Review: Gangstar: Miami Vindication - A New World of Urban Havoc
by Felix Xiao
September 24, 2010
Overview
Gameloft's newest 3D Grand Theft Auto clone places you in the center of a tropical metropolitan area swarming with rival gangs, extensive crime, and vicious alligators. Gangstar: Miami Vindication improves on the gameplay found in Gangstar: West Coast Hustle in many ways and plunges you into an exciting open world adventure that's sure to keep you entertained.
Features
The game has many types of cars, motorcycles, boats, and even a helicopter for you to control across a massive map. There are 75 missions split into 5 chapters for you to complete, as well as minigames such as taxi and delivery missions. A few new weapons have been added, including grenades, molotovs, and a flamethrower. Your character also knows how to swim and uses this skill quite often during missions.The Good
Every mission starts with a cutscene, complete with voiceovers that contribute to the game's enormous file size. On the good side, the characters sound more realistic than they do in most Gameloft games, and the game features some intense background music as well. The graphics, although not extremely impressive, are noticeablly better than they were in the previous Gangstar game.
The game has a bunch of useful features that take your world of crime to the next level. A sprint button has been added, letting you make a faster getaway while dodging cops and bullets. Running into poles actually affects your vehicle and slows you down a bit. When stepping in front of a car, the driver makes an attempt to stop and avoid running you over, which makes it a lot easier to steal the ride. You can also tilt your device up and down while riding a motorcycle to do wheelies.
The 75 included missions are fun to play through, as they tell an interesting story, and take longer to complete due to the sheer size of the map. By tapping on the minimap, you can navigate to the services menu, an incredible feature that lets you instantly start a mission, buy weapons, restock on ammo, and rent a car. The radio stations that play while driving have gotten a bit more entertaining as well, and you also have the option to listen to your own custom playlists.
The Bad
While the cutscenes help you to get to know some of the characters and the storyline, they are often ruined by unenthusiastic characters, excessive usage of profanity, and terrible graphical animation. The mouths of the characters never move, and their shoulders just shake from side to side when they talk. When used, the swear words sound like they're being spoken by a 7th grader instead of the leader of the most feared gang in Miami. Most of the game runs smoothly, but there are times where glitches occur that lead to you getting stuck or failing the mission. If you keep on driving into fences or walls, eventually you'll find your vehicle stuck in the wall on both sides, unable to accelerate or reverse. In some cutscenes, the characters glitch and start spinning or shaking really fast.
Some parts of gameplay just aren't practical in any way. It's impossible to fall off a motorcycle no matter how hard you crash, and instead it just deals some damage to the vehicle. Your pistol also seems to have the range of an assault rifle, and with dual pistols, you can snipe someone that's a block away. Even though you're walking around in a heavily populated area, there are few people and cars on the street at anytime.
