You wanna get in on the hustle? OK ese, here's what you wanna do. Head to this place called the App Store; Gameloft is only asking $6.99 for their latest crime epic, Gangstar. It's a steal, homie! After that? You'll get the rest when you boot up the game. Comprende?
We hope you do, or else you'll be missing out on one of the most technically impressive games on the platform. It doesn't matter which device you have, from the 1st gen iPod touch to the iPhone 3GS, Gangstar runs smooth and never loads aside from a lengthy initial bootup, just like the Grand Theft Auto games on other platforms.
This is MY burgermobile.
In fact, if you've ever played those games, you'll know exactly what to expect from Gangstar. If we were judging based on innovation, it would score a big fat zero. It's a shameless imitation of the GTA games, from the mission structure to the sense of humor (although it's not quite as funny as those titles).
Luckily, GTA isn't on the iPhone, and Gangstar is a damn good imitation. The story missions are the main draw here, and there are a lot of them. The missions are pretty standard fare for the genre. You'll be instructed to follow targets without getting too close, kill thugs who messed with the wrong people and drop off "working girls" with their clients.
Over the course of the story you'll meet lots of different characters, starting with Mexican gangbangers and gradually expanding to include mafiosos, yakuza and politicians. The story is nicely done, although it doesn't offer anything groundbreaking. Most of the time you'll only have one option for the next mission, but at one point you'll be able to work concurrently for warring gangs, making progression a bit less linear.
Most of the missions can be completed in five to ten minutes, making them well suited to short bursts of play. The menu screen is especially convenient, because it allows you to launch any mission without having to drive all the way to the marker, saving you lots of tedious driving time. You can also buy health, guns and police bribes all from the menu. This makes an already easy game even easier, but keeps it from being frustrating.
The story will give you at least a solid five or six hours of play, and after that it's fun to just drive off of jumps and over pedestrians around town. Aside from that, there are a few race missions to complete and you can drop off food and passengers in the taxi, ambulance and delivery vehicle missions. There are also achievements to unlock as well, but no way to show them off to friends yet.
Just don't tell anybody I'm afraid of Ferris wheels, okay?
Unfortunately, messing with the police isn't as fun here as in the GTA games. You still have five wanted levels, but the police don't change their tactics at all. You won't be running into SWAT teams, FBI or the Army. A higher wanted level just takes longer to go down, and the cops are pretty easily defeated with any decent weaponry.
The game takes place in Los Angeles, and while we couldn't identify any landmarks, the city itself is big enough and the layout is conducive to driving at high speeds. It helps that small obstacles like trees and lightposts can be passed through freely without slowing or stopping you. Driving controls default to the accelerometer, but virtual steering wheel and joystick options are present. We strongly preferred the virtual joystick to the other options.
You'll use a virtual joystick for moving on foot as well, and swiping a finger across the screen will pan the camera. To target an enemy or vehicle, you just need to tap it to lock-on. Overall, gunplay felt remarkably easy, and most enemies go down before they can do much damage to you. There's no sprint or jump buttons, but the game controls well and stealing cars is easy.
The presentation here is a definite strong point. Gangstar has very little voice acting, but the character illustrations are well done, as are the menus. There are also about six radio stations for your listening pleasure, complete with radio banter and ridiculous commercials. The humor is a bit hit-or-miss, but if you don't find a station you like you can make your own with a custom playlist, which is an especially nice touch.
Graphically, the character models are standard iPhone fare, but the cityscape textures are surprisingly detailed up close. Unfortunately, anything more than 75 feet away devolves into a blurry mess, but at least you can see where you're going and the framerate is rock solid.
Overall, Gangstar is an amazing accomplishment on the iPhone. It's a blast to play, taking all the best parts of the GTA games and condensing them into a completely workable portable experience. For $6.99, this is a complete steal. We say buy it now.
15 Comments
Huh? Runs great? Man, mine absolutely sucks. I can't even play it without it freezing every 5-10 seconds. Also, I have a 2G iPod Touch no-jailbrake, on 3.0 software. Absolutely great game for sure but it'd be better without the freezing. What device did you guys you use in the video? Thanks.
-Slapshot
Did you try doing a full shutdown of your iPod Touch? Mine froze a couple of times, but mostly it's been running fine (on an iPhone 3G).
Yeah I tried and it got better. But it still does freeze every once in a while. Maybe I need to clean out my memory? I think I only have like...2/3d's of a GB left. Do you think that's interfering? Thanks!
-Slapshot
This games performance is really bad on first gens. I can run without hiccups, but the framerate is bad. I never freeze or lag on my first gen though. This is with a freshly restored first gen, restarted with wifi off to get max memory.
