Crime Boss: Rockay City Review
Played on PC
Developed by Ingame Studios
Released 28th March 2023
If you didn't know anything about this game then you'd be forgiven, with how under the radar its launch was, despite promising much. Part of a State of Play announcement, Ingame Studios' debut title boasted an impressive cast of actors, whose combined presence radiated Quentin Tarantino energy. It genuinely looked like a great time from its trailer, with a design that heavily exaggerated the 90s in all the right ways and a heavy Payday influence; even 505 Games were publishing this title, the same publishers behind Payday 2. Even though the developers behind the project did contain talent and weren't fully new to the game development prospect - with its 70+ members having worked on titles like Hidden & Dangerous 2, the Mafia series, Kingdom Come Deliverance and more - the Czech studio's new establishment already having a budget for legacy actors arose more suspicions than it did hype.
As the game came out, it became abundantly clear what happened: they used most of the money to hire out these Hollywood legends and had zilch for the advertising, and possibly the rest of its development with how rough the game is. The lack of marketing, the Epic Games launcher exclusivity, the undesirable gameplay screenshots and rough critic scores really made this game land in the mud and I would've entirely skipped out on this title despite having it on my wishlist since its announcement, had it not been for its free-play weekend. After grinding the game out just to simply have it in my completed pile, I really should've committed to skipping out on it.
Story
The story was so bland and uninteresting that it can be described as a "snooze-fest". I really don't understand how game developers, across the whole industry, are capable of making such interesting concepts flavourless. While the premise of gang wars erupting in order to fill in the power vacuum left behind by the previous city "king" is really basic and would turn many people away from playing it, the main attraction of the game is its cast; being able to play as Michael Madsen and try to evade Chuck Norris as the game's sheriff is something that piqued my interest as much as the next person. But its execution is incredibly lacklustre. Chuck Norris and his law enforcement persona are not utilised to their full potency, restricting his character to occasional exposition-dumping cutscenes rather than a present force that could interact with you gameplay-wise. The other gang leaders also sucked with how tastelessly they were delivered, only differing in their UI appearance during missions. Why couldn't of Vanilla Ice's character be a more prominent, fun, braggadocious character that made frequent interactions with the player? Why couldn’t of Danny Trejo's character be a more threatening opposing force, via story and gameplay? Even if the plot of the story is supposed to be irrelevant in the grand scheme of the experience, why even bother having these actors in the first place if they can't flex the one thing they're known for: acting? The narrative's execution is probably as messy as the development process was and I can't even say that it is a shame it turned out this way because it isn't, there are no redeeming qualities to be found in the story that would want me to root for Ingame Studios to try again.
Gameplay
The gameplay is very problematic with little redemption in its core loop. Now, my time with the game was only rooted in its singleplayer campaign and from what I've heard, that is the strongest part of the game as the online matchmaking and co-op experience are nested with problems ranging from technical issues like poor connectivity to faults revolving around the base gameplay like it just not being fun to play. That being said, the campaign is kinda bad. Crime Boss: Rockay City is very much just a Payday clone with some rogue-like elements and its attempts at reinvention are not only limited but unfulfilling.
Each mission is ridiculously repetitive having one of the three objectives of either breaking into the safe to collect its money, stealing the loot of an enemy gang or robbing a police-guarded convoy. There are a couple of deviations here and there, but not enough to make the game's 10 hours any more bearable towards the halfway point, especially when all of its core mechanics are bare-bone basic.
The gunplay is in the same vain as those Unity first-person shooter walkthrough tutorials you can follow and recreate. The weapons were fine and responsive enough to use but it felt incredibly numbing to play with how basic it was and how undeveloped its arsenals were - shotguns and SMGs can practically function as sniper rifles with how tight their spread is and how effective headshots are.
The stealth is probably the worst part of the game. It just isn't as functional as the game requires it to be and as a result, you, the player, suffer. The stealth tries to work off of the three strikes mechanic where for each suspicious act you do, you get a strike and enemies become reactive to your behaviours before becoming fully aggressive once you hit that 3rd strike. The problem is how the strike system works. The punishments for your actions are too severe as a full stealth kill where you hide the body is a strike as if all the NPCs are telepathic, breaking one camera is also a strike, even if nobody is in the security room and more.
