So far (I have yet to finish the game -- I'm a bit ADD when it comes to the iPhone) I'm enjoying what's in the game without fretting so much about what isn't. Also, having played through Vice City Stories on the PSP, I find that the pace of Gangstar is better suited to the stop-start nature of mobile gaming (I also like driving through their version of LA better than in VCS version of Miami). So no, for me it doesn't "fall short." But that's just me... Alright, now I promise -- back on topic.
I think your expectations of Gangstar were too high. It was the first attempt at a 3-D roaming GTA clone for the iDevice. What did you expect? GTA: San Andreas?
I think Gangstar is a lot of fun, personally. The fact that I'm actually playing a 3D open world game on my phone is still impressive as hell.
I thought Need for Speed for PSP, that I played many many years ago, had more going for it than gangstar. @Hodapp: do you wish to open Gangstar back up to do the acheivements? Does it give you the desire to go on a killing spree? Or run from some cops? It's got a nice story and graphics, but I dont think I've ever completed the whole story for any GTA, except Advance, but I could still pop any one of em in and have fun for multiple hours. The things this genre is notorious for, it fails; snipe point, cop chases, dealing something, killing loads of people, and finding secrets. I guess I should give it an extra .5 point for the nice little dance at the end.
Honestly, the thing that keeps me playing Gangstar as much as I would like to is the hilariously long load times even on my 3GS. I've always really liked the driving sub-missions in GTA games so doing the taxi/ambulence/burger missions is a lot of fun for me... But when I have 5 minutes to play a game, spending 1/5 of that time waiting for a game to load isn't really that interesting to me, especially when I could have already played two games of Doodle Jump in that time. Long load times are to be expected in huge games, I suppose. That's the thing that bothers me the most though other than the areas that are lacking.
Well this news just made my bank holiday monday!!! Its certainly intriging what they'll do with the price. My guess is it'll match teh downloadable version on PSN for the PSPgo, so $20 seems reasonable. In the cnet article they mention that the graphics are more akin to the PSP, with some lower res textures, other than that its the same. Not sure what that means for the DS touch screen stuff?
What a pleasant surprise. Third time going to be buying it. Maybe the best GTA of all time, if you scale down the other games to mobile compatibility.
And the price? I can't see this game being under $15 BTW, I'm way more excited for Rockstar's other game: Beaterator. It sounds like a perfect game for the Idevices.
C'mon, stop complaining, are you paying PSP/DS price here (49.99/29.99)? it is 7 bucks game and it is awesome... ppl's common mistake, wanna use 99 cents to buy the world... hey there is no free lunch man.
I think the game is alright, but just because it's running on an iPhone doesn't make it any better. Impressive yes, but it'd also be impressive if my iPhone suddenly sprouted legs and jumped into an icy river... doesn't particularly mean I'd enjoy it.
That's really not a terribly good analogy, I have to tell you. Regardless, it basically comes down to what you want to do with your phone. In addition to many other things, I want to be able to play games that are comparable with actual portable gaming devices. Gangstar is the first real tangible proof I've seen that such games can run on the iphone. In relation to other games for the iphone, Gangstar seems to be a huge leap forward. This is not to knock the existing games, but Gangstar is a sign of things to come, I'd say. Playing a game like this on an iphone was once unthinkable, but Gangstar kind of shows that in a few years, the iphone will be probably be considered the first platform to design games for, rather than the last.
I KNOW I KNOW! This is AWESOME! Rockstar games really came through for me on this one. This is just great.
You know, games like this on the app store deserve to be 20 bucks. I almost wish apple released a 20 buck section so we can get more quailty and gameplay. The game will sell like hotcakes: No Doubt! I just hope that Rockstar will realize that this game is going to get 10 times more profit than Gangstar, and because of that, they can sell it for 10 bucks without worrying about losing out on the big cash I just worry it will be too short
But it's completely subjective. What's merely clever to some is quite fun to others. Maybe I'm easily amused but I find Gangstar to be a good time. And for a 7 dollar game that I play on my phone- it's a GREAT time.
