Some new gameplay footage of Rockstar Games’s upcoming DS title, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, has been released via Gametrailers.com. The new footage features drug dealing and delivering elements of the GTA: CW, which represents one of the few mature games to be released on the platform since its debut in November of 2004.

Chinatown Wars makes necessary stylistic changes from its predecessors due to the graphical restraints imposed by the DS as compared to the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and PC, opting for a more animation-like, cell-shaded approach. True fans of the genre shouldn’t feel alienated though, as the visual style and overhead perspective is strikingly similar to the first two games of the GTA series, released on the PC and original Playstation. While neither of the original two games made use of 3D rendering, their bright palette and usage of sprites shares a close resemblance to the look (and feel) of GTA: CW.

Also worth nothing, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars seems to actually make good use of the Nintendo DS stylus, unlike most games featured on the portable unit. While often serving as an inventory screen and HUD, the game also uses the dual screen setup to provide different perspectives of the main character. For instance, in the video we see the top screen featuring the normal gameplay angle, a top-down view, while the bottom screen is in first-person mode, allowing for close-up inspection and manipulation of objects in the immediate vicinity of the character (such as slicing open a secret compartment in a car door to reveal a hidden drug stash).

Often skeptical of “dumbed down” titles ported to the technologically inferior Nintendo consoles (Dead Rising, Dead Space: Extraction, etc), Chinatown Wars appears to take an intelligent approach towards adding to the series instead of simply trying to emulate it. Looks like I might have to steal borrow my fiancé’s DS for a couple of weeks later this month.

GTA: Chinatown Wars is scheduled to be released on March 17.

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