What can you say about Grand Theft Auto III that hasn't been said already? The open world game that begot every other modern-day open world game was (and still is) a thing of beauty. Its sprawling Liberty City cityscape became your personal playground, and the characters that inhabited it were as fun to associate with as they were ruthless. GTA III made Rockstar Games and ushered in a bold new age for videogames, both in terms of storytelling and gameplay scope. And now it's on your mobile.
Truth. Even the staunchest hater of all things mobile gaming has spent a minute (or ten) catapulting birds into bricks and mortar. And as devoid of depth as Angry Birds may be, there's no denying the world of opportunity that mobile technology lays at the feet of every game developer. 2011 in particular saw a number of low profile releases that succeeded in garnering a surprisingly high profile fanbase. And for good reason. Miniscule classics such as Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP and Infinity Blade 2 have shown that mobile gaming can stand toe to toe with the best of them – as long as you can live with the controls.
Nail, meet head. That dear readers, has been the biggest gripe detractors have had with these bite-sized pieces of digital entertainment, and a gripe that's mostly device or hardware-centric. More specifically, how do you design an immersive (read: console-like) experience on a touchscreen and without buttons?
Smaller screen, same game
Well, leave it to the perennial innovators at Rockstar Games to get as close to a working solution as we've ever got. And not just the controls mind you, because we've seen virtual buttons on touch screens before. The guts you'd need to squeeze an entire console game onto a mobile phone have to be massive indeed. But did they stop there? Oh no. What's available on Android and iOS (and for a steal, no less) is not the first press PS2 version, but a version cobbled together from the enhanced Xbox and PC builds.
A lot of the textures and models populating the game world will seem much improved if you've only played the PS2 version previously. And you'll find that a recurring theme through the entire game - there's an unerring sense of quality that runs through it. As an example, every line of dialogue and every radio station has survived the transition to your pocket intact, and in some cases, they actually sound crisper than how you remember them.
The load times are also well-optimised and almost non-existent in certain instances. The last thing you want to do when you have a half hour with your mobile is watch a progress bar inch its way up, so the game being this snappy is a huge relief. Something else that's clearly been thought through is the frequent checkpointing. While the autosaves can be erratic in places, you almost always load up right into the mission you've failed and sometimes at checkpoints within the mission itself.
One major caveat with regard to game performance lies with the inherent fragmentation of the Android platform itself. The game is only officially supported on a handful of devices (both tablets and phones), although others such as the Samsung Galaxy S II will run it just as well. Nevertheless, it may be prudent to compare your device's hardware specs with the officially supported devices before you spend your money.
Controls
What doesn't change across devices though, are the controls. And they do work for the most part. What Rockstar got right was the complete transference of the functional controls from consoles and across devices. There's hardly an action that you could perform previously but that you can't now. Unfortunately, given the constraints of a touchscreen, a lot of these actions have been lumped together on the right side of your screen as individual soft-buttons.
Depending on the size of your screen, you may find that the buttons are a tad too close together and you need to be paying extra attention to hit the right one. On a more positive note, Rockstar have thrown in an unbelievable amount of customisability to the controls. You can switch between an analog stick and d-pad buttons for your driving, for instance. Combat, on the other hand, while full-featured, can grate a little thanks to the lack of a second analog to control the camera. You need to swipe across the screen if you want to adjust the camera manually.
There are control issues then, but the game itself and its shift to mobile are near faultless and nigh on revolutionary. To be sure, mobile gaming, on this scale at least, is still quite nascent. Neither is it a stretch to believe that things will only get better as far as the controls are concerned. Aside from that little niggle, Rockstar have proven without a shadow of a doubt that mobiles can stand up to dedicated handheld gaming devices. And with the pace of change mobile hardware is seeing of late, it won't be long before Sony and Nintendo have a serious problem on their hands.
“The game itself and its shift to mobile are near faultless and nigh on revolutionary.”
Love: Revolutionary, superlative everything, on your mobile
Hate: Slightly iffy controls
Publisher: Rockstar
Developer: Rockstar
Platform: Android, iOS
Price: Rs 250 (approx)