I have always been a fan of the original Grand Theft Auto game so when I found out that Scottish developers Tag Games were producing Car Jack Streets I was over the moon. And to find out that some of the guy who worked on the first Grand Theft Auto game I just knew it had to be a hit….right?

Well not exactly there are so many flaws and glitches that Car Jack Streets just isn’t that much fun.

The first problem I found was the control system while using O to accelerate in a vehicle and X to reverse was strange at first to get used too, it was nearly impossible to control most vehicles with the thumb stick, which meant you HAD to use the D-pad whether you wanted to or not. Unfortunately for a game that involves a lot of driving you would hope that the controls would be a little smoother and unfortunately that is not the only problem with the vehicles. I found that the collision detection was slightly off which meant you would bounce off other cars on the road when you wasn’t that close to them in the first place. And as for the bouncing of cars I still can’t work out how a truck manages to bounce off of a micro (Tag games equivalent to a mini) while the micro still advances on you.

And the driving is not where half the problems lie. For instance when destroying a vehicle while standing directly next to it you would assume you would be killed or at least receive some amount of damage but surprise surprise nothing not even a scratch. And still it continues with the same song playing back to back on the radio and with the inability to change stations the music does start to grate you nerves.

Even if you try to over look these problems there are more with the inability to complete some missions even when you do what is asked you can’t help but feel a lot of aspects of the game where rushed or over looked.

The biggest problem that I found and I’m not sure if this is a glitch in the game or just something wrong with my copy so please if anyone else has found the same glitch please let me know. But when you save your game and turn off your PSP (not stand by) then load your game you magically have $100,000 credited to your funds. Now this leaves one major problem you can do this numerous times till you have enough to pay off your debt completely defeating the point of doing missions.

I also found it was really to easy to lose the police no matter how many wanted stars you have against you (maximum of 4 stars). I also never understood why when being chased by the police the mob would work with the police to get to you.

Which with all the problems it is a real shame as it does kind of hide the good aspects of the game, such as Car Jack Streets is played in real time which means you have a week to pay off $50,000 of your debt until you completely pay off your entire debt, and depending on the time of the day you play the game you will be given a different variety of missions to complete. I also enjoyed the power ups in the game such as having gang members join you or extra ammo or kill frenzy’s (like the ones in the GTA games). You also have 50 hidden parcels to find throughout the world (again much like GTA).

All in all Car Jack Streets had a lot of potential but unfortunately with so many problems from controls to glitches in missions and game play CJS falls flat on it face and unless you desperately want to play a GTA clone I would avoid at all cost.

Overall 5/10