Reviewed: April 14, 2005
Reviewed by: Daniel Sayre
Publisher
Midway
Developer
Point of View
Released: March 21, 2005
Genre: Action
Players: 1
ESRB: Mature
7
6
6
7
6.8
Supported Features
Screenshots (Click Image for Gallery)
NARC is published by its original parent company, Midway. The first NARC game was almost satire in it’s silliness and faux “hardcore” trappings (naming your Cops ‘Max Force” and “Hitman” will do that.) It was also incredibly violent, with drug dealers often being blown away in huge fleshy explosions. Don’t believe me, unlock the original and play it yourself. This 2005 update was developed by Point of View, who have quite a history with Midway.
The story behind NARC (much like the original version) is two cops taking down a criminal syndicate run by the mysterious Mr. Big. The first game was rabidly anti-drug which is a far cry from the new version, in which taking drugs is an active part of the game experience.
NARC puts you in the shoes of a cop; you determine how corrupt said officer is. You’re given basically free reign to take and/or sell narcotics. Other cops will try and bust you if they see you dealing and habitually taking drugs will get you addicted. The drugs themselves offer benefits that entice you to take them. Addiction is handled by having you buy more and more of the drugs to keep from going into withdraw. Once you go into withdrawal, a mini-games pops up that you have to beat it before you’re “clean.”
When you take drugs, your reputation rating goes down, the rep rating is what determines your police standing and how intimidating you are to criminals. If it gets too low, you’re busted down to beat cop (complete with regulation uniform) drop any further and you become “jobless” and have to bust criminals and stop crime to work your way back up the ranks. Once you drop below a certain level, your boss informs you via your PDA and you’re immediately put back at the station. This cuts down on the amount of destruction you can cause.
You have to be a detective to participate in the story (a rep. rating of at least 70) if you have a higher number, criminals are more likely to surrender when you flash your badge. When you try to arrest someone, you have to grapple with them, then initiate the arrest procedure, which is basically stopping a meter ”in the zone” for a bust to be successful. If not, the person breaks the grapple and you have to try again.
Once arrested, criminals often give up drugs, money, or both. All of which can be turned in at the police station, doing so raises your rep rating. Money confiscated from busts is the only way to purchase health or guns so it’s pretty much impossible not to hold on to it (even though it should be turned in as evidence.) A salary for completing a missions would’ve rendered the above point moot, but if you want to buy health or weapons, you have to be little bit “bad cop.” If drug using and pushing weren’t enough illicit activity for you, some missions present you with the chance to help criminals, and be bribed handsomely for it.
The controls handle pretty well for the fighting portions. Simple combos and throws and holds all are easy to perform. Gunplay is considerably less successful; it’s almost impossible to hit a moving target. Your reticule is “drawn” to enemies and often times you have to move the control around to break this if another enemy is firing at you. It’s incredibly frustrating when trying to fire during the pure shooting parts. Loading is another problem; some stages took almost a minute to load which is really out of line.
Basically everything about the graphics is “low-key” the textures aren’t that sharp, the models aren’t that good, the effects are probably the highlight of the game and even they aren’t anything to write home about. The game does offer a widescreen mode, if you have a TV capable of supporting the feature.
The main characters fit in with the other models well enough, so uniformity works in their favor. Certain parts of the story are told through FMV’s, which feature decent theatrics. Model animation is spotty and very jerky; this leads to a lot of movements looking very unnatural.
NARC is not a sprawling GTA-esque cityscape. Since the game is entirely on foot, that’s a wise decision. Gameplay is divided between two different locations USA and Asia. Each features the proper architecture and people. Both are medium-sized and relatively closed.
NARC is a pretty aural experience. There is a lot of noisy street chatter, gunshots, explosions, etc. If you bump into, or otherwise assault, people on the street they’ll let you know they aren’t pleased with you. The sound effects are quite jarring. I’m used to gun noise often being downplayed, but in NARC there’re quite loud. This kind of adds to the feeling of power behind the weapons and it’s a welcomed change.
The music is licensed and, unfortunately, it quickly becomes repetitive, there’s a very limited number of songs and they keep repeating and repeating. Thankfully you get another limited set when you change continents, but those are almost as bad as the previous ones.
The majority of the main characters are voiced by “big name” voice talent. Det. Jack Frozenski is voiced by Michael Madsen while Bill Bellamy lends his voice to Agent Marcus Hill. Michael Madsen is no stranger to voice acting, having roles in such games as Grand Theft Auto 3, Driv3r, and True Crime. Bellamy is a newcomer and his lines do seem a bit less sharp. Their boss is voiced by Ron Perlman, who also does an excellent job.
The game is a reasonable length; I played through the game in about a week of casual playing. If you sat down and played the whole game straight through (avoiding the unnecessary stuff, like special assignments and not doing any of the drug stuff) it would be shorter.
At $20, the game is around 55% off a normal console game. Truthfully, I could reasonably see NARC being sold for $50, not that it’s worth that much, but there really is enough here I’m actually surprised they didn’t try and do that.
There are twenty-five packages on each continent; once collected they unlock bonus content. All twenty-five in USA unlocks the original NARC game whereas all twenty-five in Asia opens up a bonus mission.
Taking everything into account, NARC isn’t a bad game. Certain aspects of the game are sub par, nothing is really excellent, but a majority of it is decent; especially for a game retailing at $20.
I had fun playing the game, which is all that really matters. Some missions were frustrating, but the generous continue system helped repress some of the anger. This certainly isn’t the best action game on the market, not even in the $20 department. But if you’ve played the other games, and are itchin’ for some police action, give NARC a rental. You might even enjoy it.