Gangstar: West Coast Hustle Hands-On

by Levi Buchanan - IGN.com | 21 July 2009 12:00
 
It really is Grand Theft Auto for the iPhone.
 
When Gameloft first revealed Gangstar: West Coast Hustle for the iPhone, it was billed as "Grand Theft Auto for the iPhone." After getting some hands-on time with it this morning, stealing cars off the streets of an open-world Los Angeles and delving into gang life through a series of interconnected missions, such shorthand is absolutely warranted. And Gameloft is making no bones about it: GTA is obviously the model for this ambitious iPhone action game.
 
You are a young hustler coming up through the Latin gangs of Los Angeles, such as the Locos Muertos. You and your friend P. Thug are a couple of scruffy wannabe hoods that dream of the big-time, and if you make friends with the right people and pull off the right jobs, you will one day enjoy the gilded life in LA. However, the road to success is not without some unexpected detours, such as a stay-cation in the slammer and a run-in with a pretty sassy grandma that operates a limo service... so people can discretely get it on in the back. Yes, in one mission you are driving one of these rolling stabbin' cabins, tasked with keeping the ride smooth. Run into too many other cars or attract the unwanted attention of the cops and the business time going on in the rear of the limo won't pay off.
 
The story unfolds through many cutscenes, acted out with the in-game models and told with text-based dialog. Since Gangstar tells the story of Latino gangs, the dialog is rich with slightly larger-than-life slang. It's not nearly as overboard as the dialog from the original Gangstar on mobile (that was just goofy), but does everybody really need to be called "vato?" Some things just work when spoken aloud, and slang is one of them.
 

The streets of LA are lined lined with cars for the taking.

Gangstar's Los Angeles is indeed based on the real thing. There is a ton of real estate to explore with neighborhoods based on many of LA's best-known districts, such as Santa Monica, Hollywood, and South Central. Much of the journey takes place behind the wheel. You can steal all sort of cars in Gangstar. There are three driving control options. The virtual wheel was my least favorite. The tilt steering with on-screen pedals worked much better. The virtual pad controls, where you slide your finger left and right across a bar, was also responsive. I appreciated that none of the cars I drove handled the same. The little pink sports car I nicked ripped along freeway while the limo was rough in the corners.
 
On foot, you use a virtual stick and context-sensitive buttons much like Assassin's Creed and Hero of Sparta. The stick was responsive and worked exceptionally well. The game employs auto-targeting for combat and uses an on-screen fire button. Switching between targets is as easy as tapping the thug you want to shoot or punch and then pressing the fire button. As you approach cars you want to steal, a carjack command appears near the fire button. Overall, the foot controls were easy to pick up -- especially if you've downloaded any of Gameloft's previous action games.
 
There are many different missions to undertake in Gangstar, from beat-downs for cash, fetch quests, and races. However, the aforementioned limo mission and a jail yard initiation sequence show that Gameloft is trying to keep things varied so you don't suffer mission fatigue, doing the same thing over and over.
 

The jail scenes use a film grain filter to look like a 70s flick. Nice touch.

An open-world crime epic is pretty ambitious for the iPhone, but from my play session, it looks like Gameloft has assembled the tech to make it happen. There is a touch of pop-in with buildings and you can sometimes see the textures cycle in as you approach structures, but it's hard not to be impressed with the scale of the world. It's not empty, either. Despite what you may have heard, plenty of folks are walking in LA. That, of course, means lots of peds to run down for cash if you don't mind dealing with the heat from the cops. After flattening a few bystanders, I had the police's attention and a handful of rollers on my tail. The game did not slow down at all while the cops tried to box me in.
 
Another thing Gangstar cribs from GTA is the radio. There are several stations to cycle through by swiping your finger across a radio faceplate with rock, Spanish, classic, and more. Gangstar also uses 3.0 access to your music library so you can run down rival gang members while listening to Laura Brannigan's "Self Control," if that's your bag.
 
Gangstar is still on for a late summer release (price not yet determined), so check back soon for more information on the game and full review. But from my initial play impressions, this is definitely something GTA fans should put on their shortlist of games to watch. And apparently Apple must fancy it, too, because it hasn't asked Gameloft to pull the blood from it, which is something other developers have had to do to get their game approved in the past.
 
Supplied by IGN.com