Crime Life: Gang Wars

The gangster life has certainly been getting a lot attention from game designers this year and with so many urban hip-hop flavored gang banging games already available they’re becoming a dime a dozen. Most recently we have seen some bad gangster games (like 187 Ride or Die and Beat Down: Fists of Vengeance) and a really good one (The Warriors), so now Konami throws in their very own take with Crime Life: Gang Wars. Trust me when I say that this war really isn’t worth fighting.

You play Tre, a young gangster who has always wanted to run with the Outlawz (a gang run by a man named Big Dog), and thanks to his cousin Darryl he gets the chance to join by showing off his fighting skills against a huge thug named Furious. Winning the fight, Tre is initiated into the gang and begins his quest to become a respected gangster and help restore the Outlawz to their former glory. Of course, this isn’t going to be an easy feat to accomplish since there are various rival gangs including the powerful Headhunterz to deal with first.

We follow Tre’s criminal career as he hits the streets to participate in a number of missions, crime sprees and random rumbles with rival gang members dumb enough to walk into Outlawz territory. You are free to explore your surroundings and even enter certain shops, bars and even a neighborhood barbershop. Want to earn more respect and money, there’s an unofficial fight championship run by a girl named Conchita you can enter at any time. Do you want to show the neighborhood that the Outlawz are kings? Well grab a spray can and paint the walls. If there’s not enough money in your pocket, you can always walk into a store and shoplift or beat the storeowner until he gives up the cash (shades of Rockstar’s The Warriors, only not done right). In short, there is a lot for your thug to do in Grand Central City.

The problem is that this game’s main attraction just so happens to be the street fighting and this is where the game really falls apart. For the most part the game begins with a fight and gamers are quickly introduced to the moves as well as the complex combos. The basic attacks such as spinning attacks and heavy punches can be pulled off easily enough but the combos require a gamer to possess double-jointed digits to pull off successfully. Tre can throw his opponent and even perform some backbreaking brutal attacks and finishing moves that snap limbs quite easily. The problem is that the targeting makes it hard to focus on one specific fighter at a time and since the game often throws multiple opponents you will often be punching one thug and kicking another foe tossed in your direction. It gets worse when you have other Outlawz aiding you since the enemies they fight can accidentally cross your line of sight. Almost immediately, you will stop hitting the opponent you were going to defeat and start dishing out painful blows to the enemy that was tossed your way.

You can also grab weapons - the worst being melee weapons such as baseball bats, planks and batons - and use them against the enemy. There are also guns but the targeting problems will result in frustration. For most of the game, though, you’ll be using your fists and if it wasn’t for the fatal brutal attacks you’ll be looking at the same fighting moves repeatedly. At one point, you’ll earn enough respect to issue orders to fellow gang members. The orders range from “Attack,” “Hold back,” “Assist me,” “Regroup” and “Recovering.” 

As I mentioned above, there are shops, bars and other areas you can enter. If you want to purchase weapons you can head into Mal’s shop while a trip to Fat D is necessary if you want to replenish your health. You can head into a bar to brawl or just get drunk. There are various stores and you can pop in, shoplift an item or go in with a bat and threaten storeowners for a good old-fashioned burglary. Every crime you commit, though, raises a crime meter that will have the police combing the streets looking to arrest you. This would have been a nice diversion from the game’s main mission but it quickly gets old fast.

Visually speaking, Crime Life is not a good-looking game whatsoever. The character models are just plain awful with very little in terms of animation and variety. Oftentimes you’ll fight gang members that look alike, giving you the impression that you are up against a clone army. The environments lack detail and better textures than the washed out ones found here. Really, as for as Xbox games go, this wins the Worst Graphic Ever award. Even the animated cutscenes are unappealing.

If there’s one good thing that can be said about this game it is that the game contains one of the best hip-hop soundtracks heard in a game of similar genre. We are treated to a rather enjoyable mix of American, British, German and French hip-hop that sounds amazing. You’ll find tunes from DIZ, Phear, T Baby and Spax and they will certainly make a fan out of any hip-hop fan. The game’s soundtrack more than makes up for the horrible voice acting and weak dialogue. The sound effects are only Ok.

Despite borrowing elements from recent gang-related action games, Crime Life: Gang Wars just ends up being a dull fighting game with very little to add to an already overcrowded genre. The game adds a variety of things to do besides fighting but even those concepts are not handled well enough to make this game fun. Sorry Konami but this is a game actions fans will certainly not remember fondly.

Gameplay: 3.0
With fighting controls this atrocious, not many gamers will want to stick around for the game’s uninteresting story nor care about the burglary and tagging side missions. Crime Life uses some recognizable elements from recent gangster themed games but just does not execute them well.

Graphics: 3.5
Aside from a few bugs and the occasional twitchy framerate, the game features bland environments and, worst still, awful character models. You won’t even tell some gangs apart since they all seem to look alike. There are some decent finishing moves but it’s really nothing to write home about.

Sound: 5.0
On the plus side, Crime Life features a wonderful collection of hip-hop tunes from an international list of artists that range from D12 to rhymes of Fratelli-B. These tunes really deserve to be on a compilation CD than in this game. The voice acting is awful and the dialogue really tries to hard to sound “street.”

Difficulty: Medium
Using the same repetitive moves and combos will surely finish off the bosses you’ll face so the challenge here is surviving an attack from three or more gang members. The game’s more challenging missions come near the end.

Concept: 3.0
There is not much to go back to when you’re finished aside from some unlockable features not worth the trouble unlocking in the first place. Grand Central City is a big place with not too much to see but at least you can enter some places. There is no multiplayer online or off but the game is Live Aware.

Overall: 3.5
Uninspiring and lacking a style of its own, Crime Life: Gang Wars is a brawling game that goes down for the count before the real fight begins. The game’s fighting mechanics are not only stiff but they are also completely devoid of anything that comes close to fun. Do yourself the favor and skip this one.