Universal Gangstar Vegas - (by Gameloft)

I'm about an hour in and my biggest complaint is that vehicles have no crash damage. I'm impressed with this one, I was really expecting it to be another steaming pile of terrible voice acting and boring driving.

It's hard to wholeheartedly recommend though, because there are three different kinds of currencies and I don't know if they'll become overly scarce across the game's length.

-keys for opening chests that contain random goodies
-skill points for, well, skills. This is like increased health or speed for yourself or cars
-cash, for everything else.

You get around $200 maybe every other time you beat someone up, but health packs cost 5k. Good news is that missions earn you a lot...I've done two and I have 75k hoarded. Properties can be bought for around 250k each, they generate income. Overall, doesn't seem like it's going to get to be a grind.

Graphically, this is just so impressive. The animations are motion captured, and you can totally tell that this is a huge step up from Rio. Everything has ragdolls from environmental objects to poor pedestrians. The realtime reflections look astounding. It's retina on the iPad 4, but there are some irritating jaggies on the cars. Ah well.

Gunplay has been refined, you now know who you're going to shoot via a little "x" on people. Nice touch. There's a huge variety of weapons, collectables, vehicles, you name it. After you buy a car or something, you can even have it delivered for 5k - SRIII style

I'm not far enough in to see if the missions become "kill dude and escape" tedium, but so far so good. There's actually a story here, and I'm not cringing every two seconds.

In terms of cops/holding out, I haven't tried that yet. They seem intelligent enough.

There are also a ton of side missions, gambling, survival minigames, racing, you name it. This feels like a fully featured console title for $7.

MC, IMO if you're into this sort of stuff, get it. Just have a recent device to enjoy the eye candy

Edit: wow that was a long post, just meant to write up a little synopsis and get back to the game

 

Here's an example of how populated the city typically is...not shabby at all. Pretty decent draw distance, too.

...ok, I actually looked at that picture. It's not that indicative of how the city typically is. Usually there are around half a dozen cars onscreen in the middle of town, I must be on the desert outskirts. I'm lost

Edit 2: ok, well I took a look around and it really depends on where you are. The highways see, pretty damn empty, only two or so cars onscreen. The middle of the city is where it's all at. But yes, the ped and car count isn't that high if that's a dealbreaker for you.

 

Does it run on iphone4?
I just woke up and found this. Weird move GL.

 

How is it on iphone 5? Rio ran super smooth 60 fps, but this has better visuals and draw distance.

 

I just found a parachute

Check the AppStore description. I think you should be fine, but the visuals will of course be dumbed down a lot.

Locked at 30 on my iPad 4. You should be fine.

 

After playing some more, i find the gameplay is very enjoyable, and the story somewhat interesting.

And with the very optional IAPs, this game is a good time sink that delivers.

It stutters on fast action cutscenes on the ipad mini (probably same on ipad 2), but the gameplay is butter smooth.

Gameloft needs to do something about the startup issue that the airplane mode fixes. I need my internet connection while playing.

For what you can get from the visuals and gameplay, this is recommended.

 

Is flight controls any better? quit Rio because I couldn't progress past 1 mission where i had to land a plane in a basketball court >.>"

 

Said nothing about the 4.
80 missions?
Well thats quite a bit.

 

The level of polish here is quite impressive, too. Attention to little details...like when I beat down a gang member and aim at him, he waved his arms and tried to crawl away.

 

I'm getting about 30 FPS, but I'm seeing heavy spikes and drops in cutscenes.

 

You can even change your clothes and car color when you order it.

 

I know. Nedda get this.
And upgrade me device soon.

 

Physics? In a Gameloft game? What sorcery is this?

 

So what are the big changes in terms of gameplay compare to rio? I notice there is mma, is melee combat anymore depth than mash attack? what are the key new systems etc?

 

@Chick: Looks as if the melee is like Sleeping dogs with tap for regular attack and hold for strong attack.

 

Core gameplay is basically the same, but with improved graphics, sounds, aimations, story, scripting and pacing it's just better. I dont see anything Rio did better.

 

There's that, but mashing's still there and still works.

 

After playing for a few, I closed the game out and turned airplane mode off and opened the game back up and so far I've had no problems.
(iPad 2)

 

The characters seem really interesting