Much like other versions of the game, screenshots barely do it justice. Liberty City in motion on the iPhone is amazing, and all the jagged edges in the screenshots quickly fade away when you’re racing down a street, under elevated train tracks, and through alleys as you escape the police. The realtime clock in-game also changes the lighting of the city, shifting from the orange glow of a sunset to the street lights turning on at night. It really looks awesome.

The basic premise of the game involves a man named Huang Lee, the son of a Triad gang boss who was recently sent to sleep with the fishes. He flies in to Liberty City with a heirloom sword his father won in a poker game, deciding to deliver it to his uncle. Of course things never go as planned, and not long after landing Huang finds himself in the middle of a gunfight and winds up getting kidnapped. After stealing the sword, the assailants assume Huang is dead, and looking to dispose of the body drive the car he’s in off the side of a pier. In the same vein of other GTA games, story isn’t really anything revolutionary, but it gets the job done.

Chinatown Wars is controlled very similar to Gameloft’s Gangstar, with virtual buttons and a joystick that handle all the driving, running, shooting, and other activities in game. The iPhone port of Chinatown Wars retains the stylus minigames that filled the DS version, appearing in a little popups where you do things like tap to smash the window of the car you were trapped in at the beginning of the game, slide your finger around to turn a screwdriver to start a car you’re stealing, etc.

When the Nintendo DS version was first released, I devoted hours to playing through the game. So far the iPhone port seems like a faithful reproduction with quite a few expletives. I obviously don’t have the full text scripts of both games to compare, but everything I’ve come across so far has fit with what you would expect out of a GTA game, and it would appear that very little if anything was actually censored for the App Store release.

Chinatown Wars seems to be a complete GTA experience. You have your apartment that serves as your character’s hub with a “Fruit” computer you can check emails on, a garage you can stash a car in, and when you’re on the road there is a full GPS system with a map of Liberty City that you can plot your destination on to easily get from one side of the city to the other. There’s all kinds of stat tracking that will tell you everything from how many bullets you’ve fired to how many fish you’ve fed and in-game options that offer all kinds of different tweaks to the interface and gameplay.

[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]

We weren’t initially sure if this release was intentional, as we expected some amount of pre-release fanfare from Rockstar, but we are going to be working on a full review of this version of the game.

App Store Link: Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, .99

The post GTA: Chinatown Wars Out in US First Impressions & Video appeared first on AppTrawler.

For the time being, here are the screenshots from iTunes:

App Store Link: Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, .99 – Currently available in European countries only.

The post Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars Euro debate appeared first on AppTrawler.

In Driver, you play as Tanner, a detective from New York who has been assigned a dangerous task: going undercover with the gangs that make up the criminal underbelly of New York, Los Angeles, Miami, and San Francisco. The “Undercover” mode serves as the single player campaign in the game and consists of about 40 missions. Missions do a good job of providing some decent variety in their structure; one minute you’ll be attempting to keep up with a speedboat as it makes for an island hideout, the next you’ll find yourself ramming into restaurants with the goal of busting up their glass fronts.

Driver isn’t all about the story mode. There are numerous minigames, referred to as “Driving Games,” on the game’s main menu. In “Pursuit” you’ll be tasked with chasing down another vehicle and dealing enough damage to take them out as quickly as possible. In “Getaway” you’ll switch roles, attempting to evade and lose the trail of the police. Other minigames failed to catch my interest, like “Cross Town Checkpoint” or “Trailblazer”, the latter of which involves randomly driving around knocking down 100 traffic cones.

Despite the weak first half of the “Driving Games” list, the second half of the minigame collection is much better and includes several fun games, my favorite of which being “Survival” mode. In Survival, players are brutally attacked by an unending legion of cop cars. The utmost skill in evasion techniques will be required in order to even stand a chance at lasting over a minute in this mode, and it makes for an extremely compacted session of what I consider to be the best parts of Driver. I also loved “Dirt Track” (a rally-style time trial game) and “Carnage” (an extremely fun mode that’s very similar to the “crash” mode in the Burnout series).

Visually, Driver doesn’t really hold up to other racing games on the App Store, but it comes close. The dated, PS1-era graphics benefited tremendously from the face lift that Gameloft gave them in this port, but the fact remains that there are better looking games on this platform. The worst part about Driver’s visual style is undoubtedly the cutscenes, which are weirdly dark in an attempt to hide the unimpressive human 3D models in the game. At first, the constant use of darkness and shadows seems cool and stylish, but I quickly got tired of not being able to see anything in the cutscenes, losing almost all of my desire to watch them.

