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Urban Crime [Free], the newest game from Gameloft, is the latest title attempting to take a traditional genre and infuse it with free-to-play elements. In this case, it’s the open world third-person shooter made popular by the likes of Grand Theft Auto III that gets the freemium makeover. Normally, these types of games are treated as forums discussing the merits of freemium and whether the gameplay and overall presentation outweighs whatever hooks are put into the game. In the case of Urban Crime, that discussion isn’t necessary as the game has so many issues (freemium and otherwise) that you really should just avoid it completely.

In Urban Crime, you’re thrown into a world run by a multitude of gangs and are told to conquer it territory by territory. You’ll accomplish this by running randomly generated missions until you fill up an arbitrary meter that allows you to take out a rival gang leader. Eliminate said leader and you earn a piece of territory and you start over again. Completing missions also earns money and experience which is used to level up and unlock random rewards. Missions are divided into standard subtypes ranging from assassinations to drag races to escort missions. While I didn’t particularly have any issues with the missions, I found them becoming repetitive rather quickly.

One of the big differences in Urban Crime compared to similar titles is its complete reliance on freemium. To put it bluntly, the switch to freemium is poorly implemented and gets in the way of a lot of elements that are staples for this genre. As an example, let’s take carjacking. Imagine running from the cops and spotting an awesome sports car to aid in your getaway. You get close, press the button to highjack, and get a message saying you don’t have a high enough level to steal this car. Of course, you can buy diamonds (the in-game premium currency) to let you steal it instantly, but that would be ridiculous. I could understand clothing, skillsets, and even weapons tied to the leveling system, but being able to steal certain cars? That’s just silly.

The above example is just the tip of the iceberg in regards to freemium. Gameloft’s notorious energy system also makes a return. It doesn’t go as far shutting the game down when you run out of energy, but if you do run out, you will not be able to play new missions until your energy recovers. You can do this by spending your premium currency to recharge, waiting awhile for it to naturally build up, or by gaining levels. Granted, the first hour or so of content seems to be relatively stable as far as energy is concerned (since you continue to gain levels and thus energy at a steady pace). However, once you get to the point where you have to do a lot of missions to even gain levels, you’re going to be bottlenecked very quickly.

Another area of Urban Crime that I’m disappointed in is the sacrifice of an overall story in favor of the strict mission based gameplay. Sure, Gangstar wasn’t particularly known for its epic storytelling, but at least there was an overarching tale that sought to bring you in. Urban Crime simply puts you in the city and tells you to take it over for no other reason other than that. Outside of the initial prompt at the start of the game, the only story found lies in the fragmented mission texts which offer nothing of value and are just an excuse to go out and cause more havoc. What’s worse, since this game reuses the assets of Gangstar: Miami Vindication, you won’t even have the pleasure (what little there is) of exploring a new world if you’ve played that game before.

There’re a few other elements within Urban Crime that I haven’t addressed yet, but might factor in your choice to check this out. The visuals look like they came from a game made a few years ago (which they are) and do not compare to any games recently released. Despite this, I still encountered a lot of obnoxious pop-up and frame rate issues, even on the most recent iOS devices. The controls are probably one of the few areas of the game that are adequate, with a few different schemes that give you the option of touch controls or the accelerometer. However, when you combine any control method with the poor frame rate, most gamers will probably be frustrated regardless.

I’m really not sure what Gameloft is trying to do with Urban Crime. Yes, it’s a freemium game and the whole point is to attract folks under the guise of free play and eventually get them to shell out with IAP. However, in order for that to work, you have to actually want to play the game in the first place before you even think about spending money in the game. With its complete lack of narrative, boring mission structure, antiquated visuals, spotty controls and monotonous gameplay, I don’t know who would want to play this, much less eventually spend money within it. If you’re looking for a free-roaming third-person shooter on your iOS device, go pick up GTA 3 [$5.99] if you haven’t already done so. Otherwise, just stay away from here.

TouchArcade Rating:

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On this week’s episode of The TouchArcade show, we power through conversations about beard slaps, our childhood dreams, special effects, and Terminator 2 in order to bring you the latest, hottest, and best in iOS. At the top, we dig into games like Run Roo Run and Star Marine. Later, we get heavy and dive into the iCade mobile, CAVE’s poor earnings announcement, and Imagination’s latest tech.

