It must be tough being a game developer. All that work and only ten percent of people will actually play your game through to the end. Weeks spent on that big plot twist, that unique character design, that carefully engineered level and only a tenth of the buggers who bought the game will ever see it. 

I'm certainly guilty of leaving a ton of games unfinshed. But who could blame me? With Steam sales, flash games and cheap as chips mobile games I've gorged on the ubiquity of cheap entertainment. I'll take a big juicy bite but the leave the rest of the dish unfinished, quickly moving to the next course as if games where dishes at a classy Chinese buffet. As with that Chinese buffet I also suffer the regret of over indulgence. In my desire to sample all there is to offer could I have missed the subtle nuances each dish wished to offer my palette. Should I not return to that Chinese restaurant and order... Hang on, I'm confusing myself. I was talking about finishing video games.

So here's the deal. I'll pick a game I haven't finished (but have put at least a few hours into) and try to finish it in a week. Then I'll write about the experience because it might be interesting. Or something.

Anyway, first up for The Finisher - Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars.

First released on the Nintendo DS in 2009 I didn't pick it until its release on the iPhone. The game essentially takes the same mechanics of the more recent series but returns to a top down view from the first couple of iterations. You zip around a cut down version of GTA IV's Liberty City doing missions for a variety of dubious characters that usually involve car chases, blowing things up and other acts of extreme violence. As usual for GTA games the city is alive with things to do. Side missions, collectables and punching strangers in the street join a plethora of distractions. I sunk a good few hours into the game when I first go it, hunched over my phone ignoring friends and family. Yet for some reason I stopped playing it.

Firing it up again I'm a little shocked to find I've only completed 25% of the game and according to the wonderfully detailed Stats screen I've put less that half a dozen hours into it. Really? It felt like a hell of a lot more.

Maybe it was the drugs. Man when I was playing this I was way into the drugs.

By which course I mean I was sucked into the drug dealing side game.

Using the sample principle that made Elite so compulsive in the 80s (that would be capitalism) you can scoot around the city buying drugs from one stereotype and flog 'em to another for a tidy profit. Oh look, Macca just emailed me to say he's got a load of heroin he needs to get rid of in a hurry. No worries Macca, happy to help, although is it really a good idea to email me about these things? Never mind, Markoolio just emailed to say he's got a high paying buyer looking to chase the dragon. Taxi!

(Just a quick aside here - despite, in principle, finding all the GTA games great, I'd never actually completed one until GTA IV. The reason is because I never really enjoyed driving around the city. In GTA IV I could just hire a cab an fast travel to where I wanted to be, something that thankfully is carried over to Chinatown Wars.)

But no it's wasn't the drugs. This side game is very distracting but it is also very easy to build up a large amount of cash just by pelting about the city meeting blokes in dodgy alley ways. (And why always blokes? Are there no women drug dealers in Liberty City? In fact aren't all the people I've interacted with so far men? Whasallthatabout Rockstar?)

Now when I fire the game up I'm instantly reminded that I stopped playing because I was stuck on a mission. A mission that I had vague memories of being a touch tricky. However this time I whizz through it on my first attempt.

With this out of the way I decide to focus on working my way through the main missions. The main plot is pretty silly, something about getting a sword back, and involves comic strip cut scenes of various levels of funny. The missions though are pleasantly varied, every other one introducing some new mechanic and I get through them at a fast pace.

So why didn't I finish this before? There is without a doubt some effort invested in this game. As I rack up another stack of dead NPCs I wonder why I stopped playing in the first place. These missions are fun! Each one different enough to not induce boredom, each one just on the right side of challenging. New ways of playing and new tools of destruction are opened up with pleasing regularity and my large reserves of drug cash mean I never feel like I'm being deliberately held back.

Then I find my progression closed down to a single mission. I evidently need to get through this stage to move the story on.

But I just can't do it. I have to chase after some chap in a fast car and run him off the road. I try again and again but repeatedly fail. Then it begins to click.

GTA games, at their heart, have been about driving. Its in the name for flips sake. While this works fine (almost) when you have physically controls to use, the limitations of a touch screen quickly come apparent. Yes I can career around the city in a fast car and get to where I need to be. Unfortunately when timing and chasing is involved my clumsy appendages just can't handle the virtual controls required on a touch screen.

Drive, chase, fail. Drive, chase, fail. The end of my week is upon me and looking at the stats I've gone from 25% completion to 37%. I'm not going to finish this one any time soon.

While I failed on my first attempt to finish a game I've defiantly learnt something. Chinatown Wars is without a doubt a well polished, rich involving game. I would love to play it with some physical controls such as on the DS or PSP. On iOS it will always be crippled by the touch interface. Don't get me wrong - this is a great game and where they take advantage of the touch screen is brilliant. When it comes down to it though, a game that relies too heavily on skillful driving is never going to feel comfortable on a touch screen.

So I didn't finish. Yet there is the hope in the back of my mind that I will come back to it and give it another go. The effort put into developing the game alone demands that I do. For the moment this is the closest we'll get to a full on GTA experience in our pockets. If this exercise has taught me one thing it's that a bit of a break can make those tricking driving sections a bit easier to get through.

So, I failed this one. Next time: Alpha Protocol.