The audio in Driver is similarly disappointing, with what seems like only a few musical tracks that play themselves to death on your car’s in-game radio, only interrupted by even fewer lines from the radio DJs. You’ll hear the same tired jokes three-dozen times before you complete the full story mode in Driver, and if you’re like me, you’ll eventually just give up and turn off the noise altogether.

The most important part (arguably) of a vehicle-based game on the iPhone/iPod Touch are the controls. While I usually prefer accelerometer controls in such games (which Driver does indeed offer), I have to say that the on-screen touch controls that are set as the default control method in this game are some of the best on the platform. Trying them out for yourself is the best way to see what I mean by this, but the D-pad layout simply works; you’ll forget you’re playing on a device without any real, physical buttons to speak of.

In what may sound like a flaw but is actually a feature, the cop A.I. in Driver is completely nonsensical. Simultaneously vicious like wolves and stupid like sheep, police officers can be witnessed doing things worthy of national media attention about every 5 seconds in this game. The cops of Driver do not believe in the right to pull over and surrender oneself to the law; in their minds, the only way to stop crime is to ram into it repeatedly until it explodes.

Cops will work together in intelligent, inhuman fashion to slam you into a building at full speed, but when you put any sort of physical object in between yourself and them, prepare for fireworks. Driving around obstacles is just not an option for the fine officers in Driver. Instead, they will drive at full speed into civilians, trees, and even units of their own force in a desperate attempt to crush you with pure inertia. This makes for some of the most hilarious moments that I’ve had with a game in recent times, and I honestly think that Driver is a much better game for it.

There is no option to view replays in this version of Driver, and there is no multiplayer. If these two things were to be fixed in a future update, I would be absolutely in love with it, but even without that, this is an easy recommendation. The story mode is entertaining, but it’s the great controls and supremely fun minigames that make Driver worth it. The game may have its flaws, but Gameloft has done a great job in making what could have been a quick and dirty port into a legitimately fun piece of software.

App Store Link Driver, .99

The post Driver – A Good Port appeared first on AppTrawler.

In Driver, you play as an underground NYPD detective who was chosen by the force for his impressive driving skills to infiltrate the filthy underbelly of four in-game cities. You will be tasked with a series of missions that will have you racing around the city, evading the police, and generally doing most of the things you do in Grand Theft Auto games without the ability to ever get out of your car.

The final version of the game available on the App Store seems absolutely identical to what we saw in Paris. If you’ve grown tired of the snack-sized game experiences that seem so widespread on the App Store (Not that that’s a bad thing, those are some of my favorite games.) then Driver is just what the doctor ordered.

Driver is a complete game with four massive real-world cities to drive through, and multiple endings. The original game was very well received, and aside from improvements to the graphics and tweaks to the interface, the iPhone port seems even better than the game I remember spending so much time with in the late 90’s.

I have to commend Gameloft for the great job they’ve done with this game, and I think I speak for iPhone gamers everywhere when I say I hope Gameloft continues to port more of these classic video games. If you like objective-based driving games, running from the cops, and getting air– Look no further than Driver.

App Store Link: Driver, .99

The post Review: Driver appeared first on AppTrawler.

iDrive, by developer Appirion, can steer, accelerate and stop, and everything else it takes to actually drive a car. The iPhone accelerometer steers the vehicle, and the break and gas pedals are controlled with two touch buttons.

This has been done before with the PSP, three years ago actually, but it’s still pretty admirable to see it done on the iPhone. The PSP powered a Honda Civic through a Wi-Fi connection in the same way, which is pretty pointless.

As you can see, the mini-van is heavily wired for remote control and this app was for demonstration purposes only so don’t look for it in the App Store. But the iDrive shows potential. It could feasibly be used, James Bond style, to drive a car.

Check out the demo here.

Original story by AppAdvice.com

The post iDrive Your Car appeared first on AppTrawler.

Once Upon a Time…

Shrek and his friends are on a quest: To become the Kingdom’s Fastest Kart Racer! Race to your own Fairy Tale ending and try to win Ye Grand Tournament.
But remember: Only 1st Place lives Happily Ever After!

All is fair(y) in this twisted tournament tale:

– 4 SINGLEPLAYER MODES: Single Race, Tournament, Challenges and Arena modes

– LOCAL MULTIPLAYER MODE: Challenge your friends to eat your dust via Wi-Fi (with up to 6 players) and Bluetooth (2 players)!

– MILES OF RACING FUN with 19 cups in the Tournament mode and 72 challenges to face!

