iPhone Game Review: Gangstar Miami Vindication

     Gangstar Miami Vindication

Gameloft

$5.99

Ah, Gameloft, have you not one original idea in your body?

It seems that if your not making licenesed games for Ubisoft, you're ripping off console games and cramming them onto iPhone. You seem to be the Asylum of iPhone games, copying the original games onto the iPhone hoping someone buys them out of the novelty of "CONSOLE GAME ON IPHONE WHAAAA". And I'll admit I am one of those people. I've bought more of your games then I'd wish to say, and though about half of them have been complete crap I keep doing it.

Now, is your most recent game, Gangstar Miami Vindication, going to be among your better games, or did I just waste another 6 bucks on you?

Gangstar (that is a horrible name) Miami Vindication is an open world shooter in the vein of a Grand Theft Auto. And while Rockstar employed an top down view in its iPhone release, Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars,  Gameloft has taken the risk of using an over the shoulder, third person camera here. It makes the game look and feel more console-like, but the controls don't feel like they take advantage of the iPhone. When they do, the result is near broken.

Shooting and taking cover feel fine (if a little unimpactful) and the virtual D-pad works surprisingly well. But when you get behind a vehicle the issues with the controls rear their head. Tilt to drive controls just don't feel right; it feels like the game thinks you're holding the iPhone in a different way than you are, making over (or under) turning far too easy. Thankfully it is easy enough to change the driving settings to the vastly superior wheel option. Helicopter and motorcycle suffer from the same issues, and the helicopter doesn't offer any alternate control scheme. Boats are fast and more fun to drive, making you want to go by boat to your next objective more often than not.

 The story revolves around Johnny, a no-shit taking badass who looks like Sawyer from Lost. Johnny is in pursuit of his brother who has gone missing in an bizarre alternate version of Miami where every fifth building looks the same and cloning has become widespread (okay maybe not but it seems like that). And in the footsteps on many a Grand Theft Auto protagonist, he does this by becoming insane powerful people's errand boy. The story is not really original but exciting enough to have you keep going from mission to mission.

And there are a lot of missions, 75 in total, and the variety is impressive. A feature that is annoyingly missing, however, are mid-mission checkpoints. With some challenging missions (not helped by the controls), the game can get quickly irritating. Besides the missions, the game has the the typical creatable insanity that makes Grand Theft Auto so fun on consoles. Taking time away from the sometimes irritating missions to go skydiving, or on a murder spree with a flamethrower, provide a fun distraction.

One thing I noticed in my time with Gangstar is that the presentation in the game is very uneven. As you can see, there are times when the game looks stunning, but for every beautiful sky line there is a moment when the games looks dreadful. The pop-in is simply horrible, with cars appearing ahead of you sometimes without you having time to react. Character models never move their mouths when they talk, which can become annoying after a while.

Gameloft obviously spent a lot of time modeling the surprisingly big city, but what good is that if this fictionalized Miami feels lifeless and dead. Sidewalks are empty and highways are never congested. Its not all negative though. The voice acting is surprisingly well done, with good casting even if the writing sometimes is awkward. All the cars have a radio built in which can be tuned to a number of radio stations. The ads that play in between the music are pretty good satire, and some of the station names inspired a chuckle (the hip-hop station is called "Legalize It 420 FM").

In 2007, when Grand Theft Auto 4 came out, many complained about the fun of the previous PS2 GTAs being lost, replaced with a deep story and a more realistic feeling. Gangstar feels like those PS2 GTAs…buggy, ugly but very fun. If you want a deep story, realistic gameplay and overall a more polished experience, I would say buy Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars. But if all you want to to mess around in a fun sandbox and you can handle a rougher experience, go for Gangstar. Despite my complaints with the game, I can't deny I had fun with it.

 

-Tom Bunting

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