Xbox 360
Last month, Apple celebrated it's billionth app store download. In such a short time, no console developer has managed such a feat during a single generation of gaming. Instead of petering out over time and slipping in the quality department, the roster of games released on the service grows larger and more ambitious every day, with some truly innovative projects hitting the store. Perhaps none more ambitious than Car Jack Streets, an explosive crime simulator developed by resident Dundee developer Tag Games. We caught up with managing director Paul Farley to discover why his recently-released game stands out from the pack.
The game places players in the unfortunate shoes of luckless gambler Randal Meyers, who owes the mob a whopping $1 million in gambling debts. When vicious mob boss Frankie calls in your tab, you must do whatever it takes to pay back the $50,000 a week payments or face the consequences. The real killer hook of the game is that payments must be paid in real-time, meaning you literally have to pay the cash back every seven days. It makes the game incredibly addictive and puts a fresh spin on the genre.
Members of the Tag team worked on the original Grand Theft Auto for PSOne, so have a great understanding of what makes for a fun crime game, but they were returning to the genre after well over ten years. Paul explains: "In some ways it is a little like visiting a long lost friend, but in other ways Car Jack Streets feels fresh and new. Our initial aim was to the bring the GTA style of gameplay to mobile phone gaming. We quickly found that this was quite ambitious given the technical limitations of even current-generation phones, but we persevered and I think succeeded in capturing the essence of what made the original GTA games so much fun."
How you pay the looming gambling debt is entirely up to the player. Paul explains: "You must do anything you can to pay that debt. You can take on any number of criminal or legitimate jobs such as robbing banks, stealing cars to delivering pizzas. The choice is yours!" The explosive carnage involved is set in a sprawling city, chock-full of things to see, do and destroy.
Paul mentions: "The city has had a make over from the previous Java version and is now fully realized in 3D. We have double the number of vehicles, more weapons, rampage bonuses, achievements, global leader-boards, more collectable power-ups and over 80 minutes of in-car radio music sourced from some of the most talented unsigned acts from around the globe."
No small game we're sure you'll agree. But where games such as Car Jack Streets, as technically impressive and enjoyable as it is, may have had a tough time facing up to bigger players like Nintendo or Sony in the console market, it has found a perfect audience on iPhone who are taking to the game in droves. So just why is the format so special?
Paul said: "Part of the success of the iPhone is certainly due to the low cost and simplicity of creating content for the device but like any gaming platform it takes real skill and understanding to get the best out of it. From a development point of view the device itself is extremely capable for games, the touch screen is large, bright and multi-touch allows for interesting control schemes. Secondly iTunes provides a distribution platform that people are already comfortable with and third, the Apple business model is such that they only take 30% of the retail revenue rewards and this spurs on content creators and encourages originality and innovation. In short it's a game players dream!"
Car Jack Streets is big, it's fun and it's available for only £2.99 on the Apple app store now. What are you waiting for? Get out there and break some laws!