Gang$tar: West Coast Hustle

[Tiny Omar]

Gang$tar West Coast Hustle First Impressions



TouchArcade Preview: http://toucharcade.com/2009/07/22/ha...-coast-hustle/

Ok, I've spent a short amount of time with this game so far today, enough to complete 4 or 5 of the first missions, run around getting into fights, shooting pedestrians, running over and running from the cops. Here are my first impressions.

First and foremost this is a very well done game. The graphics are more impressive in motion than any screenshot can fully detail. The game runs totally smooth on my 8gig 3G iPhone. The initial load time is a bit slow, but that's a fair trade off if you ask me.

The controls work well for me, not perfect, but well enough. For driving I'm using the tilt control with the slider bar to accelerate and stop. I find I can more accurately control the speed of the vehicle with this setup and that is helping make it easier to get the hang of the steering. I would like to see some options to adjust the sensitivity, but it's by no means a deal breaker.

The auto targeting system works well. I haven't had any problems holding my own in gunfights. I even took out a whole group of cops with just my pistol by blowing up a nearby car. Sweet!

Escaping from the rest of the cops that showed up turned out to be difficult. Once you get a few stars they come at you pretty strongly. But that's the same with any other GTA game as well. Eventually you'll develop tried and true strategies for a quick getaway based around your knowledge of the city layout.

The city does look somewhat small on the mini-map compared to any other gta style game, however without spending more time with the game it's much too early to make these judgments. Just that fact that you can go onto the building roofs will expand the available play area beyond the streets you see on the map. Plus, if the game-play and story manages to be compelling throughout, this won't matter that much anyway.

Flipping through the available menus reveals a ton of achievements to unlock which will add to the replay value nicely. There are things like stunt jumps, number of kills made, how many different types of cars stolen etc... that the game tracks for you and rewards you for. It also has a nice detailed statistics page where you can see how many kills you've made (so far 20 for me), % of game you've completed, how much money you've earned etc... All in all these extra features are a very nice touch.

So far the standard missions have been pretty typical and easy, a good way to introduce you to the game. I do hope they have some surprises in store for us along the way though that are Gang$tar specific. I've always enjoyed mission based game-play and it'll be fun to see what they've come up with for us to do.

All in all I've gotta say I'm very impressed. Gameloft has obviously accomplished quite an achievement with this title. I think today we've just witnessed the next evolution in touch gaming as developers will look to this title as what can be done with a little bit more ambition and I predict we'll start to see more and more games of this quality in the future.

One of the very best aspects of the original GTA series is it's tongue-in-cheek sense of humor. Anyone who truly gets this style of game-play understands that it is high satire, not mere violence for glorified violence's sake. Just like a really great dark comedy. I hope that isn't lost on Gameloft. I know that I will be playing this game enough to find out soon!

Bottom line - If you liked GTA3, if this style of game floats your boat then you're in for a real treat. Now that I've said my bit I'm off to do some more West Coast Hustlin' Gangstar style! Big Al???

T.O.
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