At risk of beating the proverbial dead horse, it remains no secret that GameLoft has had much success with developing extremely similar ‘homages’ to popular games for iOS.  In a rare attempt to break this cycle, the developer debuted 9MM at E3 2011.  While it was supposed to be considered a completely new idea, not borrowing from other games that are on the market, I couldn’t help but shake the feeling that this was disturbingly close to True Crime: Streets of LA, a game that previously existed in the last console generation.  That said, this is a completely new idea to the iOS that is totally worth exploring.

Players strap on the concealed holster of cop John “Loose” Kannon.  Despite the terribly cliched character name, Kannon is a crime fighting machine that takes action first and asks questions later.  His brand of renegade justice has worked well in the past, but when he steals millions of dollars from a drug lord after murdering a sibling, things get very hairy, very quickly.

Featuring a slow-motion bullet time mode that might be ripped from such groundbreaking titles like Max Payne, 9MM takes on the crime drama genre of gaming with all the subtlety of a shotgun blast to the chest.  Players will be running and gunning from place to place, wiping out any thugs that step in their path.  This style of gameplay is all fun and dandy, but the storyline needs to at least be on par with the action in order to urge gamers to continue to progress further.  As far as we could tell, the game mechanics remain solid, but we will have to wait and see how this wildcard plays out before making any final conclusions.

Keep an eye out for our full review when the game hits the App Store later this summer.