Easily one of the best mobile games out
After the recent DRIVER failures, Atari handed over the Driver franchise to the mobile platform, a platform which seems to never have many good games, and Glu Mobile, producers of most of my favourite mobile games. They produced Driver:Vegas, a top-down game, which to me, resembled GTA more than Driver. Now, the baton has been handed over to Gameloft, easily one of the best mobile producers. Instead of the top-down affair of the last game, Gameloft have tryed to emulate the look of the Playstation 2 games, with an over-the-shoulder look like Driv3r, or the ever-more popular Grand Theft Auto III.
Lets go over the basics: You are Tanner, the same Tanner from Driver, Driver 2, Driv3r, Driver Vegas (yeah, he's quite popular with the Atari guys), in Los Angeles. There are some on-foot missions, but most of them are driving missions, which is a relief as I loathed the on-foot sequences in Driv3r. You'll infiltrate gangs, protect informants and chase bank robbers at breakneck speeds in hellish road pursuits worthy of the greatest Hollywood blockbusters.
The on-foot sequences, while far and few in the game, are quite well done, as are the shooting. It is quite annoying, when dealing with the gun work, as if you are anywhere near a barrel/car/object you could hide behind, Tanner runs across to it to crouch, while exposing himself. As you will remember from Driv3r, Tanner isn't the fastest guy in the world, in fact I've seen snails run faster than the "sprint" in that game, and that seems to not have changed, however, that doesnt really matter anymore as you do little footwork, but the bit you do do would have been better if you were a bit faster. If you are no-where near anywhere to hide, Tanner will just crouch on the spot. When in the crouching stance, an aiming reticule comes up, controlled by the D-Pad, or 2,4,6,8 respectively. However, and this is the nice touch to the gunplay, the reticule locks onto the enemy, but it will refuse to lock onto a passer-by, which is always a problem in GTA and other gun-based games.
When in a car, you automatically accelerate, 8 or Down on the D-Pad is brake/reverse, 4 and 6 (or left and right on the D-pad) control the direction, and 2 gives the car a Nitrous oxide boost, to help speed off when in a tight situation. Pressing 0 automatically performs a handbrake turn, which sometimes takes a while, with the games scenery getting in the way.
Talking about the games scenery, the city looks pretty good, remembering it is a mobile game, where most buildings would be flat, drawn onto a game. The textures are non-existant, being plain colours on blocks. And you are limited to the road, no short-cuts on the grass, as there is an invisible wall keeping you back. The cars all look pretty nice, with small little details on all the cars.
Drive-bys are possible in the game, by pressing 5 (or the centre of the D-pad) and the aiming reticule automatically targets the nearest car/enemy and fires. Its handy to use in missions where you have to blow up cars, instead of just ramming them.
Most of this article has been positive, but this game isn't all perfect. You may think these complaints are nit-picking, and not important, but they are little niggles that are quite frustrating in the game. For example, in race missions, when you are racing against other cars, they often glitch in front of you for no reason whatsoever, this seems to especially happen around corners. Also, there is no way (that I can see at the moment, if there is correct me please) to exit your car whenever you want (such as in Free Mode) which would be cool to run and gun, doing whatever you want, outside of missions. A few other things, the cars on the roads are, well, far and few, and the ones on the road are pretty generic.
Overall, Driver: LA Undercover is a worthy game to have on your cell, and the small problems it has, are insignificant (and are most likely down to my own personal preference). This is a worthy addition to the Driver series, and easily one of the best games I have played on the mobile for a long time. Now if we get Grand Theft Auto on the mobile, my library will be complete!