The power of Hollywood stars has never counted for much in the world of video games. Occasionally a movie or TV actor finds their way into a game, whether it’s through a link to a movie they’re starring in or an original product, but usually their performance is so named that it’s worse than when a no . voice actor name was used. Grand Theft Auto has always been an exception to this rule and it’s immediately apparent that Crime Boss: Rockay City has been heavily influenced by Rockstar’s iconic series.
That’s why Crime Boss: Rockay City is full of aging movie stars you’ve still heard of, including Michael Madsen, Michael Rooker, Kim Basinger, Danny Glover, Damion Poitier, Danny Trejo, Vanilla Ice, and Chuck Norris. Kim Basinger and Vanilla Ice are the only ones who haven’t starred in a game before (Danny Glover was the narrator in a forgotten 90s edutainment game), but these are prominent actors, whose star power must be one of the main draws.
And yet, while everyone likes Danny Trejo, we’d wager that very few would buy a video game just because he was in it, and so we have to judge the game on its own merits. These include some gunfights and… that’s about it. Other than that, this is one of the worst and most broken big budget games we’ve played in a very long time.
The game begins with Madsen’s boss character and his attempts to elevate his criminal gang to be the top dog in the oddly named Rockay City. The previous crime lord recently lost his job, in predictably violent fashion, so you build a team consisting of Rooker, Poitier, Glover and Basigner as you take on rival bosses played by Trejo and, uh… Ice.
When we tell you that Chuck Norris plays a sheriff named Sheriff Norris, you immediately get a sense of the cleverness of the writing, which is so bad that it immediately negates the benefit of so many experienced actors. It tries to channel a politically incorrect ’80s-style action film, but it just comes across as mean and desperately unfunny, despite all its many attempts to pretend it’s too cool for school.
Instead of Grand Theft Auto, it’s the Payday series that Crime Boss most closely resembles. Though the only advantage it has over its inspiration is that it has a decent single player mode, at least compared to the rest of the game. Here you try to conquer territory by attacking and defending turf, and by committing raids to fill your treasury.
Unusually, there’s also a roguelite element, where you lose everything when you die except for the boss rating which determines who you can hire and what weapons you can buy. This means you can make steady progress, but everything is random every time you have to start over. Overall, it’s not a very original concept, but at least it’s an element of the game that feels relatively unique to this type of game.
The movie Heat is another big influence, and the game constantly tries to recreate the thrill of the latest shootout, but the stealth system is so unreliable that sometimes you can find yourself wandering in full view of everyone and other times you’ll be beaten by dozens. waylaid. from the police, even if you swear you were careful enough not to be noticed.
What this means in practice is that both missions are over in minutes and you’re left wondering if the game is broken, or if you’re caught up in a boring long gunfight that makes you wish it was.
The gunplay is passable, but there’s something really strange about the collision detection, as it’s just as random as the stealth. Sometimes enemies fall down despite appearing to be barely grazed and other times they act like invulnerable bullet sponges. There’s no visible sign of extra armor and, like so much in the game, you ultimately attribute it to a bug.
Attacking and defending terrain is intrinsically less interesting than a heist, with the only real wrinkle being that you need the cash from heists to hire a compadres to fight alongside you. However, as with everything else, these missions are usually riddled with bugs, including invisible enemies where only their weapons are visible and non-existent AI.
It’s never excusable, but with something like The Last Of Us Part 1 at least you understand why Sony released it so quickly before it was ready, but why was it so important that Crime Boss was released this month? Why not leave the game in the oven for a few more months and not launch a mess full of bugs that everyone will point at and laugh – and avoid the late console versions like the plague.
The other two game modes are a co-op mode that’s even more like Payday and just lets you play random missions without the management aspects (the game should have focused more on this, because at least it’s something different – but unfortunately things never get more complicated than trying more steal money to pay better allies).
Things are slightly better in the third mode, where you play a ready-made character in a series of handcrafted, rather than random, missions. It’s interesting to see it confirmed that somehow the roguelite elements don’t really make much of a difference, but ultimately this mode is less interesting simply because it’s too easy, because for some reason you’re starting from the beginning gets the best weapons. Or maybe that was another bug, who knows.
Crime Boss couldn’t have had a bigger chance (there’s still little sign of Payday 3) and yet this buggy, frustrating mess of a game has been rushed out like everyone’s life depended on it. Even if it worked perfectly, it wouldn’t be worth even a minute of your time. Crime Boss is repetitive and unoriginal, and the obviously bored actors are clearly as impressed with the script as you are.
Maybe the game will be better by the time the console versions come out – it couldn’t get any worse – but the real crime here is that the game was released in this state in the first place.
Summary of the review of Crime Boss: Rockay City
In brief: An unlikely, repetitive, and poorly designed clone of Payday that wastes its celebrity-filled cast on an equally subpar script.
Advantages: The roguelite element is unexpected and the graphics aren’t too bad if you catch them at the right time. Gunplay is okay too.
Cons: Painfully unoriginal and repetitive, especially if you’ve ever played Payday. Mountains of bugs that infect every corner of the game and make some missions almost unplayable.
rating: 3/10
Formats: PC (reviewed), Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5
Price: £34.99
Publisher: 505 Games
Developer: INGAME STUDIOS
Release date: March 6, 2023 (June on consoles)
Age rating: 18
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