Glu muscles into the freemium iOS market with Big Time Gangsta

Having promised to released four or five freemium games every three months during 2011, Glu Mobile is starting to fulfill that promise.

Last week came Contract Killer, a first person shooter, which has since shot to the top of the top grossing charts. And now comes Big Time Gangsta.

It takes the atmosphere of the GTA, mixing it up with gameplay that's similar to Mafia Wars.

The two main elements are taking over territory across a topdown city map, something you do by building up your gang with stronger members (up to seven), and unlocking better equipment - guns, ammo, health packs, and other power ups.

Conquering a building is a simple as tapping on any location with a gun icon on it. You then see the strength of the opposing gang and can choose which of your goons you want to select for the battle ahead.

The game then goes into an Advance Wars-style face off, with your gang on the left and the other gang on the right of the screen. They will automatically fire at each other, the result a combination of firepower and defensive abilities. You can however gain an advantage by selecting individuals from your gang and then quickly tapping on specific enemies you want to target.

The mission plays out until everyone on one team has their health reduced to zero. If that's the enemy, you gain its building. Anyone on your side who has their health used up is sent to the hospital to recover; something which can take up to a hour to complete. Of course, this being a freemium game, anything that's time-based can be immediately actioned using one of the in-game currencies - in this case Cred.

As well as Cred, you gain in-game cash from each location you control, and from doing missions. Again, these are time-based so you can wait for them to complete or speed them up with Creds. One clever touch is you have to assign some of your gang members to each mission, meaning they're not available for general territory expansion during that time.

No doubt, Glu hopes this will encourage players to use real cash at the bank. Deals start from $1.99 or £1.19 for 10 Creds, up to $49.99 or £29.99 for 400 Creds. You can buy cash for $1.99 or £1.19 for 10,000, up to $49.99 or £29.99 for 400,000.

You can also earn free Creds using Tapjoy's offerwall to download promoted games including Words with Friends, Zombie Farm or Gun Bros.

Insular vision

Surprisingly though, unlike Mafia Wars, Big Time Gangsta doesn't - yet - have many social features. There's Game Center support of course, but no ability to compete with other gangs or even communicate with your friends (or enemies).

Screenshots of the game do show a Friends icon so hopefully such functionally will come in a future update.

Still, as is the case with most of Glu's freemium games, Big Time Gangsta is well worth checking out. You don't have to spend any cash - at least during the first hour or so - unless you want to, and the presentation and quality is much superior to most of the FarmVille-style games on the App Store.

Available now for iPhone and iPad, you can get an idea how it plays in the following video.

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