Hands on with Payback

Revenge is a dish best served cold, which makes it fitting for Payback to arrive in the dead of winter. Don't let the chilly weather fool you, though; car-jacking, shootouts, and random acts of violence make for some hot action.

The similarity to Grand Theft Auto can't be denied, with Payback taking inspiration from that franchise's earliest instalments. Playing as an anonymous criminal underling, you scour the top-down urban landscape for potential crimes in three modes: Story, Challenge, and Rampage.

Story mode offers three cities divided into six districts, each conquered by earning a set number of points. From gunning down rivals to seizing drug shipments, the game encourages you to incite mayhem by rewarding points for criminal activity. The other two modes extend this with different point goals and parameters.

While you gain notoriety for killing random pedestrians, stealing cars, and the like, missions are your best bet for acquiring loads of points. Picking up the receiver at a marked payphone starts you on a mission. One set in Freedom City tasked us with massacring members of the Ku Klux Klan assembled at a local park.

You're free to either walk to the park or steal a car, which is amazingly easy thanks to the big 'Enter Vehicle' button that sits on the left side of the screen. Tap that near a car and you jack it, making for an easy ride to any point of interest.

Tilting the handset sets the direction of your car (or your body when walking), while movement is handled with a forward and backward set of arrow keys on the right of the screen.

By default, you only have your fists to fight enemies. Scattered throughout each city are weapons that can be picked up and equipped via a icon window in the upper left corner.

The icons for each weapon are incredibly small, making selection problematic whenever you possess several weapons. Grabbing a shotgun before entering the park gave us an edge against the half dozen or so Klan members on our hit list. A 'Fire' key directly above the 'Enter Vehicle' button requires a tap whenever you want to attack or shoot.

Another mission had us seizing a tank for Freedom City's local military installation. Unlike other vehicles, the tank comes with the ability to lob destructive rounds that blow cars and other objects to smithereens. The simple goal in that mission: obliterate as much stuff as possible within a set time to earn bonus points.

Not every task we tried was full of fun. A lacklustre stalking mission required us to tail a traitorous colleague to a meeting with a rival. Along with the general lameness of having to follow the guy across half the map, the mission ends without any action - once you reach the meeting, you just let the two go on their merry way without remonstration.

This straightforward, often plain approach runs throughout the game's design, and not just in the variety of mission objectives thrown your way. The maps all feature simple layouts, dialogue is kept succinct, and even the visuals maintain a clean aesthetic.

Payback won't achieve the same level of complexity as its console counterpart and it's for the best. While there's notable room for improvement and the need to fix elements of the design, the simple mission structure and ease of play all suit portability.

Regardless of the game's final measure of gameplay quality, Payback will issue a new bill of standards on iPhone. Its free-roaming gameplay coupled with big environments brimming with activity - not to forget a full soundtrack and voice acting - assure us that these sort of experiences are possible.