Gangstar 2: Kings of L.A. Review
Once every few years a game comes along that is truly ground breaking and genre defining. It smashes records, which spawns the inevitable sequels and the just-as-inevtibale knock-offs. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is our shining example here and the knock-off in question is actually a sequel itself know as Gangstar 2. Gangstar: Crime City is a mobile game developed and published by Gameloft that enjoyed a moderate amount of critical success, being one of the few GTA clones for the mobile market. So as is customary, a sequel is churned out (and other on the way apparently). Gangstars 2: Kings of L.A. broke free from it’s cell phone bondage and made it’s way to the Nintendo DSi download store.
At best, I’m completely underwhelmed.
Gangstar 2 starts out with a quick back story of our anti-hero, Chico, crossing the Mexican border over to California (apparently directly into Los Angeles. I guess San Diego just gets in the way). Chico tries to establish ties with some of the thugs he used to associate with in order to gain street cred and a few bucks. That’s about all there is. After several hours of running around various parts of SoCal including Hollywood and Beverly Hills, taking ‘jobs’ as hired muscle or as a getaway driver it occurred to me that the story hadn’t changed, only some of the gangs I was working for. Oh, and I was bored stiff.
Before I really rip into it, I will say that there were a few shining moments of ingenuity, making use of the DSi camera to enhance the experience. Various areas and situations allow you to snap a picture for use on billboards around town or as the photo on a fake ID. Additionally, a series of missions has you snapping photos for a temporarily blinded photographer and you’re tasked with getting pics of real life objects predominantly of one specific color or another. Photoshop made those missions a breeze, but that didn’t make it any less unique.
Okay, now, the other side of the tracks. To begin with, this is such a blatant rip off of GTA that it’s just a little sad. Everything from mission types to art style is copied down to the shadows on character faces. The hand drawn characters themselves aren’t bad really, but the backgrounds they put them on during cut scenes are awful, scattered blobs of color that look more like crayons melted to the pavement than any discernible city location.
Gameplay has you on foot or driving a car in a city whose perspective is completely off. Driving looks okay, though it’s sometimes hard to line up your car properly due to some very sluggish controls. On foot though, the angle of your character walking around town and the height of buildings is something out of an M.C, Escher drawing. If driving and shooting isn’t for you, try dealing instead. That’s right, you too can dive into the seedy underworld of candy hocking. Candy… as in sweet bits of sugar. At first I thought it was a euphemism, but no, we’re talking about mints, licorice and chocolate bought and sold apparently illegally for upwards of $75 dollars a piece. I’ve lived in L.A. for about 10 years now, and I had no idea illegal candy trade was so rampant or so lucrative.
[**9 right]I get the feeling that a lot of the bugs had failed to get worked out before they released it to the download service. Even dumb little things like spelling errors show up frequently enough to realize this it isn’t Spanglish, gang-speak, but a lazy proofreader at fault. Hands down the most egregious glitch I came across, not once, but twice, was during two getaway sequences. My homies jumped into the blue minivan (…yeah…) after robbing a bank and insisted I tear off in order to avoid the cops. Naturally, I hit the gas and headed as far away from the crime scene as possible. Problem is, the camera didn’t follow the car. I steered the car off the screen until it disappeared and the only way I knew the game hadn’t completely crashed was that the blip on my GPS in the lower screen was tracking the car just fine. Not being able to see when you’re about to hit a pedestrian, another car or worse, a building, tends to put a speed bump in one’s getaway.
Gangstar 2 is a sloppy mess that feels rushed and repetitive. Frankly, I find it difficult to believe a GTA clone could be successful on the DSi in the first place. That said, I’ve heard some good things about Car Jack Streets, another DSiWare title in the same vein. Perhaps save your five bucks for that one instead.
