Most of Liberty City, and not just Chinatown, will make the jump to Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (DS).

A feature in Nintendo Power magazine explains that four of Liberty City's five boroughs will fit in the handheld mayhem sim in the works at Rockstar Leeds. Alderney, the New Jersey-esque mafioso suburbia, is sitting out while Dukes, Bohan, Broker and Algonquin will be playable.

In addition to being land-rich, Chinatown Wars will be feature-filled as well. A cel-shaded Liberty City will be viewable through a 360-degree rotating camera, though the perspective will be primarily top-down. The world will be populated with pedestrians and vehicles, just like the game's console cousins.

Aside from being used for hotwiring and drug-dealing mini-games, the touch screen will serve as a PDA, which can be used for emails, showing the map, GPS navigation, controlling the radio, and statistics, which can be uploaded over the DS' Wi-Fi connection.

"This has the full weight and energy of a GTA production," said producer Dan Houser in an interview with the magazine.

All that scope and ambition has carried a price, as publisher Take-Two announced last week that Chinatown Wars has been delayed until between February 1 and April 30 of next year.

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick let slip during a presentation in New York that both Grand Theft Auto 4's Xbox 360-exclusive downloadable content and Rockstar Leeds' Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (DS) are facing delays.

On the DLC front, MTV Multiplayer quoted Zelnick as saying, "It's close to being complete. That said, it may move into the second quarter." Take-Two's Q2 starts on February 1, which could place the DLC well beyond the fall 2008 target.

Zelnick's statement puts an even longer hypothetical delay on the DLC than that of producer Sam Houser, who expressed uncertainty this week whether the added content would reach the Xbox Live Marketplace this year. Currently, that DLC is expected in Take-Two's current quarter, which runs from November to January.

As for the Nintendo DS' first iteration in the hijacking-happy action series, Kotaku has Zelnick on the record with the following: "Chinatown Wars we've decided to move out of the first quarter in order to fill out a better launch and marketing window. The title will ship in the first half of our fiscal year."

The executive pegs Chinatown Wars for Take-Two's fiscal Q2, which means the drug-dealing handheld title is expected between February 1 and April 30, 2009.

The first digital screenshots of Rockstar Leed's Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars have debuted via Edge, showing off numerous aspects of the first GTA on Nintendo DS.

The screenshots include images of hotwiring a car with a screwdriver, tattoo inking and drug dealing, along with the series' standard predilection towards chaos. The game is slated to hit retailers by January 31, 2009.

In addition, Rockstar revealed several new mini-games, such as one that has players aiming a gas pump with the stylus to bottle and make a Molotov cocktail. Another will see players punching out the rear window of a car that's rapidly sinking in water.

"Nintendo wanted us to make GTA...they didn't want us to make a GTA for kids," Rockstar creative VP Dan Houser explained earlier this year. "[Grand Theft Auto] can't be softened to make it family-friendly--that's not the game we're making. We've never not done well by sticking to our guns."

The forthcoming Nintendo DS debut of Rockstar's oft-controversial Grand Theft Auto franchise will allow players to sell a variety of real-life drugs for in-game profit, according to a CVG report citing the latest issue of print magazine Edge.

When Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars arrives before February 2009, Nintendo DS owners will be able to traffic six types of drugs--heroin, cocaine, weed, ecstasy, acid and downers--to their in-game counterparts as supply and demands shapes the market.

"We wanted to have a drug-dealing mini game in lots of the GTA games," Rockstar creative VP Dan Houser explained. "We played with it a little in Vice City Stories, because it worked really well juxtaposed with the main story."

"Nintendo wanted us to make GTA...they didn't want us to make a GTA for kids," Houser added in a separate report on Edge Online. "[Grand Theft Auto] can't be softened to make it family-friendly--that's not the game we're making. We've never not done well by sticking to our guns."

Rockstar cofounder Dan Houser downplayed chances of a Wii entry in its megahit Grand Theft Auto series, saying it "didn't feel natural" compared to the opportunity to make a Nintendo DS game.

"It really was that the DS felt like it had a lot of interesting challenges that would be totally different from what we'd done in the past," Houser told Nintendo Power as relayed by Nintendo Everything. The stylus and the chance to use minigames in that way was really interesting and exciting to us, and we thought we could integrate seamlessly between those two modes."

"And it would be the chance to make something really good on a handheld with our handheld-focused team," he added. Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, in development for the DS, is being handled by Rockstar Leeds, which previously produced the Liberty City Stories and Vice City Stories games for the PSP.

Publisher Take-Two, for its part, continues to keep quiet on a Wii version of the hijack-happy action game, but CEO Ben Feder refused to shut that door entirely. "GTA: Chinatown Wars is an important step ...and we intend to continue to grow that relationship [with Nintendo]," he said.

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, the Nintendo DS entry in Rockstar's infamous action series, will arrive in retailers between November 1, 2008 and January 31, 2009, publisher Take-Two Interactive revealed today.

Take-Two CEO Ben Feder briefly mentioned the release window, which represents the first quarter of the company's 2009 fiscal year, during a conference call today. At the time of the title's announcement, Take-Two noted that the game would arrive this winter, but did not provide any further details.

Rockstar Leeds, the company behind previous handheld GTA games Liberty City Stories and Vice City Stories, will handle the effort. The company also plans to use the Nintendo DS console's unique features, such as its touch screen, to aid players in their hijacking hijinks.

Nintendo has announced that Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars will be arriving on the Nintendo DS this winter.

The company explained that the game was specially designed for the handheld, and takes place in Liberty City.

Rockstar Games later revealed that the game is in development at Rockstar Leeds -- the company that also handled the PSP titles Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories and Vice City Stories -- and that the DS touch screen will be used for navigating through the game.