Gang$tar: West Coast Hustle Is Out

Gameloft‘s much anticipated Gangstar: West Coast Hustle was released to the AppStore today for $6.99 [AppStore Link]. There has been a lot of blog posts about this game from many iPhone/AppStore weblogs. All saying that this is the iPhones answer to the GTA franchise. Well…

I have to say that they are pretty close to correct. This game doesn’t disappoint. The game has a pretty big driving area to work with as seen in the screen shot below.

The controls for the game are pretty smooth, you have a virtual joystick on the right and a virtual button on the left when you are moving around as a person, pedals and tilting the iPhone/iPod touch to control vehicles. This can be configured in the game. However, you can’t configure the joystick to be on the right and button on the left. I’m not sure if that is an issue for lefties. I’m not a lefty, so I don’t know if they are used to using their dominant hand for buttons or if they just use what they are given.

The graphics are amazing for a game that is run on an iPhone/iPod touch with 480×320 graphics. Lets face it, it’s no GTA IV, but its a great homage to the Grand Theft Auto franchise. The trees look pretty darn good. The streets have lights, street signs. There are places where you can jump your vehicle just like the jumps in GTA. Not as dramatic, but still entertaining. You can run over pedestrians, hit other vehicles and even receive some damage to your vehicle. Again, nothing like GTA, but pretty good considering.

There is a story with chapters in this game. Apparently, you are in LA taking a “Vacation” from some trouble that your character was in prior to the start of the story. You are given missions like in GTA. You have to fight rival gangs, drive around a big shot in your gang, etc… I have not got that far in the story yet. I’m pretty close to finishing up the first of 6 chapters. It’s take only an hour to get as far as I have. So, its likely to not be that many hours of game play, but there has been talk of expansion levels probably sold in game later.

Over all, this game will not disappoint and will definitely keep you entertained for at least a couple of days.