"If you're one of the few that didn't enjoy those titles"
I would argue that there are more people that don't enjoy open world crime games than do. Yes, GTA sells well... but even IV could not maintain the level of sales that nintendo does.... especially when you consider places other than the U.S., and IV was heralded as the greatest in the franchise. I think that these games are missing the universal appeal of say, a Mario.
Of course, I don't know why I latched on to that. I guess it just irks me when people assume that gamers are all GTA fans. Peace, good review.
I actually didn't much care for GTA-style games UNTIL GTA 4, which I really appreciated for its gritty realism. And I am playing the hell out Gangstar.
Runs perfect on my 3GS, although I know the device can handle more polygons- I wish the game had a mode for 3GS devices with a longer draw distance.
One thing I have noticed with the game is the Police are NEVER EVER shown UNTIL you shoot a few people and you get a flashing star to say you are wanted. How did the Police see you shoot people if they aren't around in the first place? The moment you get your flashing wanted star, you will suddenly see one or two Police men on foot and the roads are suddenly patrolled by Police cars. When you star goes, so do the Police. Disappointing.
What is also disappointing is the lack of ANYTHING to collect other than health and armour packs. There's nothing! One thing I loved about GTA was combing the nooks and crannies for those hidden packages that were always hidden in strange places. You could also find the odd sniper rifle etc. Having a city to explore on my iPhone is great, but there's not much point if there's nothing to look for.
Other than that, drive-by shooting is good fun, as is mowing down the odd pedestrian. Escaping the Police has been very easy so far (just find a hiding spot and wait, or collect the bribe icons located on your map). The missions have added variety but are easy so far too. Saying that, GTA 3 got too hard for me, so I shouldn't complain. I just wish there was more to collect on the map, have Police patrolling the streets even when you aren't wanted, and have a longer draw distance for 3GS devices.
The game seems to lack performance while w-lan is turned on.
If you want to assure best performance, get into airplane mode and free some memory with iStat.
With that done, the game is a pleasure to play!!! *loving it*
It's great to see that they packed good music in it. It really has a lot of features!
This is the review I posted for Gangstar on iTunes. Do you think gameloft will listen to my suggestions? Lol..
[QUOTE]I don't see why you are reading this review! Buy this game! This is much better then Payback and Car Jack Streets!
The perfect clone of GTA3.. It has excellent gameplay, it's lengthly, runs great on my first gen touch, and the controls are great!
However one small complaint. The map isn't really big. LA is huge but in the game it's just medium sized.
I have a perfect solution. In this solution gameloft makes money, they add to the game, and everyone's happy! I think they should add In App Commerce. Since they did most of the coding for people, cars, buildings, etc.. I think they should add an additional purchase of a new map. This would be Manhatten, New York. I'd say they should price it from $1.99 to $4.99... What do you think gameloft? I think it's perfect. Please include this in Gangstar.
Also I would love it if you had your own house/apartment/safehouse to put your cars there. Or, like in GTA IV, you should be able to buy clothes/suits and wear them. I wish you could use your money on other things.
Last suggestion, I think gameloft should add a more variety of cars In the game. Cars like clones of or just Lambos, Porches, and things that look sexy. And you should add boats (that would be nice), motorcycles (please), and helicopters (WOW!) lol.. There is a limited number, so add more cars please.
I'm givin this a 5/5 because of the hard wok and money put in the game. It is the best game on the app store. It's incredibly entertaining, has beautiful graphics, and excellent controls. Also te story's great. This Is must buy, and with all those suggestions added in, I don't see how this game could be contrasted with a PSP or PS2 version of GTA 3.. please listen to this review and add these things in gameloft. Thanks![/QUOTE]
What do you think?
The Free Memory programs on the iPhone is nothing but smoke and mirrors. Due to Apple's restrictions, all those can do is free up the cache memory, but programs that need that memory replace the needed memory anyways, the memory that stays after programs quick and junk is still in the system. Those free memory programs really are doing jack ****.
Even after restarting the game is choppy on my original 3.0 iPhone 3G. Not acceptable, and I want my money back. Giving it a 4/4 with those performance issues is just wrong.
Did you try putting on airplane mode like rima suggested?
I'm on a 3G, and it was choppy at first and it seemed to pause for 5-10 seconds after a certain amount of time. I resetted the device, and it did the same thing after I pushed the power button to turn off the screen...to, well get back to work, after I went back to it, was was freezing again.
Now the only time I play the game is after I reset the iPhone 3G and put it on airplane mode and the runs fine except for a instances where it gets choppy while driving fast...I just don't shut off the screen so it won't start getting problems, which kinda sucks and the fact that I can't take phone calls is simply unnacceptable for me and my work (now I only play late at night). I would give this game a 3/5 due to the performance issues, they really are annoying what you have to do so it doesn't get choppy or freeze.
This gets boring pretty quickly.
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