Crime Boss: Rockay City Takes a Swing at Payday’s Formula but Strikes Out
Crime Boss: Rockay City takes Payday’s potent formula and plops it in the middle of the decade that brought us bleached hair, dial-up internet, and the ’92-’93 Dallas Mavericks. Unfortunately, just like bleached hair, dial-up internet, and those 11-and-71 Dallas Mavericks, Crime Boss looks awful, is technically outclassed, and is full of embarrassing performances. Hard to outright hate thanks to the compelling, car crash quality of some of its cutscenes, it’s nonetheless impossible to recommend right now on account of regular bugs, repetitive missions, and bog-standard blasting that’s unmemorable at its best and exasperating at its worst.
Crime Boss is a game that is a clear attempt to imitate the highly successful heist game Payday. On the surface, the game looks promising with three separate ways to play, including a dedicated single-player campaign and two co-op focused modes. Michael Madsen, known for his work on The Walking Dead, Dishonored, and Grand Theft Auto III, plays the leading man, Travis Baker, adding an additional level of excitement to the game. The game also features Bon Jovi’s second-best song about cowboys on the soundtrack. However, upon closer inspection, Crime Boss falls short in several key areas.
The game’s melee attacks are hopelessly unconvincing, and the shooting itself is annoyingly imprecise and ineffectual. The game also seems to have a strange approach to leveling up. It rations out perks that negate aiming sway and increase the stopping power of your rounds as rewards for leveling up, but this only makes the game feel like garbage until you can level up for the chance to make it less so.
The roguelike approach to the solo campaign, called Baker’s Battle, is an interesting concept but ultimately becomes exhausting. Completing Baker’s Battle requires taking over all territories in Rockay City. Taking territories requires surviving a chaotic but largely vanilla turf war against a wave of opposition gang members. Defending territories requires surviving a chaotic but largely vanilla turf war against a wave of opposition gang members. Funding all this requires stealing stuff from a modest assortment of warehouses, strip malls, and other secure spots that always look pretty much the same. Pushing through the campaign is already an exercise in repetition. Making it a roguelike feels like putting a treadmill in a hamster wheel. Beyond that, the only real change to the formula comes in the form of some incredibly left-field side missions, like a Vietnam War flashback or a baffling trip to a snap-frozen Russian airbase, none of which have been particularly enjoyable thanks to tiny maps and unsatisfying action.
Crime Boss unapologetically lifts most of its heist systems from Payday, even down to its automatic drills and saws with little computer screens. The upshot of this thievery is that Crime Boss’s heists are easily the better part of proceedings, even if working with the lax AI often means bagging up the goods for them and tossing them a duffel rather than trusting them to do it themselves. For the most part, the shonky stealth means things descend into identical firefights time after time. Occasionally, and mostly in the final moments of a successful heist, players can experience Crime Boss at its most competent. There is a certain satisfaction to be gleaned from having the crowd subdued and the loot secured, even if it is highly derivative of Payday’s long-established formula.
Equally inelegant are the lion’s share of voice performances from its otherwise highly recognizable cast. Vanilla Ice is here as a rapping drug lord who is either beatboxing between his sentences or has someone else doing it for him. It’s unclear which one it is, but either way, it’s a cringe-inducing performance that adds to the overall feeling of embarrassment that permeates Crime Boss. While some of the other celebrity performances at least have a certain charm to them, Vanilla Ice’s portrayal of Hielo is just painful to watch. It’s hard to tell if he’s trying to be serious or if he’s in on the joke, but either way, it’s a swing and a miss.
The rest of the celebrity cast doesn’t fare much better. Michael Rooker’s Touchdown speaks entirely in football metaphors and also carries a football for emergencies, which is just as ridiculous as it sounds. Danny Glover’s character, Gloves, is a forgettable addition to the cast, and his performance is phoned in at best. And while Chuck Norris may be a legendary action star, his voice acting in Crime Boss is downright cringe-worthy. He seems to have trouble delivering even the simplest lines, and his partner, a Sonny Crockett cosplayer, is voiced by someone who sounds like they’ve never acted before.
The sense of repetition that pervades Crime Boss extends beyond the gameplay mechanics themselves and into the missions themselves. For example, the side missions that deviate from the main campaign are ultimately just variations of the same few basic tasks. It’s either stealing something from a warehouse or blowing something up to get some loot. While these missions are a nice break from the main campaign, they don’t add much in terms of variety.
One of the biggest issues with Crime Boss is the game’s AI. In the solo campaign, the AI is passable but far from perfect. However, it’s the co-op AI that truly struggles. The bots frequently get stuck on scenery or simply stop working altogether, leaving you to fend for yourself against waves of enemies. This can be particularly frustrating when playing with others, as the bots can drag down the experience for everyone.
Another area where Crime Boss falls flat is the visuals. While the game’s setting is interesting, the graphics are mediocre at best. The character models are stiff and lifeless, and the environments are often bland and repetitive. Even the game’s cutscenes, which feature de-aged Hollywood stars, don’t quite hit the mark.
Despite these issues, Crime Boss does have its moments. When everything comes together just right, the game can be a lot of fun. The heists are the clear highlight, and they can be incredibly satisfying when executed correctly. The problem is that these moments are too few and far between. Most of the time, Crime Boss is a slog.
All in all, Crime Boss: Rockay City is a game that falls short of its ambitions. While it’s clear that the developers had big plans for the game, the end result is a messy and frustrating experience. The lackluster AI, repetitive missions, and mediocre visuals all combine to create a game that’s difficult to recommend. If you’re looking for a heist game, there are better options out there. Crime Boss may have a compelling setting and an interesting cast of characters, but it simply doesn’t deliver on its promises.
Virtuality Bytes 
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