Gameloft's GTA-Like 'Gangstar' Revealed, Exclusive Screenshots and a Video
posted July 7th, 2009 3:40 PM EDT by Eli Hodapp in Featured, Upcoming Games, iPhone games, iPod touch games
Last week I posted about a mysterious video of an upcoming iPhone game. Forum members played a bit of a guessing game as we all speculated what the game would be about. Some were sure it was a trailer for Cartel, an MMO-type game currently in beta, others through some internet detective work traced the site back to Gameloft and hoped that we were looking at an upcoming Grand Theft Auto styled game.
Those of you who thought we were watching a trailer for Gangstar were correct. We just got some news and exclusive screenshots of what Gameloft has in store for us, and it sounds like a pretty ambitious title for the App Store.
Gangstar: West Coast Hustle is slated to be the first iPhone full-3D open-ended crime sandbox game. Players will be immersed in L.A. gang life and able to explore an entire city filled with buildings, cars to steal or crash in to, and missions that can either be completed or ignored as you drive around wreaking havoc.
Driving controls are said to be intuitive, with both accelerometer and touch controls. The gun fights you will undoubtedly find yourself in are controlled via a touch auto-aiming system and Gangstar comes loaded with several radio station options as well as the ability to play your own tracks.
Also included is some type of rags to riches progression system, where you will connect with people in the city, increase the strength of your gang, and generally grow in wealth and power. Naturally, this all needs to be accomplished while avoiding the police.
Meanwhile, German iPhone site iFUN.de just attended a semi-public preview of the game and posted this brief gameplay video:
The game will, of course, support all iPod Touch and iPhone models and is expected to be available "by the end of summer".
Totally interested in this. Even if only to see how well a game like this works on the iPhone!
Holy sh*t!
What the above has said! OMG! GTA FOR THE IPHONE = COOL! I enjoyed payback, but this is more on the line of AWSOMENESS!!! End of the summer sounds quick! Command and Conquer takes almost a year, while this takes about several months! Awsomeness…
This looks pretty tight. I hope it doesn't cost more than $10. I wonder how deep the gameplay goes and how big of a download it will be. I want Myst but I don't have any room for it on my iPhone!
OMG! i freakin love Gameloft! if they goes into the the plus+ network with ngmoco i will kiss the first guy i see! ( IF!
)
"support the iPod Touch, iPhone 3G and 3GS"
How about the iPhone 2G?
"The game will, of course, support the iPod Touch, iPhone 3G and 3GS"
It won't support the original iPhone?
I'm very excited for the game. I love the GTA series and am enjoying CJS. Hopefully they make this game right.
I hope, I hope, I HOPE that this will run on a first gen iPod touch… They say iPod Touch (in general), so it's not too much to hope for…
If so, then huzzah! This looks splendid!
But can it whiten my teeth while I sleep?
I was skeptical of this at first…. untill I saw that video. Man that is smooth. I might actually pick this up lol
getting clarification on the model support, but I assumed it meant it would support them all.
arn
This probably won't be available for the original iPhone. It's not fast enough, and if you look at the line of sight, this game already has some rendering trouble.
Beautiful game anyway and awesome gameplay! Even race missions…I want it!
Wish it had Casper's controls…
Hope its better than that piece of steaming pile of dog poop, aka Car Jack Streets
Color me intrigued.
Since it comes from such a trusted developer as Gameloft, I have to have high hopes for something like this. Hopefully it doesn't turn out to be poor controlling eye-candy, though.
I'll be on the look out for this!
The only thing i can really say is…WOW!!!
Looks pretty awesome actually. Very Vice City like. Which isn't a bad thing at all.
update: yes, game supports all iphone and ipod touch models.
arn
I wonder how well it will run. The video was obviously running and rendered on a PC. While the draw distance looks suspect, the texture work and modeling is very impressive.
i dont know what everyone is talking about this looks nothing like gta. this game looks terible. (SARCASM)
I know it and hope they release this before thus month ends because I will be on a road trip aka no Internet for me.
When is by the "end of summer" im from another side of the world and we are in winter. Can some one please tell me?
Will this work on 3.o only or will it work on 2.1 too?
