Arms Cartel Global for iPhone

Macworld - Pixel Addict's Arms Cartel Global, for the iPhone and iPod touch, is as massive multiplayer online game that may test your patience.

You're tasked with building a large illegal drug operation, one capable of smiting all potential competitors. To accomplish your goal, you must travel to far-flung locales like Mexico and Saudi Arabia, attacking and robbing rival cartels. You must gather weapons, build drug fronts, and recruit cartel members.

You must also learn the art of waiting.

(Image Caption: View From a Distance: You send out minions on missions to gather weapons, build drug fronts, and recruit cartel members in Arms Cartel Global, but much of this goes down without a lot of direct intervention from you.)

You don't play as a hands-on drug kingpin. You can dictate what your cartel members should do, whether it be robbing enemies or building drug fronts, but you never get see them take action. Instead, you just point to areas on the game map where you want tasks completed, then sit back and wait for the game to calculate whether your minions were successful at those tasks. It's a pretty passive gaming experience.

I wouldn't mind Arms Cartel Global's waiting aspect if any of its objectives felt even the slightest bit different from the other. Instead, fighting enemy cartels feels just the same as buying new cartel weapons. The game does have a nice interface, but it leads you on a journey to nowhere.

Sam Felsing is a former Macworld Intern. He works as full-time political consultant and part-time freelance writer.