– 10 UNIQUE KARTS: Each character has custom built his or her own vehicle, each with a special ability and different characteristics.

– 11 DEFENSIVE & OFFENSIVE POWER-UPS: Drop the Cow That Jumped Over the Moon on an opponent or shoo away those Angry Bees by wiping off the screen with your finger!

– 15 TRACKS (12 Speedways & 3 Arenas): Beautiful 3D environments from throughout the Kingdom, from Shrek’s home in The Swamp to the palm-lined streets of Far Far Away.

– MORE THAN 10 PLAYABLE CHARACTERS: Shrek, Donkey, Fiona, Ogre Triplets, Puss In Boots, Gingy, 3 Little Pigs, Pinocchio, Big Bad Wolf and the Ghost of Lord Farquaad !

– iPod LIBRARY ACCESS: Rock out to your own personal soundtrack while you speed towards the Finish Line! (Works with the OS 3.0 software update.)

Race Happily Ever After!

The post Shrek Kart – Overview appeared first on AppTrawler.

FishLabs is bringing the highly rated mobile title Rally Master Pro, which we determined to be the best mobile game of 2008, to the iPhone and iPod touch.

The original mobile title has some of the best 3D graphics ever seen on a typical handset.  The iPhone version, as FishLabs indicates, takes things to a whole new level with 4x the poly count of the original and enhanced particle effects and dynamic lighting.

Depending on the track surface and weather, a variety of dust, spray, and even dirt particles will be generated for each individual tire. The various kinds of particles act quite differently. On dry, dusty tracks the car leaves a massive cloud of dust while racing through a forest on a rainy day you can literrally see the mud flying.
….
Thanks to the high-powered 3D chips (OpenGL graphics acceleration) in the iPhone, we can light the vehicle in a variety of ways, depending on the weather: with lots of light and shadows when it’s sunny, diffuse when the sky is overcast, and correspondingly dim in rain and storm.

The iPhone release will include 27 courses and weather effects for sun, rain, and snow as well as options for tilt or touch (analog or digital) controls.

FishLabs was kind enough to provide us with a pre-release build of the iPhone version of Rally Master Pro to play around with and share a glimpse with our readers.

See our brief gameplay video that shows early play across several different tracks.

[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]

The developers emphasis that what you see above is indeed a pre-release with unfinalized controls, physics, and sound.  As such, I’ll refrain from critiquing the gameplay, but I can say that I’ve had a rather enjoyable time putting the game through its paces.  Some parts of the various courses really take me back to days of spending hours in front of Sega Rally on the Saturn (which, in case you’ve not personally had the pleasure, is a very good thing).

What I’ve seen so far puts a rather optimistic light on the likelihood that the iPhone version will indeed go well beyond the mobile title.

FishLabs indicates that Rally Master Pro will hit the App Store sometime this autumn.

The post Rally Master Pro Preview appeared first on AppTrawler.

Given the sheer publicity that this app has gotten as of recent (featured on the iPod Touch commercial and all), it’s no surprise that it’s taken until now to finally review this one.  Actually maybe it’s not that much of a surprise given the sheer volume of apps now available.

One nice aspect Monster Trucks Nitro is that the controls are set up in a similar fashion to the controls found in a car.  By that I mean that there is an accelerator on the lower right side which you can tap with your thumb to accelerate and a brake on the lower left side for braking with your left thumb.  You can also tilt the device to the right or left to make the truck’s back or front go up and down.  Admittedly, I’m still trying to figure out exactly what advantage that gives to driving the truck.

The graphics and animation are excellent.  You can choose between three different truck styles (the more patriotic American types would undoubtedly choose the one draped in the style of the American flag).  As the players finishes different tracks under the allotted time, other racing tracks are unlocked for the gamers pleasure.

You can also pause the game by tapping the screen or change the game’s visual perspective by swiping the screen in a particular direction.  My only complaint is that tilting the device should actually steer the truck in different directions.  Perhaps that is the case on the later tracks.

While this particular type of game is not my cup of tea, it might give several hours entertainment, particularly for the reduced cost of $.99.

Quick Take

Value: Good
Would I Buy Again: Possibly.
Learning Curve: Medium.
Who Is It For: Monster truck and first-person driving lovers.
What I Like: The graphics.  The control set-up.
What I Don’t: Not my kind of game.  Tough to get used to the tilting mechanism.

Final Statement: For $.99, it’s worth a look.

Check it out in the App Store >>

The post Monster Trucks Nitro – Review appeared first on AppTrawler.