This week we’ll have a look at Gangstar: West Coast Hustle which is basically Grand Theft Auto San Andreas for your mobile device. In this game, Gameloft recreates an environment quite similar to GTA which in itself is already quite an achievement. The story is simple: you play Pedro (aka P-Thug) who escaped from a Mexican prison and moved to Los Angeles, now you have to climb up the gangster ladder one mission at a time in the streets of LA!
Gangstar: West Coast Hustle offers some great 3D graphics, the streets of Los Angeles are nicely rendered and there are several cars and persons in the streets at all time. The textures are not perfect so are the animations but the visuals of Gangstar: West Coast Hustle are still impressive given you’re running it on an iPhone, iPod or Android device. There is also an HD version for the iPad with enhanced graphics!
This is really close to a PS2 game on a cell phone, check out the video below from Gameloft showing Gangstar in action on iOS:
As usual with those games the problem comes mostly from the virtual controls which makes it quite hard to control the cars. Honestly this is frustrating but it doesn’t ruin the game experience though.
Pros
- Grand Theft Auto San Andreas on your cell phone (almost)
- Nice 3D graphics
- In-game music is great, you can choose from a couple of radios
- Plenty of missions
Cons
- Controls: driving the cars can be especially hard
- Sometimes the frame rate drops when there are lots of objects on the screen
- A few bugs here and there
Final: 7/10
Gangstar: West Coast Hustle brings to our mobile device an experience that was so far limited to video game systems. It is a solid game with its flaws (controls…) but overall we enjoyed playing it.
You can get more information about this game @ http://www.gangstar-game.com/.
Gangstar: West Coast Hustle is available on iTunes for the iPhone and iPod Touch ($4.99), on Android for $4.99 and on the WebOS App Store for $4.99. An HD version is also available for the iPad on iTunes.
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