Tag's latest release may look familiar to those of you who remember the distant past of 1997. Car Jack Streets is a top-down driving game in which the player runs around an enormous, active city (we refuse to use the now clichéd 'living, breathing city' phrase any more). Jumping in cars and carrying out missions.
While the idea of GTA mobile is one which has been suggested several times, there are a number of fairly serious technical issues which promised to make any mobile implementation (or port) a less exciting prospect.
Car Jack however takes the basic concept and creates something quite different. All optimised for mobile. The player has to earn a certain amount of money per week to pay off the mob. That's every real week. So the player can dip in and out of the game, but has to come up with the cash within seven days. It's a nice touch and one which plays to the mobile phone gamer's normal habit of short periods of play.
How players come up with the cash is up to them. Missions are available across the city and - in another neat nod to mobile's unique capabilities, Tag have made several missions show up only at certain times of the day. So you'll have to visit the game at 5pm, or 8:15 in order to get those higher-paying jobs.
Tag haswisely focused a lot of effort on the driving elements of the game and the car handling, via the phone keypad, is surprisingly intuitive and easy.
Before anyone starts crying 'rip-off' however we should point out that Paul Farley, the MD of Tag, was one of the original level designers for Grand Theft Auto and indeed, introduced the world to the first ever incarnation of Liberty City. So there. If he can't be inspired by the GTA concept, no one can...
The game is being published by I-play - though the company's new 'casual portal' layout makes it more or less impossible to find any direct link online.
However you can see the game in action here on Pocket Gamer and read Mobile GameFAQ's 86% (Gold Award) review here.
No matter, you can download the game directly to your phone. text the word 'GANG' to 80010 and follow the instructions.
There's even a promo competition where you can win a 'Hummer V Ferrari' driving experience over on MobilegameFAQs too.
We'll be speaking to Tag about Car Jack at some point very soon.










