Crime Life: Gang Wars Review (no fat)

Game Description

Crime Life: Gang Wars is a game about street wars, fighting other crews, protecting your own people and gaining reputation. The main character is ‘Tre’; he is the leader of the crew that used to be Grand Central City’s most powerful gang, the Outlawz. The mission of the player is to guide Tre through the dangerous hoods of Grand Central City in order to make sure that nobody abuses his own people and in order to grow his gang’s reputation and power.

The environment where the game unrolls is really hostile and the developers have tried to deliver a realistic representation of gang wars, street life and life in the ghetto in general. In-game sound tracks are taken from D12 Detroit rap band. To those who have played the Grand Theft Auto series, Crime Life: Gang Wars may have some elements that appear very familiar to the player. Also, as a side note, the game features many nicknames that are well known to the rap community; Outlawz, Koruptt etc…

Crime Life: Gang Wars - The Basics

Action begins with you, Tre being the new member for the Outlawz gang. As a new recruit of the gang you will have to fight inside the brutal environment of Grand Central City in order to bring back the old days of glory and wealth that the gang used to enjoy. As you progress, characters such as Koruptt and Darryl will accompany you through the difficult lifestyle and missions that you will have to face.

Crime Life: Gang Wars - Fighting

As with many other game titles, the only weapon that you have in the beginning is your brain and your fists. You can attack your enemies with raw punches and although this might sound exciting, it is not the most effective way to fight when dealing with gangsters. At later stages you can grab other, more gangsta-like weapons such as baseball bats and knifes. You can perform either light or heavy attacks.

While fighting, the adrenaline level of your character increases and when it is high enough you can perform unique, brutal attacks. The fight is practically over as soon as one of the characters healths is low. After a fight is over (and assuming you are not the one to be delivered to hospital) you can finish off your enemy by performing a fatal maneuver (commonly known as fatality). While performing such maneuvers, the screens color becomes inverted. This is an effect that gives an extra tone to the brutal scenes in the game. Moreover, when a player manages to achieve many successful combo-hits he then enters ‘Rage-Mode’; during a short period of time Tre can attack faster and deliver stronger hits to his enemies.

Crime Life: Gang Wars Gameplay & Controls Issues

The controls of the game are a little strange for someone to get used to. Instead of performing an action of significant importance (as we are used to), X button blocks the attacks of enemies. Additionally, the Y button is used for various significant actions such as fatal moves, special attacks and weapon picking. Another issue is that when fighting with large groups, it is hard to distinguish your own character…in most cases, all you can do is randomly throw as many kicks and punches as possible and hope that you will make it out alive

Crime Life: Gang Wars Games Environment

The game’s plot is unrolled inside hoods and ghetto streets that are mostly quiet. The environment does not give the impression of a really big city like GCC (Grand Central City) is supposed to be neither it features various different types of areas. Compared to GTA’s Vice City the pedestrians of CL’s Grand Central City are very few.

In order to travel to differed areas you will have to take the subway. Through the subway you can go to other ghettos such as Chinatown, Gangland and Blingsley Hills. Those ghettos are dominated by gangs such as KYC, HeadHunterz and Pogue Mahoneys. Needless to say, those crews will be anything else except friendly towards you and your people

Crime Life: Gang Wars Money-Making

Interestingly enough, Crime Life is not oriented towards stealing cars. The main money-making alternative that you have is robberies. Robbing store shelves is a typical example (You can grab goods and then escape with a van which comes to pick you up without any police cars behind you!). Additionally, you can get money by vandalizing pay-phones and parking meters as well as by spraying over your rival’s tags

Crime Life: Gang Wars Graphics

For a PS2 game, the graphics should be very detailed and warranting a view at least. However, Crime life doesn’t seem to go along those lines. Specifically speaking, the sceneries are almost all the same.

Moreover, the game’s characters are composed of (relatively) low-poly models. The first thing you’d have to do is check the year you are living out…the graphics look more from the before Christ era rather than what we expect now a days. So even while the Half-Life 1 era of graphics where the whole face was composed by a total of 10 polygons has passed, the developers obviously forgot to set their alarm clock right.

Another significant drawback is that many game characters use exactly the same model and textures. So, eventually, you are beating up the same looking guy 5-6 times during a fight scene…so much for variety.

Crime Life: Gang Wars Audio Department

The in-game sounds are not very exciting to be honest. Gunfire sounds are nowhere close to realistic and the game lacks some background noise/screams which would make the atmosphere more intense.

The music tracks are perhaps the only good thing about this game. Considering that a large chunk of the game’s audience will be into rap music, it is a good choice for the background. The music tracks are taken from the famous rap group D12 and the player has the ability to control music through an in-game track player.

Crime Life: Gang Wars Closing Thoughts

When it comes to the gamer market relating to gang war games, and those related to the life of crime, Grand Theft Auto has set a very high standard. Crime Life: Gang Wars tries to imitate the gang aspects that the GTA series introduced but falls short because of the lack feel that GTA exuded.

PS2 has processing capabilities strong enough to deliver games that are much more realistic than we believe Crime Life to be. All in all, although the game has some interesting aspects, it is nothing out of the ordinary and most gamers would rather pick the more developed gang life of GTA over this raw venture.

Crime Life Gang Wars Cost

Crime Life Gang Wars retails for $39.99US, at the time of this review