If you have previously paid attention to the game “Crime Boss: Rockay City”, it is not difficult to find that this game is very similar to the “Payday” series in terms of gameplay. At the same time, a group of veteran European and American movie stars were invited to assist in the plot performance. We were fortunate enough to experience this game before its release. Below is a preliminary experience of the game for everyone.
The background stage of the story mode of “Crime Boss” is set in a fictional city called Rolling Stone in Florida, US in the 1990s. Players need to play the role of the protagonist Baker leading gang members to seize territory, defeat other forces, and ultimately ascend to the throne of the underworld in Rolling Stone.
* Since the game was not officially released at the time of this article, the complete experience of multiplayer cooperation mode cannot be obtained, so the review content only represents the single-player story mode.
The story mode of this game has a certain element of meat pigeon. The configuration, location, and distribution of gang forces will change at the beginning of each game. Events and non-Main Tasks in the process will also be randomly generated based on player choices, current gang strength, and other factors, bringing certain benefits or other subsequent impacts.
At the same time, when the protagonist Beck and other point persons die in the combat mission, the game will end. The combat difficulty of some tasks in the game is not low. It is necessary for players to make sufficient preparations before the battle and be familiar with the process route.
One of the highlights of “Crime Boss” is that it gathers many European and American movie stars from the 1990s. They are responsible for the image and dubbing of important characters in the game. For example, Michael Madsen, who played the male lead Beck, is not unfamiliar to players familiar with Quentin’s movies. In films such as “Reservoir Dogs”, “Kill Bill”, and “The Hateful Eight”, his portrayal of gangster or villain characters has left a deep impression on people. It is very consistent with the setting of the protagonist Beck’s gangster brother in this work.
The male lead Baker and the actor Michael Madsen in the game. The scene where Mr. King dances in “Reservoir Dogs” left a deep impression on me.
With the cooperation of these movie stars and actors, with the fine and vivid character modeling and action expression design. In the story mode, the performance of the cutscenes is relatively outstanding. Although there are not many highlights in the plot, players can still feel the flavor of European and American gang movies.
In the previous games, collecting and experiencing different plot events was also a major motivation for players to play the game.
Casey, the financial operator and manager in the gang, has a very eye-catching appearance in the game. The actor is US veteran actress Kim Basinger.
The story mode is based on “days” as the round unit. The refresh of tasks and events, as well as the income and expenditure of funds, are calculated based on “days”. The gameplay of the story mode is mainly divided into two parts: one is the strategic preparation stage in the work room, and the other is the first-person shooting battle during the execution of tasks.
During the preparation phase, players can choose their next move on the map, view mission objectives, hire members, form teams, and make transactions, among other things.
On the map of Office, blocks of different colors represent the territories and spheres of influence owned by various gangs, and also provide players with many task options.
The competition for territory between gang forces is a major theme of the gameplay. Occupying territory can bring more financial benefits and is also the ultimate goal. Players need to control the territory through offensive and defensive commands.
When competing for territory at the same time, a special resource – gang soldiers – should be utilized. Soldiers are a resource that consumes resources, and both hiring and dispatching require funds. The more soldiers dispatched, the lower the difficulty of territorial competition. Players need to plan their funds and the number of soldiers to improve the efficiency of territorial occupation. Completing certain events can also increase the combat power level of soldiers.
The number of gang soldiers that can be hired is limited, and players can improve through gang skills or other events.
The rules of the battle for territory are also very simple. The soldiers on both sides fight on the battlefield, and the side with the surviving soldiers wins and gains control of the territory.
In the territorial competition, players control either the minions or the thugs Du Tang.
Apart from the small leader who will appear at the end of the battle, the gameplay of the territorial competition can be said to be monotonous, and repeated attempts can easily make players feel bored. On the other hand, the relationship between gang forces is mainly influenced by some random events. The gameplay design of the relationship between forces is generally very simple.