I can`t buy both the game and the new OS i`m happy with 2.1.
payback and carjack streets are rubbish next to this one…
love people who say the original iphone is too slow. its the same as the damn 3g
I wonder if they're at risk for a lawsuit from Rockstar since it's so similar.
So much for indie developers
looks awesome, a definite buy for me. =)
The game also runs for a ground-breaking 5 minutes on a single charge!!
@shap – i'm guessing it would be by the end of winter for you :/
@Synergistic Ideologue: I highly doubt they could be sued by Rockstar over this. That would be like Codemasters suing someone for making a rally sim, or Microsoft suing someone for making a Flight Simulator.
Looks kind of cool. I just hope the controls are good and it ha a good story line and great replay.
It's a definite maybe for me.
its difficult not to be impressed by this, agree with tha battery problem tho. definately gonna be played in short bursts this one ha!
until then its 4×4 jam for ma free roaming thrills
OH SHIT! Real GTA on the iPhone?? Nice! Can't wait to load that puppy on my 3GS and see it run smooooothhhh!
But…but…but but but…I thought everyone said it was impossible!
>_>
iTouch/Phone platform naysayers proved wrong…yet again.
Kudos, Gameloft…kudos.
They won't get sued since there's a lot of games that are like gta. You could create a rts game and not get sued, you could create a clone (not exactly a clone) like need for speed and not get sued, you could create other games and not get sued, but there is one that did get sued and that is the maker of iGangster (i think it was this company). Mafia Wars/ iMafia = Zynga
Another DIAMOND by GameLoft…. these guys are the bomb.
Wow. I'm, like … totally impressed. It remains to be seen how deep the gameplay gets or how many average hours of gameplay there is, but what there is above looks rock solid. I'd easily drop a sawbuck on that.
my fingers will be covering up all the action on the tiny iphone screen
Can't wait to give this a spin . . . I wonder how close/far from the real console version this offering will be . . . happy to see it nonetheless
Bring it on!!
O…M….G… :0
Is it a shameless GTA3 rip-off? Yes.
Can I wait? No.
Looks terrific
MY LIL SIS MADE ALL THE CHARACTERS ON THIS GAME! OHHH YEAAAAHHH!
wonder how long before it drains my iphone 3g's battery, 20min?
@Jeff That`s what people said about "the sims 3" and it doesn`t drain the battery so fast
man i can't imagine how much memory this game is going to take up….
hope that gameplay video is played from a 3g, was surprised at how good real racing played on 3g, hopefully this game will be as smooth xD
MAN i hate whenever a member gripes about pricing, so many cheapsake out here.
i just jizzed in my pants!!!! seriously, GTA for the iphone? i don't know how i'm going to wait!!!
looks very exciting and fast paced! Bravo to you Gameloft
This looks great.
Only worry is that steering wheel icon on the screen.
Remember the driving sections in Brothers In Arms from Gameloft….. they had that same wheel and were the worst bits in the game…. virtually unplayable at times.
I REALLY hope Gameloft has overhauled this system.
High hopes for this game though. Terminator Salvation was fantastic.
holy shxt, are you kidding me?!?! what's the point of having a PSP or a DS anymore?!?! iPhone / iPod Touch rocks
I'm sold. I had both GTA for the PSP and this looks…better…Hopefully it has enough content (unlockables, side quests) for some serious gaming hours spent.
I would say don't get your hopes up and prepare for one empty world.
I'm not talking only about few passers-by but also buildings, cars etc.
It's going to be one empty city…
Rockstar had a long development time for PSP and they also had to do some serious programming trickery to make it work.
They just can't pull it off on all models and in such a tiny development time.
If this was on iPhone 3gs and with a year of development than I would get excited and I would probably expect it to be better than PSP but now it's a whole other story.
I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
John B. Says:
July 7th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
This looks pretty tight. I hope it doesn't cost more than $10. I wonder how deep the gameplay goes and how big of a download it will be. I want Myst but I don't have any room for it on my iPhone!
People like you are the reason the iPhone will never rise above and reach its potential as a gaming machine. A game such as this would cost 30-40 dollars in any console, you're complaining about 10 dollars?
I agree that games that deserve it should cost more. But that doesn't mean it should cost 30-40 dollars. This would have the exact opposite effect.
