Lego City Stories Is Not A Lego GTA

I have read multiple articles on reactions to LEGO's newly announced game, Lego City Stories, that directly compare it to Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto series. I would like to clear this up, before people simply write this off as a childish GTA clone.

First of all, Grand Theft Auto III was the game that made the series go big-time; it revolutionized the genre, and set the standards for many a gaming experience in the years after its release. Several months before it came out, however, a little game called Lego Island 2 was released (I have been meaning to post an essay about how great it is, but that will come later). Lego Island 2, to an extent, was somewhat of a free-roaming adventure as well. The game would let you freely roam around between missions, but more areas unlocking as the player progressed with the story. There were multiple collectibles to encourage exploration, as well. The player can also drive vehicles in the game; there are different cars, boats (although the player can swim), and even helicopters. The player also has the ability to whip out a skateboard at any time and ride around. These features were not implemented to the degree with which they were in GTA III, but nonetheless, they were there.

Lego City Stories, however, indeed seems to take even its name from the PSP titles Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories. So, I could be wrong, and perhaps exactly what LEGO wants to do is make a GTA clone. I suppose we'll find out once we're given more screenshots and some videos. For those of you who are new to my blog or missed it, the Lego City Stories reveal at E3 can be found here:

http://unchartedgaming.blogspot.com/2011/06/lego-city-stories-coming-to-3ds-and-wii.html

My personal advice is simply to give LEGO the benefit of the doubt, as they have made fantastic games in the past that no one has ever heard of.