Game review: Car Jack Streets - iPhone / iPod Touch

The action/driving/crime genre has not had much to shout about but Car Jack Streets changes all that.

For Car Jack Streets, think Grand Theft Auto in miniature form – an open-world, top-down, sandbox type game full of carnage and mayhem.

Comparisons between the two games are inventible given their similar style and gameplay, but that’s no great surprise since members of the original GTA team are behind the creation of CJS.

For the iPod/iPhone, this is gaming on a vast scale. There is a huge city to explore and a ton of high-octane, action-packed content to work through.

The character you play in CJS is called Randal Meyers, a dodgy sort of a bloke who has foolishly managed to build up a $1m gambling debt with the Italian mob.

When mob boss Frankie calls in the debt, it’s a race against time for Randal to repay the money in weekly $50,000 instalments.

Success or failure has a direct bearing on Randal’s future – in fact, his life depends on him keeping up with the strict deadlines set by Frankie.

Luckily for Randal he has his helpful Uncle Murphy on his side, setting him up with some cash, a car and a place to stay.

The criminal underworld is also prepared to help Randal out by offering him wide-ranging tasks to earn money. These include being a getaway driver, taking out a gang of thugs and delivering dubious merchandise.

For Randal to achieve these missions he must collect various items located around the city, such as weapons, ammo and disguises.

He also needs to ‘jack’ different vehicles to get himself around.

As well as dodging bullets during your tasks, you must also keep an eye out for the police who are never far away.

Alternatively, if you want to help get Randal back on the straight and narrow there are lots of more wholesome (albeit far less lucrative) jobs he can do, such as delivering pizza, standing in for an ambulance driver or driving a bus.

Controlling Randal is via a virtual D-pad in the bottom left of the screen. An action button on the opposite side gets in and out of vehicles or uses whatever weapon Randal has to hand.

Once you’re in a vehicle you can either carry on using the D-pad or (thanks to a recent update) switch to a steering wheel device where you place a dot on a circle to indicate where you want to go and then hit the gas. It sounds odd but it works very well.

Going to the pause menu gives you access to the GPS system which guides Randal during tasks. You can also pull up a map of the city – another recent improvement to the game which makes navigation much easier than in the original version of the game.

The best thing about CJS is the freedom you have to control Randal’s fate. You decide what jobs he takes on, where he goes, whether he’s good or bad. When you’re walking down the street you can mind your own business or you can shoot the stranger coming the other way and face the consequences – it’s up to you.

The game is visually very impressive. The massive, detailed environment has been superbly well designed, with many of the city’s features represented in colourful 3D.

All the stops have been pulled out for the game’s soundtrack too, with an array of pop, rock, hip-hop and country tracks to listen to on your ‘radio’ when you jump into any vehicle.

The final key element of CJS to mention is something which you will either consider to be one of its biggest strengths or one of its main frustrations, depending on how you view it. For me it’s a frustration.

The game operates in real time. So when it’s June 8 at 5pm in real life, it’s also June 8 at 5pm in the game. Seven days in real life equals seven days in the game.

This works well in some respects. For instance, when you play CJS at night it’s also night-time in the game – cue street lamps and headlights.

But on the downside it puts pressure on you to play the game on a regular basis. When Frankie says he wants repayments on a weekly basis, he means business. If you miss a repayment Frankie’s hitmen come after your character and if you get killed you must start over from the beginning.

If you play the game tonight, for example, and then don’t get around for whatever reason to playing it again until the same time next week, you’ll have missed a repayment and may get bumped off.

Another addition to the game included in the recent 1.1 update is the chance to win a reprieve. You can now miss up to five payments and still live, if you can take out the mob hitmen. This is better, although I would rather see a week in the game spread over a couple of hours’ game time rather than seven real days.

One other slight criticism is that it's not always clear what's expected of you during tasks. You're given very basic instructions of "go here" or "collect this" but quite often you arrive at a location and it's not fully explained what you're supposed to do.

All things considered, Car Jack Streets is a superbly crafted game – one of the best I’ve yet played on my iPod Touch.

It offers fantastic value for money. A lot of effort has been put into this game by the developer – and it shows.

It’s too early to call Car Jack Street a classic title, but it is already clear that every other crime action game in the future will have to be judged on the very high standards set by CJS.

Verdict: 9 out of 10

The good:
- Huge environment to explore. 'Sandbox' freedom of play - decide your character's fate
- Impressive graphics and soundtrack

The bad:
- Instructions for tasks could be made clearer
- Real-time element of game is frustrating if you do not play for a few days