Payback, CJS, Now Gangstar...

CJS was fun at first, but the driving controls were terrible. I didn't really mind that you could only carry one weapon and i actually kinda liked that, but the scope of weapons was really limited. The city was fairly small, and there was no melee combat which made things worse. You didn't throw people out of cars when you jacked them either, so that took some of the fun out of carjacking. On the other hand, it was easier to go on rampant killing sprees, but you can't automatically start back up in the same place if you need to quit. Plus there was no pistol.

Also, the debt made the game more of a chore, because instead of simply causing mayhem, i ended up getting killed by mobsters every single time i logged on.


Payback had a lot of cities which i enjoyed, and carjacking people was fun, so was randomly running down the street and punching someone to death. The weapons were mostly widely varied, and you could destroy a building or two with the remote bombs. It also had the best Bazooka of the three games. The driving is the easiest of the three games as well, and the mysterious main character was an interesting angle, allowing you to pretty much make his back story whatever you wanted.

It was pretty much all about rampaging through the city in Payback, something i really like about the game.


In Gang$tar though, the city is huge compared to the other two, the weapons are all interesting and mostly varied, allowing you to dual wield which is nice, you could buy bullet proof vests and guns, you could instantly order cars and some guns as well as health packs through your phone, the mission are by far the best here, the story is also the best here, the radio stations are a nice touch, and it's very rewarding to win a fist fight most of the time. The Sniper stands out above all the other guns in any of the other games though, and it's really quite fun to start randomly sniping people. The driving is acceptable here, and pretty good at times, the camera is fairly annoying when driving though, and i feel like i have to play through the missions before i goof off in the city though.

Plus it's 3D and pretty much GTA3 on your phone.


All in all, Gang$tar wins, but i still have all three on my device, and i have to say they're all pretty good.

Edit: I do wish you could disable dual wielding though, it gets really annoying all the time. I just want one pistol slot, i don't want them in a different slot, make a button to switch to dual wielding!

 

Three things before I rate the iPhone/touch games:

1. GTA VC >> GTA III and SA. Seriously. SA was deeper, sure...but it was almost too deep. And VC made III feel archaic. What little I've played of IV I didn't really like simply due to the layout of the city. IMHO, Rockstar made a hugely idiotic decision to base Liberty City more off of NYC than the older games.

2. GTA Chinatown Wars isn't top down, nor is it 2D. 3D graphics, free moving camera, isometric perspective. And, yes, this is a significant difference.

3. GTA2 isn't the most influential GTA...sadly. It ought to be, merely due to the "respect" system alone, but, sadly it ain't.

Now onto the three iPhone/touch sandbox crime games:

1. Payback - really, this is a tale of two games. Payback before the update, and Payback after the update. Before the update it was a top down affair, there were various bugs, the graphics were rougher around the edges, and there wasn't enough content. After the update, though...oh boy. Completely different game. Isometric perspective made traveling, combat, etc. in the game A LOT easier to deal with. The graphics were given a bit of polish. The frame rate was slightly increased, iirc. Bugs were removed. More content was added. The game was worth owning. Still is, IMHO. Right now it's kinda like CTW, sans touch interface stuff (if there's ever a Payback 2, I'd love for some CTW touch minigames to make it in) in look (isometric 3D), but something like GTA 1.5 in feel. And that ain't bad.

2. Car Jack Streets - A tale of two games? Not quite. But it is a tale of a game that badly needed a control update for some (well, most) gamers. I wasn't one of them. I thought the driving controls were okay first time around. But the steering wheel option actually helped quite a bit, and is now my preferred method. The game feels like GTA 2.5. It's 2D and top down all the way. The big addition is the constant payment system, which many hate and many love. If the game had an update for a "free play" mode, I think it would be worth more. The payment system as the main game, with a "free play" mode for those that want to just play around. A good game, but with a controversial gameplay focus (the payments).

3. Gangstar - haven't spent too much time with it (huge backcatalog of games) but what I've played reminds me of GTA III so much that I'm actually still checking to see if it is indeed running on my iPod touch...y'know...just to make sure I'm not imaging things. The fact that it's over the shoulder/behind the back 3D means it'll have a larger audience, and the fact it's developed by Gameloft means it feels like a big budget product.

Right now Gangstar is the best of the bunch...but that doesn't mean the other two aren't worth owning. The way I see it, if a fully 3D platformer ala Mario 64 or Rayman 2 came out on the iPhone/touch, it wouldn't all of a sudden make games like 2D platformers like Spy Bot or Bounce On any less fun. I don't think Payback or CJS are any less fun because of Gangstar either. They're pretty different games despite being in the same genre.

 

I disliked Carjack very much. I thought it was bad, but I liked the music. I loved Payback, but since I bought Gangstar, I play a new crime game, and it's pretty much my new favorite iPod Touch game. I stopped playing Payback, and pretty much deleted it, since it was 221MB.

 

IMHO, CJS wasn't that bad, but it didn't quite live up to the hype. Also, what does this thread have to do with Chinatown wars perspective? Isometric is Zaxxon, not Chinatown wars

 

Lol, that's not true at all.
When you are talking about hundreds of megs of data, it's 99% art resources. Code takes up VERY little space.

 

Payback
1st to land on the store, so naturally I got it. In fact I had it before they pulled it and I played it with the horrendous "jumpy" bug! The graphics suck, there's really no art style in the game. The missions were ok, and can be quite fun. Controls are ok, but the on screen button graphics are horrible and the layout could be much nicer. My main gripe is the cities - part of what I like in GTA games is to get to know the city, to find the hidden extras and such. In payback there are lots of small cities, all a bit bland and you never really get to know them well enough. Overall, i'd say 3/5.

Car Jack Streets
I got this day 1, for full price, with Tag then having their stupid sales within a week! Idiots! Anyway the game itself is more similar to GTA 1, 2 and London. Its top down, with 3d buildings and such but with sprites for people and cars. I love the graphical style - unlike Payback it actually has style and looks really nice. Missions are ok but with the real time aspect they seem a bit repetitive after a while (probably after a month's worth of payments). That brings me to the real time system: I personally like the idea, as it adds a unque hook to draw you into the game day after day. However, the system when combined with the repetitive missions simply failed after a while. Many TA users seem to hate on the idea even though it was easy to earn $50k in less than an hour! The controls were always fine; the physics are not. The bumper car system is stupid, but you do get used to it and thus can deal with it. The city is a nice size, and well designed with some distinctive areas and hidden packages to find. There are unlockables too and a highscore system. Overall, i'd say 3.5/5.

Gang$tar: West Coast Hustle
This is the first full 3d GTA3 inspired game for the system. The graphics are good (although draw distance is small, and there are some quirky glitches) and framerate is normally pretty consistent (as long as you don't play you're own music and restart the device often). The city is pretty big, some think it should be bigger, I think its fine. This is really the 1st GTA style game on iPhone that has a story, albeit a very simple and predictable 1, but a decent enough tale of Mexican gangsters in LA. The missions are much better than either Payback or CJS, more varied, more challenging and most importantly more fun! In fact gameplay in general is just more fun - exploring a fully 3d city is just much better than a top down 3d one. The controls work very well. It offers lots of extras such as achievements, side missions and unlike the previous 2 offers proper stat tracking such as no. kills etc. Overall, i'd say 4.5/5.

Oh and @ sticktron, the biggest part of game in terms of MB is the audio and textures.