I really think this week’s episode was one of our best, so you should listen to it. Hit us up via the handy-dandy streaming links below or, hey, subscribe blindly to our iTunes and Zune feed. You’ll get our episodes the second that they’re live; ADVANTAGE!

iTunes Link: The TouchArcade Show
Zune Marketplace: TouchArcade.com Podcasts
RSS Feed: The TouchArcade Show
Direct Link: TouchArcadeShow-034.mp3, 44MB

And here are your show notes:

GAMES

• Run Roo Run [$.99 / HD]
• ZDAY Survival Simulator [$1.99]
• Star Marine: Infinity Ammo [$1.99]
• Woody Woodpecker [$.99]
• Mole Kart [$2.99]

JARED’S KITTY KORNER

• Moneyed Kitty [$.99]

FRONT PAGE

• Gameloft’s New Zealand Offices Cleared Of Over-Working Allegations
• CAVE To Focus On Social Games After Poor Earnings
• Imagination Talks PowerVR Series6 GPU Family
• ION Announces new iPhone, iPad iCade Accessories

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Last summer Games.On.Net broke a story regarding Glenn Watson, a former Head Studio Programmer at Gameloft’s New Zealand office. Watson alleged he was typically working 100-120 hour work weeks. In his words, “Starting at 9:30 AM, going home at 2:30 AM, and then com­ing back into the office at 8:30 AM to start work again was not unusual”. He went on to whistle blow on poor working conditions, even mentioning that some junior programmers work 24 hour shifts.

These allegations spread like wildfire across the Internet, with little regard to the fact that there wasn’t much backing up these claims other than the single article everyone was sourcing. The New Zealand Labor Department launched an investigation on the matter not long after the allegations hit, and per New Zealand games site GamePlanet, the investigation recently concluded.

According to the Labor Department, Gameloft was not in breach of New Zealand’s Health and Safety Employment act. In fact, Labor Department spokesperson Alisa Mannell even mentioned that there was “no substantial evidence” of any wrongdoing on Gameloft’s part.

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Two favorite franchises of the TouchArcade forums, Dungeon Hunter and Zenonia both had sequels drop during the Christmas flurry of releases. Both the good news and the bad news is that these games are totally free to play. Depending on which side of the free to play fence you’re sitting on, this is either great news or horrible news. I’m not sure there’s any wiggle room in between, if arguments on our forums and in iTunes reviews are any indication. In my opinion, regardless of how you feel about the whole free to play thing, both Dungeon Hunter and Zenonia come from a pedigree of games that are worth giving the benefit of the doubt to. They’re free to try, and who knows, you might not find their respective free to play mechanics that offensive… So I say, no harm in giving them a spin.

Dungeon Hunter hit in mid-2009 when we were still totally willing to overlook Gameloft being, well, Gameloft with their highly “inspired” games and were just beyond happy to get a great 3D dungeon crawler on the App Store. Dungeon Hunter 2 hit over a year later and improved upon the original in every way imaginable, most notably, adding online co-operative play.

Dungeon Hunter 3 [Free] departs from the traditional Dungeon Hunter formula in that it abandons all semblance of a story in exchange for a hoard mode which has become a surprisingly popular secondary game mode for all sorts of console games. Choose a class, kill everything as fast as you can, repeat. Like many “premium” games that make the “freemium” leap, progression feels artificially limited and grindy, unless you feel like opening your wallet. Still, if all you’re looking for is to bash some monsters faces in, Dungeon Hunter 3 will do the trick.

Similarly, Zenonia hit the App Store in early 2009, and even though the Korean RPG formula leans heavily on grinding, there wasn’t anything else available that came close to the gameplay offered. Iterative improvements were made both over Zenonia 2 and Zenonia 3 with new art, sound, classes, monsters, and more added with each jump in the series.

The recently released Zenonia 4 [Free] follows this trend, with a free to play mechanic sandwiched in. The controls feel just as clunky as every other Zenonia game, but just like previous installments, don’t take long to get used to. Zenonia 4 is the best looking Zenonia title as well, as it comes packed with full Retina Display graphics. Progression doesn’t feel any slower than other titles (which were never very fast) and the free to play mechanic hinges on a constant pressure to buy ZEN points which can be used to improve your character in basically every way you can imagine.

I just wish both of these games were available as a single purchase game, tuned to provide a fun gameplay experience from beginning to end instead of goading me to open my wallet or play for eternity. This seems to be the case for most of these “premium” games that make the free to play jump, so it’s not like the shift in gameplay should be news to anyone. Regardless, they are free to try, and we still likely won’t see any new games until next week…

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We don’t celebrate a single holiday at TouchArcade Tower unless Gameloft throws a sale in celebration of it. And, guys, it looks like we’re going to have Christmas and New Years in 2011. Starting now, you can grab, uh, a bunch, of the publisher’s better games for that price, including the startlingly good NOVA 2.