This leads to my next issue with the game and that's the lack of upgrading your heist equipment. In between every mission, you will be able to alter your loadout between each hireable goon you have on your squad and while you can buy new weapons for egregious prices, getting new beneficial tools is non-existent. Want to get an EMP to bypass the strike for each camera broken? Good luck because not only is it rare, but you can only unlock it by buying the pricey character that has it and to even get them is pure luck as each run is randomised. Want to buy something that lets you speed up the process of the safecrackers? Hah, you're funny if you think this game is generous enough to not make you wait 3-4 minutes PER SAFE.
The AI design is also pretty bad as they would find themselves running into walls and their aim would range from horrendous to Sniper Elite levels of accuracy, and the guards' behaviours are inconsistent as they would become more aggressive after you crouch than straight-up punching them.
As mentioned earlier, the game has rogue-like components. The whole point of each run is to claim all the territory in Rockay City in order to become its king and to do that, in between each mission, aside from buying new teammates and weapons, you'll be handling your turfs in some mildly entertaining fashion. You'll be able to hire soldiers to invade other gangs' turfs or to defend your own, you'll be able to encounter randomised events like a gang leader striking up a pact with you, or do narrative-driven missions of side characters that you can then have as a part of your crew. The turf attack/defend missions are very monotone and make the basic shooting even more basic (somehow) and those side missions are mind-numbingly boring extensions of characters that I could give less of a fuck about, however, they do make up the more entertaining part of the campaign as they act as necessary mix-ups to the very average robbery missions.
The final aspect of the gameplay that I have to talk about is the wanted levels. After each mission, if you had too many civilian casualties or took too long to finish the job, then your wanted level goes up and when reaching a milestone, Sheriff Chuck Norris sends out someone who not only investigates random turfs before turning them into unclaimed territories, but also can appear in your jobs as a beefed-up enemy. My question is, why? I don't understand the purpose of this wanted level other than making the player fail their run if they are too chaotic in their missions, which is arguably half the fun. The Sheriff's goons add little to the gameplay loop, it has zero narrative effect and seems to be yet another excuse as to why Chuck Norris himself couldn't appear in your missions as a fun little boss fight.
Characters
The characters and their writing are insufferable. After looking through my backlog of completed titles, I only found a couple that can be compared to this horrendous writing. The dialogue is just so painfully boring and the cheesy or snarky comments come across as corny and headache-inducing. The worst part is how the unsatisfactory voice acting amplifies the worst traits of the writing. This had to be some of the most disappointing voice work I've seen in a videogame, because, despite having a brilliant Hollywood cast, they serve lacklustre performances as if their deliveries lacked care, strong direction, or both. It's almost as if they were there just for the quick and easy buck and the developers were too scared to correct them due to their impressive film portfolios, despite movies and games being vastly different in terms of how actors approach their roles. I still think they could've done a great job with a little bit of coaching, but the negligence displayed here led to an embarrassing showcase from everybody on board. The characters themselves lack any and all development and that is best shown in those Character Missions with the likes of Ranger and Jupiter (which have unskippable cutscenes) as they serve to do nothing but act as cannon fodder to the playtime.
Atmosphere
Even when not compared to the faults of the rest of the game, the atmosphere stands to be relatively decent. Even though the soundtrack is inconsistent with its tone and vibe, and occasionally sounds like an uncomfortable cluster of instrumentals, the other times it sounds basic and what you'd expect of a Payday clone, and in that regard, it does well.
The graphical fidelity of the game is good and at times great to look at, but that's somewhat to be expected in a 2023 release. However, the graphics can't look good if the art direction fails to provide and fortunately, the art direction and its overexaggerated 90s aesthetic being infused into a standard rendition of the criminal world, make up for some appealing character and level designs.
The technical performance is conventional for other games released in the last 3-year time window, only with some minor hiccups along the way such as screen tears, AI moonwalking forward, and some cutscenes in between each Turf War/Heist loading in nothing but a black screen. Sounds like a lot, but they were truly minor inconveniences.
Story - 2/10
Gameplay - 4/10
Characters - 1/10
Atmosphere - 6/10
Awful
Skip out on this underperforming, "stardom clickbait", Payday copy.
