Picked this up (GTA1/GTA2 lover and GTA4 semi hater here), game is awesome.
Its old school meets new school meets even newer school.
Love the 2D/3D look. In fact, I can't believe how good this game looks in motion. You can't tell by watching videos on the web but this is probably the best looking game on ds. Touch screen options are excellent and not intrusive to the experience. In fact they add to them. I was doing some ambulence missions, and if you go to fast or hit another car it can speed up the heart rate of a patient and they can flat line killing them. If they start to flatline you need to shock their heart back to beating by tapping quickly on the heart symbol on the touch screen to revive them!
The one aspect of the recent GTAs which did carry over is the storyline telling, which is nice since the storytelling is one of the strongest aspects of recent GTA games. Thankfully the story is more light hearted and I enjoy this aspect than the machismo storylines of the console games. Definitely an M rate game too, throwing F bombs left and right in the story. :lol No voice acting, but this doesn't bother me too much.
The sound effects in game are pretty good too. My car was on fire so I hopped out, and it ran into another car and exploded. Two characters inside the car jump out on fire running around and screaming...crawling the ground screaming some more, then getting up screaming and then going EH, falling to the ground dead. In a console 3D this wouldn't seem too funny, but seeing those cartoon style 3D characters running around screaming on fire was hilarious. :lol
I like seeing a bigger map on the bottom screen, easy use at setting waypoints. PDA functionality is awesome too. Captures the style of the console GTA games while being its own thing, and a better experience overall. I agree with the person who said this is more similar gameplay style to GTA3. It mixes gameplay of GTA2 and GTA3 together in a top down perspective with mixing the storyline capabilities of GTA4 in a more light hearted nature. Perhaps after I finish this I'll give GTA4 another chance, but I don't feel like going on any more damn dates!