorted games for up to six people. I wasn't able to spend time in these modes, so I can't personally vouch for how well they are done, however according to second-hand information, they turned out reasonably well.

Missions start out easy and slowly ramp up in difficulty depending on how far up the criminal ladder you've climbed. Shorter mission times also help since you feel like you're doing much more than you really are. Also, even the more difficult missions never feel dragged out, keeping them from becoming too frustrating (such as GTA 3's "Checkpoint Charlie" mission that still to this day ranks as one of my all-time most frustrating gaming moments). You'll also need the slowly developing difficulty to help you become accustomed to the game's control scheme, which can be a little dodgy at first try.

Again, revisiting the "non-portable friendly" issue, once you fail a mission, you are forced to start from the beginning. If you're busted or killed, a taxi will spawn to bring you back to the mission start point, but even then you're without essentials like guns, armor or a ride, so it seems almost pointless at time and adds a tinge of frustration to the experience.

Aiming is a problem that has faced nearly every GTA game since 3 and it seems as though Liberty City Stories may have finally fixed it. Both long and short-range attacks benefit from a lock-on system that is activated by pressing the R button. The system feels a little odd at first, but you'll grow accustomed to it after your third or fourth firefight. And, by the end of the game, you'll wonder how you made it through the other three games without it. Driving also requires a certain amount of patience to become fully acclimated to it. Once again, the PSP's analog nub proves to be a slightly harder beast to tame than a traditional analog stick. While on foot, it works out reasonably well, though driving proves to be a little slippery at first. Expect to find yourself careening into walls often early on. Still, like everything else, you'll get used to it quickly.

Even more surprising than the game’s ability to squeeze the entire GTA experience into a handheld is that it does it without massive load times, something that was a major concern of mine when I had first heard that the game was being developed. Load times pop up with the frequency of the last three games and last about as long. After a first initial load time (which is a under a minute), the only load times you’ll have to deal with are short 15 second ones after movies and 5 second ones when entering/exiting a building. Compared to other games on the PSP, this isn’t bad at all and means you’ll get to spend more time playing – which, again, is a good thing, because the game does put a drain on the system’s battery.

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories is about all anyone could ask for in a handheld version of the game. It looks better than GTA 3 and plays as well as all three games combined. Even on the technical side, the game manages to impress, making it a great example of just how powerful the PSP really is. Though it has some portability issues, Liberty City Stories is still a game worth buying a PSP for.