Crime Boss: Rockay City is a whole lot of issues. Mostly, it’s a shooter, a first-person blaster set within the fictional Rockay City, a crime-filled metropolis the place digitally de-aged celebrities mingle with one another, buying and selling strains with the charismatic impression of a Nerf dart that couldn’t make pals in secondary college.
Elsewhere, It’s a single-player roguelike sport that takes the trimmings of the Payday franchise and wedges them right into a marketing campaign that sees you attempting, time and again, to deliver all the metropolis beneath your management.
Then there are the cooperative modes, Crime Time – a quickplay multiplayer mode that delivers the Payday magic with none of the overarching development that made that exact heist-’em-up so compelling – and Urban Legends. Urban Legends is similar, actually, however has little vignettes that play out over three-heist arcs, and echoes the mechanics of Payday even because it fails to grasp that the greenback determine that underpins all of it was a necessary a part of Payday’s attraction.
Lumped in collectively there’s rather a lot on supply from Ingame Studios’ Crime Boss: Rockay City, however whilst the sport tries to attain some success as a nostalgia-baiting blaster, a multiplayer shooter and an train in roguelike persistence, it hardly ever succeeds at making the sport really feel worthwhile.
The main problem right here is that the capturing within the sport is imprecise and messy, whereas the weapons you’re armed with lack impression, with rounds hitting goons in t-shirts with no sense of consequence in any way. The weapons are boringly designed, a group of humdrum rifles, uzis and shotguns daubed in nonsensical colors. Picking out weapons from Rockay City’s uninteresting arsenal doesn’t spark pleasure, and it’s extremely uncommon that firing one in every of them thrills, both.
The enemies you’ll struggle slowly escalate in issue however this typically feels synthetic. The gang members you’ll face off in opposition to can solely actual hope to break you through the use of the burden of numbers, and entry-level cops and safety guards will typically take a look at you passively as you run over to do them in. An extended firefight will typically see the police escalate in issue till they’re hurling athletic S.W.A.T groups at you that may dive round and take a good bit of punishment earlier than dying. Later nonetheless closely armoured juggernauts lose the balletic grace of their S.W.A.T colleagues however will fortunately eat your total ammo reserve with out falling over.
A primary-person shooter with unhealthy gunplay and a boring assortment of weapons isn’t in a great spot to start with, however Rockay City additionally doesn’t succeed as a nostalgia piece both as a result of the cliche-ridden writing and poor supply rob even performers corresponding to Michael Rooker and Michael Madsen of the allure that makes them so watchable on the large display.
For some characters, it could actually simply come off as awkward. Vanilla Ice, higher identified for his music than for his lead function in say, 1991’s Cool as Ice, voices rival gang chief Hielo, who seemingly can’t resolve which misogynist sound chunk to get out of his mouth first, caught between whether or not to seek advice from girls in his orbit as property or simply calling them Bitch each 15 seconds.
He doesn’t have a monopoly on misogyny right here, both. While some will little question argue that some kind of social shittiness is to be anticipated from a sport set within the ‘90s, it nonetheless leaves a nasty style in your mouth.
It would even be about the one factor in regards to the sport cohesive with the timeframe it’s supposedly set in. The case of has-been heroes (and Michael Rooker, who’s nonetheless unbelievable each time he seems in something) could also be firmly from the ‘80s and ‘90s, the weaponry feels contemporary with laser sights, optics and other attachments hailing from the modern day. Factor in the tonal dissonance of emerging into a level to hear Bomfunk MC’s ‘Freestyler’ blasting from a growth field, and the world of Crime Boss matches collectively imperfectly, resisting all makes an attempt at immersion.
While, as talked about above, Crime Boss has heisted most of its mechanics from crime-’em-up Payday, it does have just a few of its personal concepts: the single-player Baker’s Battle duties you with heisting as a approach of constructing the bankroll to your personal felony empire, chucking loot and money into a giant pit that you need to use to brighten your workplace – providing you with status – rent troopers and even simply device you and your gang up with extra firepower.
Along the best way, level-ups will allow you to unlock perks for each Baker and his core crew of crime center managers, which supplies them perks of their specialist areas. Michael Rooker’s Touchdown is usually centered on the sport’s turf struggle mechanic, for instance, and may be upgraded to make assault and defence simpler. Other characters cope with recruiting gangs or flogging off your stolen merch.
These aren’t the one NPCs that’ll be part of you in your journey, both. AI heisters may be recruited so that you can play as or take alongside on missions. These may also degree up and in additional profitable campaigns this gang will extra intently resemble some kind of Baker’s dozen you can ship across the metropolis to get shit executed. Having these NPC choices is invaluable for riskier missions too, as a result of in the event you take your essential character out onto a mission and he will get bounced, your marketing campaign run is over and also you’re again to the beginning, holding solely the level-ups you’ve beforehand earned.
This second to second whirlwind of heisting, taking territory and tackling little story vignettes with a group of random characters is kind of compelling, regardless of Crime Boss’ many points, and if the capturing felt good it’s potential that it could be fairly enjoyable.
As it’s, the capturing isn’t the place it must be and so the sport’s total existence feels superfluous. It’s potential that Ingame Studios or writer 505 Games is aware of this too, as a result of as of the time of writing the one place you may play the sport is the Epic Games Store, with console variations planning to launch in June.
If you’re a Payday superfan, the myriad of points right here may not put you off. For everybody else, there’s higher nostalgia bait elsewhere and a complete lot of higher first-person shooters.
Crime Boss: Rockay City is out now on the Epic Games Store. We performed it on PC.
Verdict
A subpar shooter that’s diminished by the cash spent on licensed music and stunt-cast voice appearing, Crime Boss may very well be the yr’s largest “if only,” as you may see good concepts let down by poor writing, woeful capturing and a sport that appears like all of its money was spent on Chuck Norris one-liners as a substitute of constructing the sport stand by itself with out these points. A disappointment.
Pros
- Baker’s Battle is a enjoyable roguelike twist to heist gameplay
- Hey look, it’s Michael Madsen however from the previous!
Cons
- Terrible capturing
- Cramped ranges
- Awful writing