Crime Boss: Rockay City | PS5 Review

September 4, 2023 David Newman

Have you ever watched a movie trailer and been interested purely based on how many big-name actors were in the movie? Sometimes there will be a movie with a great cast full of well-known actors and the movie is also great (I think of Tropic Thunder). However, it seems that the majority of films that focus on who is in the movie are usually mediocre or just plain awful (looking at you Movie 43). Unfortunately, Ingame Studios’ first title, Crime Boss: Rockay City, follows this trend and appears to focus the majority of its budget on actors as opposed to a meaningful storyline or gripping gameplay.

No Heart, No Substance

Among the three main game modes, I spent the majority of the time playing the single-player campaign, Baker’s Battle. Watching the trailer for Crime Boss: Rockay City, all I knew about it is that it seems to center around taking over the city featuring a cast of well-known actors from the 80s and 90s. While there is not too much to know after that, there is an unexpected feature to this game: the single-player campaign is a roguelite.

You play Michael Madsen’s character, Travis Baker, who plans to be the main crime leader in Rockay City after the previous boss dies in an explosion. You build up your crew, money, and reputation with the help of Candy (Kim Basinger), Touchdown (Michael Rooker), Nasara (Damion Poitier), and, eventually, Gloves (Danny Glover). In order to become the crime boss, you have to take over every turf in the city occupied by other crime leaders, including Hielo (Vanilla Ice) and The Dragon (Danny Trejo). While trying to take over the city, you are being investigated by Sheriff Norris (Chuck Norris), whose detectives will take turf away from you.

I have listed a lot of big-name actors which was the main draw to the game for me. However, none of the actors really feel like they are putting in a lot of effort. Madsen sounds like he is having a good time, but is always high energy and shows no range. Poitier and Basinger sound like they are bored and are just reading their lines. And I may have to sleep with one-eye open after saying this, but Chuck Norris seems like he is confused (please don’t hurt me, Chuck). To be fair, they do not have a lot to work with, as the writing is cringe-inducing, which might be the goal. There are few cutscenes and none really add anything to the plot. Some people might find the campy nature of the story to be enjoyable, but for me, it became cringy and unenjoyable after about the first hour, which is about when the gameplay also became a drag.

Poor Mission Structure

If you have ever played or seen gameplay for Payday 2, the missions in Crime Boss: Rockay City seem similar to that gameplay. The overall objective of Baker’s Battle is to take over all the turf in Rockay City. You will need to recruit soldiers, attack enemy turf, defend your own turf, and make money, mainly by completing heists.

In a heist, you can choose up to four crew members to complete the mission. In theory, you would have to coordinate each person and their job to complete the mission. The problem: it usually never works like that. First, the mission structure is either so simple that I can take one person and get all the loot, or the mission is nearly impossible to complete stealthily and it is just an all-out gunfight. Second, there are only two commands to the other crew members: everyone stays or follows. You can switch between all the crew members in order to move each one individually, but that gets tedious to perform for every team member. There is no planning before the mission, which I feel would be a nice addition, and would more closely mirror a true heist (not that I have experience with heists).

Slow and Unsteady

Crime Boss: Rockay City feels slow compared to most modern first-person shooters that I have played. Movement, both running and gunning, feels slow and clunky. The guns do not feel like they have a lot of weight behind them. The hitboxes are pretty forgiving, as you can sometimes aim off-target but still hit the enemy. Stealth is functional, but also laugh-inducing as the stealth kill is sneaking up behind the enemy and punching them in the back. Similarly, this is also how you subdue someone you should not kill.

On Repeat

Not only were the actual heists poorly designed, they were extremely repetitive. Heist missions included: robbing an armored truck, store, bank, rival gang, or warehouse. This might sound like there is depth, but you have to do a lot of these types of missions and there is not much variety in the environment. For the first hour, I was enjoying playing these missions, but as I realized that I was essentially going to play the same missions for hours, I started to lose interest quickly.

I mentioned that Crime Boss: Rockay City is a roguelite, which was a pleasant surprise since I have been enjoying the roguelite genre recently. You can take Travis Baker on these heist missions, which reward you with XP that increases the boss level and permanent upgrades. But, if he dies in the mission, it is game over, and have to start from the beginning with only the upgrades you obtained. While the concept is intriguing, this game is too long and repetitive to be a fun roguelite. I died on Day 16, which took me about 6 hours, and had to start from the beginning. While the upgrades were helpful for the start of my next run, the missions were still the same and I had no desire to continue.

The Other Game Modes

Most of my time was spent in Baker’s Battle, but there are also two other game modes and a tutorial. Crime Time is the multiplayer mode that sounds similar to Payday 2’s style. You can play with friends, random teammates, or AI. I did not take the opportunity to play Crime Time.

The other game mode is Urban Legends, in which there are six mini-campaigns that you can play with AI or up to three friends to complete these heists. I played this with Scott Clark for a short amount of time. Mission and gameplay are very similar to the single-player campaign. This mode felt like it needed to be done with friends as the AI would only shoot the enemy, but would not help gather the loot.

Final Verdict

Crime Boss: Rockay City looks like it has a lot on the surface, but is really shallow when you dive in. The voice actors gave minimal effort in their roles but did not have much to work with, as some might call the dialog campy, but I think it was cringy. Combat feels serviceable at best, but also feels lazy, similarly to the mission design. The concept of a first-person shooter roguelite centered around heists is unique but lacks the execution to truly pay off. Even though I did not finish the campaign, I had no desire to finish the story and felt that I had seen all that the gameplay had to offer.

To hear me talk more about Crime Boss: Rockay City, be sure to listen to the June 28, 2023 episode of The Gaming Outsider podcast around the 1:29:22 time stamp.

This review is based on a PlayStation 5 copy of Crime Boss: Rockay City provided by Stride PR for coverage purposes. It is also available on Xbox Series X/S and PC via Epic Games Store.