Are you tired of playing the same old GTA games on your mobile devices? I don’t know about you, but at least I was! So I decided to go to the Play Store in search of some similar games, and I stumbled across this very unique game called ‘Gangs Fighter: Vice Island‘ and as the name suggests the game takes place in a similar location to that of Vice City! Turns out, this is a very popular game among mobile gamers, so I ended up playing the game for quite a while! Keep on reading to know my thoughts on this popular GTA Vice City Clone for Android.
Also Read: GTA 5 On Android Is Finally A Reality; Here’s How You Can Play It!
I’d like to first start talking about the game, by the gameplay. After that, I’ll slowly move on to the controls, the different game modes the game has to offer! Not only that, but I’ll also be talking about the graphics and art style of this game, along with the performance of this game!
Gangs Fighter: Vice Island
First up, the basic gameplay! Something that surprised me was that the character movements. Generally in these types of clones, the one thing that always feels off is the way you have to control your character. However, the developer has put in a lot of effort in this regard, as the character movements, jumping, melee fights were very nice!
Controls:
The game comes with touch controls by default, and there is no way to change anything in the settings menu! The controls don’t feel janky, so it is nice to play around with, however, it would have been even better if there was a way to resize the buttons, and move them around. The aim-assist of the game is nice, as it registers shots to the enemies smoothly! I did not, however, like the car controls of this game, they could be improved, as the physics felt very janky.
While the game’s page on the Play Store does not mention anything about controller support. I did connect a Dualsense PS5 controller and the game was indeed working, somewhat. While the character was able to move and jump, he wasn’t able to look around, meaning the camera controls weren’t working at all. Since the Dualsense controller has a touchpad, you can play the game using that too. If you hard press on the touchpad, then the character attacks. So it is fair to say that the controller does not work on this game properly!
Game Modes:
The most disappointing part of most clone games is that there is nothing else to do other than free roaming. However, the developer made sure that players don’t get bored and they’ve added a bunch of other things to do as well. There are a bunch of missions that you can do, which involve killing other people, going around the town and more!
Aside from the main missions, there is even a shooting arena, where you can kill a bunch of enemies in a limited time to score points, and earn in-game money. There are even some car missions that the player can do. They involve things like drifting around a specific arena, drag races and more. The game developer keeps on adding new missions and side missions, so there is a lot to play around with!
The thing that surprised me the most has to be this specific segment! Have you played Sleeping Dogs? If yes, do you remember the Cockfights that were a part of that game? As a fellow fan of the former game, I was surprised that there is a Chicken fighting mini game that you can play around with. You heard that right, a chicken fight mini-game! You can control a chicken and fight another chicken, it’s very fun!
Graphics and Artstyle:
Firstly, talking about the graphics, the game looks okay, I’ve seen better graphics on clone games. However, I was quite disappointed here as there was no way to change, or play around with the settings. The saving grace was the art style, as it did somewhat remind me of the Definitive Edition trilogy that also released for mobile devices. The game has a bunch of wall arts, throughout the game, which gives it a very nice touch. Overall, the graphics were okay at best, it would have been better if it had more graphic options.
Performance:
I played the game on my Samsung Tab S9 FE, which comes with the mid-range Exynos 1380 SoC. On that device, the performance wasn’t as good as it should have been. There were frame drops and the game was also running at 30fps. Given the graphics of this game, more optimisation is needed. While I did not get a chance to test the game on any other device, I hope this is a device-specific issue, and the game runs better on other devices!
Should you play the game?
I’ll have to be very honest. The game is not that bad. I like how they’ve managed to capture the vibe of Vice City. However, there are some major flaws I did not like. First up, the ads that pop-up in between can be very annoying! Look, I know this is a free game, and ads will have to be a part of it, but they can be distracting. What’s worse, is that there is no way to remove the ads, a premium tier should be added, which would remove the ads.
Next up, the optimisation needs a lot of work! The game is very short, only coming in at around a 140MB, which is nice, considering everything the game packs. But, given the graphics, the performance can be a lot better. Aside from this, if the controls were improved, and native controller support gets added to the game, it would be a welcome feature.
To conclude, yes, you should indeed play the game. It’s available for free on the Play Store, and is very small in disk space as well. It’s a fun little game, that you can play, if you’re looking to pass off some time! The developer has not given any statement regarding the iOS version of the game, so it looks like Android gamers can only enjoy it as of now!