We’ve got the list, so check it out if below if you’re interested about what Gameloft is selling. Also, as we kinda mentioned already, NOVA 2 is our pick out of this list. If you’re a fan of the Assassin’s Creed fiction, Altair’s Chronicles isn’t all THAT bad at $.99, either.

• 9mm – $6.99 → $.99
• Assassin’s Creed – Altair’s Chronicles – $4.99 → $.99
• Assassin’s Creed – Altair’s Chronicles for iPad – $6.99 → $.99
• BackStab – $6.99 → $.99
• Driver - $2.99 → $.99
• Fast Five the Movie: Official Game – $4.99 → $.99
• Fast Five the Movie: Official Game for iPad – $4.99 → $.99
• Gameloft Action Pack – $4.99 → $.99
• Gameloft Sports Pack – $4.99 – $.99
• Gangstar Rio: City of Saints – $6.99 → $.99
• Iron Man 2 – $4.99 → $.99
• Iron Man 2 for iPad – $4.99 → $.99
• James Cameron’s Avatar - $4.99 → $.99
• James Cameron’s Avatar for iPad – $4.99 → $.99
• NOVA 2 – $6.99 → $.99
• NOVA 2 for iPad – $6.99 → $.99
• Rayman 2: The Great Escape – $4.99 → $.99
• The Settlers – $4.99 → $.99
• Silent Ops – $6.99 → $.99
• Spider-Man: Total Mayhem – $6.99 → $.99
• Spider-Man: Total Mayhem for iPad – $6.99 → $.99
• Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Shadow Vanguard – $ → $.99
• Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Shadow Vanguard for iPad – $ → $.99

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Prior to Grand Theft Auto III I’d say I had fun messing around in Grand Theft Auto games, but never really enjoyed myself. The top-down view felt incredibly claustrophobic, and, at least for me, made getting immersed into the game world incredibly difficult. I don’t think it’s hyperbole at all to say that GTA 3 changed everything.

Originally released in 2001 as a Playstation 2 exclusive, Grand Theft Auto III featured a full 3D game engine for the first time in the game series. At least for me, this transformed a silly and entirely too controversial set of video games into a living and breathing universe. It’s debatable how well the game has aged in ten years, but in 2001, after the initial cut scene rolls and you’re driving through the beginnings of Liberty City, there was no way your jaw wasn’t on the floor.

This magic is alive and well in the iOS port of Grand Theft Auto III. There have been a number of open world crime games, most notably Rockstar’s own Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars and Gameloft’s highly “inspired” Gangstar games released on the App Store but neither game holds a candle to the original GTA3 The level of immersion that’s possible in the full 3D Liberty City, especially as you become familiar with the cast of characters you’ll spend your time taking missions from, feels downright incredible. In games like this, that very same level of immersion is what has kept me sucked in for potentially hundreds of hours, as when you feel like you’re actually playing your part in a virtual world, your role in it becomes that much more compelling.

Gameplay in GTA3 is typical of other open world crime games, which would make sense since Rockstar essentially wrote the book on the subject. Your time in Liberty City will be spent doing whatever is asked of you by various gangsters, drug lords, and other unsavories. Often times you’ll be doing jobs for multiple people, and between missions will have the choice of which story line you want to continue, and which you’ll revisit later.

Alternatively, you can immediately abandon the storyline of the game and instead focus on side missions (such as stealing a taxi and ferrying passengers around the city), looking for secret (and some not so secret) ramps to get ridiculous amount of air off of, or really, anything else you feel like doing. I’ve always been partial for stocking up on weapons, and seeing just how long I can survive from the police.

I think I’ve provided a sufficient recap of what GTA3 is for the half a dozen people out there who somehow haven’t played it, so the real question is, how does it translate to iOS devices?

I’m happy to say that the game plays surprisingly well. I’ve found myself preferring the large screen of the iPad 2, but GTA3 is just as much fun on the iPhone. If you think back to actually playing the game on the PS2 (or other console ports), you’ll remember that nearly every button on the controller did something. Sadly, the only way GTA3 can work on iOS devices is by replicating all of these functions as virtual buttons.

This results in buttons galore. On foot you’ll have a virtual joystick for running around, along with individual virtual buttons for running, jumping, attacking, stealing cars, changing the camera angle, and pausing. Inside of a car, the virtual joystick changes to a set of buttons to steer, along with buttons for the gas, brakes, hand brake, shooting, honking the horn, starting secondary missions (such as the previously mentioned taxi missions), and getting out of the car. Moving the camera involves dragging your finger around in the middle, and viewing the minimap as well as changing weapons involve hitting the top corners of the screen.

