Crime Boss: Rockay City – they should’ve spent more money on the game, not the actors (pic: 505 Games)

Kim Basinger and Danny Glover lead a celebrity fill cast in this gangster-themed shooter that’s desperate to be Payday 3.

Hollywood star power has never counted for much in the world of video games. Occasionally a movie or TV actor will find their way into a game, whether it’s via a tie-in to a film they’re in or an original product, but most of the time their performance is so phoned in it’s worse than if a no-name voice actor had been used. Grand Theft Auto has always been an exception to this rule and it’s immediately obvious that Crime Boss: Rockay City is heavily influenced by Rockstar’s iconic series.

To that end Crime Boss: Rockay City is filled with aging movie stars that, nevertheless, you have actually heard of, including Michael Madsen, Michael Rooker, Kim Basinger, Danny Glover, Damion Poitier, Danny Trejo, Vanilla Ice, and Chuck Norris. Kim Basinger and Vanilla Ice are the only ones that haven’t been in a game before (Danny Glover was the narrator in a forgotten 90s edutainment game) but these are prominent actors, whose star power is meant to be one of the main draws.

And yet, while everyone likes Danny Trejo we’re going to bet that very few would buy a video game just because he was in it, and so we must judge the game on its own merits. These include some component gunplay and… that’s about it. Beyond that this is one of the worst, and most broken, big budget games we have played in a very long time.

The game starts with Madsen’s boss character and his attempts to elevate his criminal gang to become top dog in the oddly named Rockay City. The previous crime boss has recently lost his job, in predictably violent fashion, and so you build up a team made up of Rooker, Poitier, Glover, and Basigner, while going up against rival bosses played by Trejo and, err… Ice.

If we tell you that Chuck Norris plays a sheriff called Sheriff Norris you get an instant feel for the cleverness of the writing, which is so poor it immediately negates the benefit of having so many experienced actors. It’s trying to channel an 80s style, politically incorrect action movie but it just comes across as mean-spirited and desperately unfunny, despite all its many attempts to pretend it’s too cool for school.

Rather than Grand Theft Auto, it’s the Payday series that Crime Boss most resembles. Although the one benefit it has over its inspiration is that it does at have a decent single-player mode, at least in comparison to the rest of the game. Here you try to gain territory by attacking and defending turf, as well as going on heists to fill your coffers.

Unusually, there’s also a roguelite element, where if you die you lose everything, except for the boss rating that determines who you can hire, and which weapons you can buy. This means you can make steady progress, but everything is randomised every time you have to start again. In general, it’s not a very original concept, but at least it’s one element of the game that feels relatively unique for this type of game.

The movie Heat is another big influence and the game is constantly trying to replicate the tension of its final shootout, but the stealth system is so unreliable that sometimes you can wander around in clear sight of everyone and other times you’re set upon by dozens of cops even when you’d swear you were being circumspect enough not to be noticed.

What this means in practice is that either missions are over in minutes, and you sit there wondering if the game is broken, or you get embroiled in a tediously long gun battle that makes you wish it was.

The gunplay is passable but there’s something very odd about the collision detection, because it’s just as random as the stealth. Sometimes enemies go down despite barely seeming to have been grazed and other times they act like invulnerable bullet sponges. There’s no visible sign of extra armour and, like so much of the game, you end up putting it down to just a bug.

Attacking and defending turf is intrinsically less interesting than a heist, with the only real wrinkle being that you need the money from robberies to hire compadres to fight alongside you. As with everything else though these missions are usually riddled with bugs, including invisible enemies where only their guns are visible and non-existent AI.

It’s never excusable, but at least with something like The Last Of Us Part 1 you can understand why Sony would rush it out before it was ready but why was it so important that Crime Boss be released this month? Why not just give the game a few more months in the oven and not launch a bug-ridden mess that is going to have everyone pointing and laughing – and avoiding the belated console versions like the plague.

Crime Boss: Rockay City – Payday is a decade old and it’s still better than this (pic: 505 Games)

The other two game modes are a co-op mode that’s even more similar to Payday and just makes you play through randomised missions without any of the management aspects (the game should have focused more on these, because at least it’s something different – but alas things never get any more complicated than trying to steal more money to afford better allies).

Things are little better in the third mode, where you play a ready-made character in a series of handcrafted, rather than randomised, missions. It’s interesting to see it confirmed that the roguelite elements don’t really make much difference one way or the other but ultimately this mode is less interesting simply because it’s too easy, as for some reason you’re given the best guns from the start. Or maybe that was another bug, who knows.

Crime Boss couldn’t have had a bigger window of opportunity (there’s still little sign of Payday 3) and yet this buggy, frustrating, mess of a game has been rushed out like everyone’s lives depended on it. Even if it did work perfectly, it still wouldn’t be worth a minute of your time. Crime Boss is repetitive and unoriginal, and its obviously bored actors are clearly as unimpressed with the script as you will be.

Perhaps the game will be better by the time the console versions come around – it could hardly be any worse – but the true crime here is that the game was released at all in this state.

Formats: PC (reviewed), Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5
Price: £34.99
Publisher: 505 Games
Developer: INGAME STUDIOS
Release Date: 6th March 2023 (June on consoles)
Age Rating: 18

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Kim Basinger and Danny Glover lead a celebrity fill cast in this gangster-themed shooter that’s desperate to be Payday 3.