My Ayn Thor arrived smack bang in the middle of May, right as I was pretty deep into my run through the Nintendo Wii. It’s been a ripper handheld so far and with two OLED screens on board, it felt like the right time to finally close out one of the bigger gaps in my Grand Theft Auto history. I’ve played every major release since the original when it launched on PC and I can still navigate the 3D universe with my eyes closed. But Chinatown Wars always eluded me. Wrong console at the wrong time, I guess? Life only got busier, as is tradition and it just became one of those games I told myself I’d get to… eventually. And finally, here I am. My only real experience with Chinatown Wars was leaning over someone’s shoulder watching them play it on the original Nintendo DS years ago, kinda just nodding along with no idea what was really happening on either screen. Completely oblivious to what it actually was beyond carrying the Grand Theft Auto name. Well, this time I’m armed with an overpowered dual-screen monster and less time than I’d like, but Liberty City was waiting for me across two screens and I was ready to roll.
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars was released by Rockstar Leeds and Rockstar North in 2009. Unlike the 3D universe, Chinatown Wars for the Nintendo DS marks the series return to its top-down roots. The game is set in Liberty City, based on the version introduced in Grand Theft Auto IV. We follow Triad member Huang Lee as he travels to Liberty City to deliver the Yu Jian Sword to his uncle, Wu “Kenny” Lee. The sword is a family heirloom, won by his father in a card game, who was recently murdered in Kowloon. Before he reaches his uncle, Huang’s escort is ambushed and murdered with the sword being stolen in the process. Huang survives and soon finds himself getting dragged into his uncle’s drug trade while three elder Triads kinda circle each other, battling it out to succeed the aging Triad boss, Hsin. A bent cop under investigation by internal affairs, Wade Heston, offers to help believing that he may be able to use Huang to clear his own name. Together they spend a good portion of the game trying to hunt down a mole within the Triads, only to be plagued by fake leads and a mafioso trying to send Huang down the wrong path. Along the way, Huang works with a private investigator and anyone who’s willing to help to find out the truth. It sounds like a lot and it is a lot. Where it all lands, I’ll leave for you to find out.
Chinatown Wars breaks away from the 3D universe and returns to a top-down isometric style reminiscent of the original Grand Theft Auto games. I last revisited the originals back in 2024 when I finished GTA2 and with a mod or two it’s a really good experience. Rockstar pushed the Nintendo DS hardware to make that old perspective feel brand new, almost like a cross between the originals and the 3D universe rather than a straight up throwback. Stealing a car isn’t just a button prompt here. You’ve gotta work for it by matching and connecting wires together to hotwire old bangers or tapping through an immobiliser hack on newer cars and it’s satisfying every single time. The drug dealing system throws me back to when I was messing around with Drug Wars on old scientific calculators in high school. You know the one. Buy low, sell high and watch the prices shift while the cops circle. Planting bugs on phones and rigging up explosives adds another layer of touchscreen busywork that somehow never actually feels like busywork. None of this would hit quite as hard without Rockstar making proper use of both screens, rather than treating one like a glorified afterthought. Liberty City lives on top while your PDA, map and tools of the trade sit below, with the whole package working together perfectly. Keep in mind, this is an M-rated game with drug dealing mechanics and gang executions on what was largely a console marketed to kids at the time. Rockstar didn’t soften a single edge. It might be the best game the system ever got.
If there was ever a game built to prove that a dual-screen Android handheld has a reason to exist, it’s this one. Chinatown Wars was already doing some pretty neat things with two screens on the original Nintendo DS and that design translates to the Ayn Thor without missing a beat. Running it through MelonDS upscaled on both OLED screens already looks fantastic, but adding widescreen hacks almost turns it into something that doesn’t even feel like a DS game anymore. It’s a bit surreal seeing this version of Liberty City stretched across a screen that wide while the bottom screen still handles the PDA, map and interactive minigames exactly as it always did. Using the touchscreen for hotwiring, drug deals and planting bugs feels just as immersive as it would have on the real deal back in 2009, maybe even moreso with how crisp and responsive the Thor’s bottom panel is. It’s worth remembering just how impressive this game was when it launched. Rockstar managed to squeeze a fully functioning GTA with unique features onto hardware that couldn’t even properly render a fully 3D city and it still holds up today. Playing it in 2026 on the Thor doesn’t just preserve the experience, it actually improves on it. Sharper screens, cleaner resolution and the same touch-first design that made it special in the first place. It’s just finally running on hardware that can truly do it justice.
The story has enough twists and turns to feel like a proper Grand Theft Auto. Betrayal, double crossings and someone close to the main character turning out to be exactly who you didn’t expect by the end. It’s not going to blow you away with its writing, but it does the job and manages to keep you guessing into the final act. The lack of voice acting is noticeable off the bat and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss it. The 3D universe leaned heavily on its cast to sell the tone. Rockstar instead opted for a comic book style presentation for the cutscenes with still frames, dramatic angles and the occasional wink or nod tossed in for good measure. Surprisingly, it works far better than you might expect. Turns out, full voice acting isn’t required when the panels themselves are doing an unreal job of telling the story. The cel-shaded look ties the whole thing together and wasn’t purely a style choice either, it’s actually what let the Nintendo DS render Liberty City without buckling under the sheer weight of it. It’s a clever blend of technical necessity and artistic direction rolled into one. What really stands out is how the camera blends the franchise’s two eras together. It’s not a locked top-down view like the first two games and it’s not the familiar over the shoulder perspective from the 3D trilogy either. What we’ve got here is a fully rotatable, isometric camera that somehow captures both, giving you a classic arcade feel while still letting Liberty City breathe like a proper city. It’s the only GTA to ever look quite like this and it’s better for it.
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is one of those rare times where a spin-off really earns its place alongside the main releases rather than living in their shadow. Rockstar found a way to blend the series’ top-down origins with the personality and ambition of the 3D era while making full use of the Nintendo DS in ways few developers ever managed. The touchscreen mechanics, unique cel-shaded visual style and surprisingly engaging story all come together to deliver something that still feels fresh nearly twenty years on. This could have easily been a basic, stripped down, portable GTA but instead it feels like a game built around the strengths of the hardware it launched on. That’s a big reason why so many of its ideas still hold up and playing it on the Ayn Thor only highlights how well the game has aged. Between the dual OLED screens, higher resolution and faithful touchscreen controls, this ended up being the best possible way to experience a GTA game I’d missed out on for years. Chinatown Wars may have started as a bit of a handheld experiment, but it deserves to be remembered as one of the strongest games in the entire series. Seventeen years it took me and all I’m left wondering is why I waited so damn long to play it.
Verdict:
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars proves that a handheld spin-off can stand tall alongside the series’ biggest releases. Rockstar managed to squeeze an incredibly ambitious GTA onto the Nintendo DS without compromising what makes the franchise great and nearly twenty years later it still feels fresh.
Thor Compatibility: 10/10
Overall Game Rating: 9.5/10 – Handheld GTA Rules
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