Not Casual

I recently wrote an article explaining Why I Don’t Play Games on my iPhone.  All of the points I raised in that article are still valid. Of course, to every rule, there is an exception.  In this case, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is the exception iPhone gaming has been waiting for.

The Game

Rockstar have returned to their roots with a “top down” GTA game.  This old school style is a perfect match for the portable devices, as Chinatown Wars was originally released for the Nintendo DS. It now arrives on the App Store with all the features and gameplay fully intact.   In fact, the only noticeable difference is the price. The DS version will set you back about £20 pounds, where as the iPhone version only costs £5.99.  That is a serious markdown in price and I would imagine both Nintendo and Sony are currently freaking out, trying to figure out how they are going to compete with that kind of price undercutting.

The Controls

Let’s get straight to the point.  GTA: Chinatown Wars has to overcome the same issue as all other iPhone games; the touch controls.   By default, the game provides a “virtual joystick” for walking about and left/right arrows for the driving, which are also aided by an “align to the road” feature.

In the first 5 minutes, the walking felt comfortable and the driving felt awful. After the first hour, the driving felt slightly better, but still annoying.  After the 2nd night, I was doing hand brake turns around corners with minimal annoyance in between.  To sum up then, the driving involves a steep learning curve, but eventually becomes manageable.

Of course, you can change around all of these default controls in the Settings menu and I did try some alternative configurations.  In the end though, I wound up returning to the defaults, as they were the best.   Plus, I’m a firm believer that you can trust (most) developers to have done the research and put the best possible control configuration as the default.

In Spite of the Controls

So that said, the controls do take a bit of time to get used to and if this was any other game I probably would have just given up.  This isn’t just any game though, this is GTA.

As you’d expect, the amount of side missions and activity around the city is immense.  I would be annoyed by the controls one minute but then completely forget about them the next, having just found a fire truck with working lights! Wwweeee!  It’s that kind of fun, sandbox gameplay that Rockstar do so well.

There’s the usual stream of standard main missions, which you activate by returning to the assorted boss houses.   These have been quite varied so far, ranging from gang fights to driving deliveries. Originally being a DS game, they’ve also integrated touch mini games, like unscrewing a car panel and moving the wires together to hotwire a car.  These elements have migrated perfectly into the iPhone version and provide a nice gameplay addition.

All the rest of violence and mayhem associated with GTA games is here and present.  At one point (after an unfortunate shooting incident) I had 4 stars with several police cars, one police truck and a helicopter chasing me.   It’s very impressive the first time you see the helicopter zoom into view.  There was a slight lag at this point, but nothing to interrupt the gameplay.  Should also say that I’m playing this on the iPhone 3G, so guessing the 3GS has little to no noticeable slowdown.

Conclusion

This is the first iPhone game I’ve been addicted to and the first time an iPhone game has caused me to stay up late, with that “just one more mission” mentality.  It hooks you in, despite some initial awkward controls and immerses you in a fully realised GTA world.  The App Store has already been a runaway success for Apple, but GTA: Chinatown Wars shows that the true potential of iPhone games has barely been touched.

Verdict: Must buy!

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