And let's not forget that games cost that much because Sony, and nintendo get a huge chunk of that money, through sdk's, royalties for printing and all sorts of hidden costs.
The 70% deal for the developer, and the non existent sdk cost makes these low prices possible.
And they should stay that way if we want the platform to evolve.
I'm not talking about 1 dollar games but 10-12 bucks should be the maximum even for a high profile game.
And so far the high profile games on the iphone don't really deserve that huge (for the platform) price tag.
Firstly, to the dude above who said it looks better than GTA on PSP… not even close. The textures, draw distance and frame rate was much better on GTA.
Secondly, the controls will suck big time. It's on iPod/iPhone afterall…
Thirdly, it won't have depth, replayability or story like GTA.
But hey, the devs know all this and they also know that it won't matter because the first week of sales will make them millionaires once again.
Very nicely done so far looks fluid on the TV im hoping it's just as good on the Iphone/Touch
Just an amazing time for us gamers all around…
Fight Night Rd 4….Check
Phone 3gs 32 Black….Check
God Of War and CoD *MW* 5 Reserved…Check
Gameloft's creation of a really nice looking game for us…..Check
Ahh the joys of being a gamer.
Nuff Said
I wonder how the controls are going to be like… hmmmmm
It says in the article that there is accelerometer steering. I hope so because I agree with you on the wheel.
It says you can listen to your own music aswell. I can see myself cruising around the city listening to my music while im bored
I agree that games that deserve it should cost more. But that doesn't mean it should cost 30-40 dollars.
I didn't say that they should.
I'm just saying that other consoles charge a lot more for games, so the iPhone gaming crowd should think $10 is an outrageous amount of money to shell out for a console experience such as this game appears to be.
@ dimitris.
I think you prolly be right. The develop time is I think too short to make a living city so indeed, don't get your hopes to high. Rockstar needed a lot more time so that say's it all.
Somehow, I don't like gameloft that much. It's just that they release to many games to soon wich have barely any support after (updates etc). I think that games are nothing more like products for them since every game use somewhat the same engine. Now don´t get me wrong by saying that´s particurally a bad thing, but I feel they are just like EA.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFGGGGGGGGG
I JUST JIZZED IN MY PANTS LIKE 100 TIMES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Fe#$%^&*()_)(*&^ GTA ON IPHONE F&^%#&^ YEAH!!!!
if only some graphics improvements, cz right now lil bit doggy,
bt who crz ITS GTA MOTHAFERS!!!
sry for goin cz i've dremt of something like this for ages, back in the days i tried
java programing for a 3d gta on crappy java phone, and right now developing 3d gta on iphone by ShiVa iphone OSX =) but since i saw this game i'm gonna lay back awhile… Dexter is also gonna be like a gta game but with no shootin&mass gunfire killin… anyways.. f'yeah… gta on iphone.
in the other hand if u think about business marketing, if the game was 10 bucks then everyone would bloody buy it, i would, even though my iphone is PWned* and even if i could get the game free, but if u make it 40bucks, then i'm pritty sure the ratio of marketing on 10 bucks comparing to 40 bucks, the buyers would be 1: <4, therefore more money if GL sold the game for 10 bucks.
Oh it looks just slightly different from the trailer
Btw. I still think it's really bad I mean the scenery is ok except the horrible non functioning traffic lights but these cars are really horrible it looks like toy cars
I still think iphone wel atleast iphone 3GS is capable of runnning VCS so I think this could be better
Still good that someone is trying atleast
Your right there Dylan. It looks bad for an iphone. The cars look like cardboard and when a car crashes it doesn't even look like it's crashed. iphone can do much better.
The quality is a tradeoff of a sandbox style game.
Seriously though this is a game that should only be run on 3gs.
The other versions just can't cut it.
Open worlds need good graphics card and the previous iphone and ipod touch even though capable isn't as powerful as it should, to run this game.
"payback and carjack streets are rubbish next to this one…"
no, they're just rubbish.
"MY LIL SIS MADE ALL THE CHARACTERS ON THIS GAME! OHHH YEAAAAHHH!"
by your spelling, grammar and excitement/enthusiasm, we assume you are about 10 years old so little sister must be about 6!
