Both Grand Theft Auto and Grand Theft Auto II were games that had stationary, overhead third-person camera.  This made porting the games to any platform imaginable rather effortless.  When it was announced that Rockstar games had another Portable GTA game coming to the Nintendo DS, many questions were raised.

While not all of the questions have been answered, some details have began to make their way to the masses.  NintendoEverything.com had an article discussing several exclusive features of the game that have been found in a Spanish game magazine.  Here is a rundown of what we know so far:

• The player will have control of a camera that can rotate a full 360 degrees.
• Much like GTA III and IV, there will be a fully realized city featuring pedestrians, traffic and even trains.
• A GPS unit will track your progression on the DS touch screen.
• Like the cell phone in GTA IV, a PDA will have the full map and show locations of missions throughout the city.
• Players will be able to set waypoints on the map for easier navigation.
• Locations will be added to the map as you discover them through the course of the game.
• The DS top screen will show all of the action, while the lower screen will be the home for the map, GPS, PDA and weapon selection.
• Selling drugs will take precedence in the game, utilizing a Drugwars-like minigame component.
• In a neat twist, you will be able to hail a taxi by whistling into the DS microphone

In more rumor related content, the same site is saying that most of the GTA IV map of Liberty City may be making a return appearance for Chinatown Wars.  The image at right is translated to supposedly say the following:

“Even though many people believed that Chinatown Wars would develop only in the Chinese neighborhood the game uses nearly the whole map that appears in GTA IV. The districts that appear are: Dukes (Queens), Bohan (Bronx), Broker (Brooklyn) and Algonquin (Manhattan). The only neighborhood from GTA IV that doesn’t appear is Alderney (Jersey City).” — NintendoEverything.com

I am very interested to see if this actually comes true, because there is only so much space on a Nintendo DS cartridge. If in fact this does happen, there may be a strong contingency of folks hoping to catch a cameo or two from Mr. Niko Belic. That would be one of the best cross-promotions ever!