Crime Cities - old

In Crime Cities you play as an undercover cop who has been sent to infiltrate the criminal underworld that occupies the Pandemia System. This is not an easy task however. In fact, Juan Alverezses, a top agent has disappeared while trying to blend into the crime syndicate. To bring the lords of crime down, you have at your disposal a flying car with an arsenal of delicious weapons. What CC lacks in content, it makes up for in atmosphere.

Crime Cities is not your traditional flight simulation title. Your aircraft is actually a glorified car with supped up engines that allow it to fly. You’ve got your standard cockpit perspective here, with controls that make it easy to learn how to play. There is a detailed tutorial level that will help familiarize the player with the necessary skills to pilot a flyer through the games more than 100 missions. Mission goals vary from warehouse deliveries to disable and capture scenarios. Sometimes you’ll be asked to fly around and protect working girls from rival gang attacks. Other missions are straightforward dog fighting attacks that get a bit challenging while flying between skyscrapers. Early on in the game, I was hired to deliver a rather sour punk to a dance club with flashing neon women on the rooftop. Insert your own imaginative reason for this pick up here. Sure there are some adult themes going on throughout this game. The Pandemia System was apparently turned into a penal colony a while back so you can imagine the type of upstanding class citizens that inhabit the area.

The player receives a cash reward with each mission that is completed successfully. The greater the difficulty, the greater the reward. The cash is absolutely necessary to progress through the game because it allows you to upgrade the equipment on your flyer. I discovered that upgrading to certain types of weaponry was critical to completing certain missions. Unfortunately this means that you will occasionally have to beat uninteresting missions that aren’t very critical to the story line simply because you need the cash. The weapon effects are a blast to watch and keep the gameplay interesting through the incessant dog fighting this game offers.

The folks at Techland have delivered a game that looks, and feels like a scene out of the movie Bladerunner. The opening movie begins with a giant eye. The pupil dissolves into a dark debriefing room where you find out about your mission objectives. Does this sound familiar to any Ridley Scott aficionados? Of course maybe good old Ridley (Ripley?) borrowed the idea from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, so Crime Cities can borrow it again. Share and share alike right? Anyway, you fly through a dark sprawling cityscape complete with rain and oversized advertisement screens with Oriental women on them that occasionally hover around the sky. The weather effects are very cool and help create a dreary penal colony world of crime mood. The graphics are crisp and help add to the games darkness. The original score is well done and only gets corny a handful of times. The plot thickens through a series of emails that the player receives after each mission is completed. Slowly different characters emerge as allies. These allies help you through divulging information, or allowing bigger and better weapons to become available.

The multiplayer option ran smoothly. It offers a choice between different craft that the single player game does not offer. Each craft has it’s own advantages and disadvantages so you must choose wisely. It also has cool gang member logos so you can tell who is who when the fighting gets intense. Overall the elements that CC borrows from Bladerunner make it a cool game. My only real complaint is that I couldn’t find anyone else playing it, which made for a pretty dull deathmatch game. If you are in love with Bladerunner then by all means check out this game. If you have never seen Bladerunner, go rent it. If you think the movie sucks after one viewing, don’t worry most people think that. Rewind it and watch it a second time. If you still don’t understand what the hell it’s about, then email me and I’ll set ya straight!

Install: Easy
Like butta baby! A quick and simple process with no hiccups.

Gameplay: 8
Controls that are easy to learn. Fast paced dog-fighting elements, and diverse mission scenarios. Flying between the buildings gets a bit annoying at times, or should I say flying into the buildings.

Graphics: 8 
Solid cityscape environments. The weather effects add to the dark atmosphere. Kick ass explosions and weapon effects.

Sound: 8
Better than most. Not as good as some, but appropriate.

Difficulty: 8
This gets a high score for the option to change the difficulty to fit the skills of the player.

Concept: 6 
Not much new here in style, gameplay or content.

Multiplayer: N/A
It seemed to run smoothly but I couldn’t find anyone to play against. Ever try deathmatching against yourself. I didn’t think so.

Overall: 7.5
This is a cool title that offers gameplay that is both fun and challenging. While it won’t win game of the year bragging rights, it is still a pretty decent title.