In addition to territorial battles, there are also a large number of main and branch events in the map. The gameplay design of these events is basically similar to “Payday”. Players can lead up to 4 team members to complete tasks such as robbery, infiltration, and firefighting. Successful completion can earn a lot of financial benefits and improve the level of team members.
It is worth mentioning that some special characters’ Side Mission will randomly appear in the process. Their storylines are divided into multiple steps, and players need to gradually unlock them. The backgrounds and identities of the characters involved in the script are also diverse. Such as battlefield soldiers, prison criminals, etc., and these characters can also be recruited into the team.
In special character events, players need to control specific characters to complete the plot.
Based on my current gaming experience, some important mission objectives in the story mode are fixed, and the differences in the process experience under multiple games are not obvious. However, the difficulty of the story mode is not too low, and it still takes some time to experience most of the process content.
In the story mode, players can recruit team members to assist in completing various tasks. The attribute parameters of team members include health points, resurrection times, and characteristics. Participating in tasks can increase the level of members and obtain more characteristics. There are positive and negative characteristics, and the characteristics obtained when leveling up are random or negative.
Team members are divided into ordinary faces and special characters mentioned earlier. Special characters have more initial characteristics and carry more advanced weapons and equipment. Of course, the hiring price is also more expensive.
However, compared to games like “Payday”, the characteristics and development design of members are quite simple. The development of members is simply to level up and obtain characteristics, and they may even receive a negative characteristic. The number of types of characteristics is also limited, and the differences between characters can only be reflected in their own weapons.
General members can only perform one mission per day. Players can maintain a certain number of members to ensure that they can complete more tasks every day.
The number of weapons in the game can only be said to be passable.
Like most Pigeon games, there is a permanent enhancement mechanism in the story mode of this game. Players can increase their overall level through actions, asset purchases, etc. When increasing the overall level, they can choose one of the three to obtain a permanent enhancement ability, such as reducing the cost of purchasing assets, attacking/surrounding territory. Strengthen soldiers, increase initial team members, etc.
In Office, players can trade, borrow, and purchase assets to decorate and earn level returns.
Most of the actions in the game are theft and robbery tasks. Players need to loot enough funds or goods and load them into the pick-up vehicle to complete the task.
Operations can be completed by direct combat or infiltration. Interactive gameplay such as turning off surveillance cameras, installing chainsaws, finding passwords, and intimidating crowds is basically the same as the “Payday” series.
Mechanically, the game should also encourage players to complete tasks by cooperating and avoiding or delaying frontal conflicts as much as possible. Because once a frontal conflict is triggered, it will definitely attract the intervention of the police, and as time goes by, the police’s power will continue to rise, making it difficult for players to handle.
However, in story mode or single player gameplay, it is basically difficult to avoid detection and trigger head-on conflicts. The positions of pedestrians, guards, and monitors in the game are randomly distributed, and the alert range is quite far, just like in Payday. It is easy to be discovered by pedestrians who appear outside the field of vision or randomly when performing actions such as sneaking and unlocking.
On the other hand, players can give very few commands to the other three teammates, only follow and stay. To execute some cooperation, they can only complete it by constantly switching character actions, but this operation is undoubtedly very difficult and laborious.
In addition, the AI performance of enemies and teammates is also unsatisfactory. During plunder, teammates often stand still and watch you take it, without their own action. And enemies often have several people stuck behind obstacles and motionless.
The last point to mention is some translations and instructions for this work. The plot text in the game is not a big problem, but most of the instructions are not very clear. Players who have not played similar games before are easily misled and confused. In addition, some of the text is mixed with scattered English.
Overall, this game can be seen as a youth version of ” Payday 2 “, and the gameplay design is very similar. The story mode combines elements of pigeons, and the cutscenes with actors and actresses are quite good. However, the game content is relatively simple, and it also lacks the polishing of details, which is as rough as some current multiplayer games. Of course, during the period when everyone is waiting for “Payday 3”, this game may be a substitute for playing time?