These controls are workable, and are easy enough to manage while doing simple missions or just tooling around Liberty City. Unfortunately, things get crazy as soon as you get involved in actual combat. GTA3 uses a zany lock on system for shooting, and it seems like more often than not when you get into an actual firefight you’re fighting the camera, the lock on system, and your character’s diminishing health supply more than you’re fighting the enemies themselves. Things get better as you get more accustomed to the virtual controls, but it never feels like you have the same precision as you would with an actual controller.

Still, it’s Grand Theft Auto III on your iPhone (or iPad), and given both the overall quality and depth of the actual gameplay content of GTA3, it’s really easy to get over the clunky controls. The performance is great on recent iOS devices, although pop-in on the game’s horizon can be pretty noticeable if you let it get to you– Looking at videos from the PS2 version of the game, it seems like this pop-in was mostly hidden by the relative low-resolution of the game. The retina display, however, makes it really clear.

Picking up GTA3 seems like a no-brainer, especially at the launch price of $4.99. Regardless of the less than ideal control scheme, you’ll get five dollars worth of entertainment out of this game, even if all you do is drive around Liberty City listening to the fantastic in-game radio stations. (My favorite is the talk station.) As you become more accustomed with the splattering of virtual buttons all over the screen, you’ll find hours upon hours of content to plow through.

Having played GTA3 to completion many times in the past, I’m incredibly happy to be able to take it anywhere with me on my phone of all things.

TouchArcade Rating:

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Did you ever wonder about what happened to your settlers after you finished a classic game of Oregon Trail (or the newer iOS remake)? Yeah, me neither. However, the folks over at Gameloft have taken that premise and used it to build a free-to-play town builder game. Set in the frontier wilds, The Oregon Trail: American Settler [Free] tasks you with building a new town from scratch. While many folks will no doubt be somewhat perturbed by this classic series going freemium, those that are willing to check it out will find a potentially decent game with more gameplay and content than similar titles (along with more annoyances).

Gameplay-wise American Settler generally plays like most other freemium town builders. Players chop trees for wood and grow crops for food with the intent of building houses and businesses to make cash. You then use that cash to build bigger and better businesses to make more coin, and so on. Each action rewards you with experience for leveling up, which subsequently unlock better things to build. Folks familiar with freemium building games should feel right at home. In addition, the visuals in American Settler are quite colorful and look very similar to those found in the recent iOS remake of the original Oregon Trail. In other words, if you were able to accept the cartoony graphics of the remake, you’ll be fine with American Settler.

Where Gameloft somewhat deviates from the norm is with the sheer amount of things you can do simultaneously from the start. Being in the frontier, a lot of time will be spent clearing your plot of land and chopping down trees, which both earn experience among other items. Also, a lot of businesses will require base commodities (such as food) before they can eventually spit out gold. In addition, American Settler features a decent amount of crafting, with advanced items requiring simpler items (that can be made at the same workshop) and so on. I thought Gameloft did a decent job of the wide variety of items you could make, particularly with the interplay of items that could be used as prerequisite ingredients.

Gameplay and graphics are all well and good, but when it comes to freemium games, the most important question is in regards to how much can a person play before they have to wait or pay. Like most freemium games, American Settler has the usual assortment of timers that players will have to deal with in order to grow crops or craft items. Accompanying the timers is the usual ‘premium’ currency that can thwart said timers (and is conveniently offered as IAP). It’s a standard system that offers very little surprise.

However, Gameloft has taken timers one step further with the ‘Energy’ system. Similar to Let’s Golf 3, energy is required to do nearly anything in American Settler. While actions can randomly reward additional energy (thus giving you essentially a free act) you will eventually run out, and you will have to either wait, or use your premium currency to instantly restore your energy. While I’m certainly not a fan of additional timers, the truth is energy doesn’t really affect the game much outside the first few hours, as the gameplay will inevitably devolve into waiting decent amount of time for items or crops to be ready (and your energy will most likely have recovered by then).

Where I do have a problem, however, is with the randomized events that occasionally occur which threaten the timers of your businesses or crops unless you shell out some premium currency. It’s as if multiple timers and IAP were no longer enough and the developers had to throw in yet another method to try and coax IAP out of the common gamer. Sure, these events hide behind the general theme of Oregon Trail (bandit attacks and natural disasters, for example), but it still amounts to an uncouth business practice.

In the end, despite the colorful visuals and deeper gameplay, American Settler is still a freemium game. There are undoubtedly gamers out there that will simply turn their nose up and not bother simply because of that classification. However, for those that enjoy this type of genre, American Settler can offer enough actual content and gameplay to make it a freemium title worth pursuing. I just really wish that ideas like the random potentially timer resetting events and the energy ‘gameplay’ mechanic didn’t make the choice harder than it already had to be.

TouchArcade Rating:

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