I'll be waitin for this to go on sale, cuz it will, and I can.
ambitious, hopefully they can pull it off
Am I the only one who is suspicious? The engine looks a little bit too much like GTA 3. Notice the steering, the camera and the movement of the characters. Its all JUST like gta 3. No big hoax I hope, becouse the promotion is pretty serious….But still…
So, could they be sued for actually emulating parts of Rockstar's games?
Because most of the beach scenes look like they were taken straight out of the southern coast of Los Santos in GTA: San Andreas. This smells fishy… and it's not just the beach setting… /end lame joke
It's not a hoax, emu's are slow. It takes a lot of modding to make the framerate work, besides… Gameloft could've taken care of it already, since it's going to be published by them. I really didn't know they made a grand theft auto 3 o_o, unless you mean GTA: San Andreas and GTA: Vice City.
please tell me you are joking.
"i really didnt know they made a grand theft auto 3".
umm…it was THE VERY FIRST ONE THAT WAS IN FULL 3d!?!?!
it was KIND OF a big deal?!?!
where have you been living?? utah???
like people above dont expect it to be another gta like the psp. it probaly will crash a lot but hopefully it will be better than payback or cjs ;D. Oh yeah i almost forgot when the gamepad comes out maybe gameloft will support it for the game ;p
lol, i just deleted CJS and now, where can i buy THIS game?
this looks great, better than Payback or Carjack Streets, but those were pretty good too. I hope the controls work and it has a good storyline and enough things to do after you beat the game. Can't wait for this one
Oh yea.. im gettin that.
omfg looks awesome i cant wait!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
a lot of people are saying that this game is coming out so soon, and such a small development time that it cant be good. How do these people know when the development started, could've started ages ago and the game was just announced now
Holy balls this looks impressive. As long as the framerate on the 3G is decent and there's more than an afternoon's worth of gameplay (*cough Castle of Magic *cough) I'll pick it up : )
so its gonna be an mmo?? how?
OMG! Looks freakin amazing…I already have both Payback and Car Jack Streets on my iPod Touch and I am a GTA fanatic, a 3D GTA-clone would be amazing, can't wait!!!!
nah come on,i want the real gta not such a rip off shit..
soy colombiano y no entiendo esto my e-mail is luis.x1@live.com
Aaaaahhh looks like Gta, looks similar to Gta….. but then is not a real Gta just a similar and for sure worst one. An empty world with typical story and missions to just be a Gta clon. Better wait for the real one from Rockstar
GTA-Like?
I believe you mean GTA-rip, with a lot of the physics and fun reduced.
They didn't even bother to choose their own font for the freakin' tagline for crying out loud.
Such a shame they wasted so much time and effort on something that'll be lawsuited out of existence as soon as they find a publisher/distributor dumb enough to get involved.
Hmmm i think the right word for this game is AWESOME,FANTASTIC,AMAZING
i love gameloft
*creams pants* OH GOD YES
Of course it looks better than CJS. Car Jack Streets was made my an indie dev.
wow pretty crazy…
@Shap: If it's winter for you, then the end of summer here is the end of winter for you…..
hopefully it will use accelorometer controls…id love a gta style game that did that…just for the driiving parts
danke schon
(K)
I dont know what people are complaining about. It will be different enough to all of the GTA chapters (Stories included) to make it worthwhile in it's own right..
Things like this are only going to put pressure on the big companies to get their act together and jump on board the ipod/phone platform, it can't be a bad thing!
Thinking about it the few hardware advantages the ipod has over the PSP are ones that would work very favourably on open world games like this.
Damn, looks great. well it's the end of summer but there's no word of its release date? WTF? Can't wait for this sucker!
Cuando sale??? estamos en agosto y el verano se va al carajoooo!!
Just tried it today.
Game looks and plays exactly like GTA.. I wonder if they licensed the engine or something from RockStar ??
Its great on the 3gs!
Hmm, unluckily it ran to lagged far too much on my 2 gen Itouch. I would have loved to play it more but deleted it because it was unplayable for me. I envy all 3gs users!
I bought the game last and it pause all the time when I'm playing the game. I didn't pay $7 for a game not to work properly I need my problem fixed asap or I will keep writing until I get a answer from ur company gameloft. Or just paying any more games from ur company thanxs
Jaime Govan
nice drifting cuzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz