Reviewed: March 11, 2006
Reviewed by: John Bowlin

Publisher
Konami

Developer
Konami

Released: November 22, 2005
Genre: Action
Players: 1
ESRB: Mature

2
3
4
3
2.8

Supported Features

Still here? Okay, well I guess I can go into more detail, painful, as it will be for all of us. Unless you're one of those masochistic types, then you might get a kick out of this game and the review. But don't say I didn't warn you.

Crime Life: Gang Wars, is apparently Konami's latest take on the beat-em-up genre. But it fails miserably, in just about every way imaginable. Take an edgy gangsta theme, like Grand Theft Auto. Now remove all the fun. Remove the cars. Remove the engaging story. Remove any semblance of good controls. Take it all away and leave a repetitive button masher with bad graphics and no soul, toss in some bugs, and you've got Crime Life: Gang Wars.

The story, as it is, pits you in the role of a street punk named Tre who joins up with a gang imaginatively named "Outlawz" and to prove your one of da boyz you gotta bust up some rival gangers in another creatively named gang, "Headhunterz". Along the way if you happen to have to kill innocent bystanderz, copz, and everyone else you see, well that's just life in the Hood (yes, that's the actual name of the neighborhood), digg.

The controls are terrible, but not hard to figure out. You basically have two attacks, a hard and a soft, which are essentially useless, but you have a block button which also rarely does what you want, and you can use the modify button to do special moves that burn up your adrenaline meter. You get adrenaline back by doing normal punches, so combat just involves building up the meter then unleashing a can of whoop ass on your pixilated targets.

When your opponent's life meter drops to empty, you can issue a Mortal-Kombat-stolen fatality move. The fatality moves are fun in a sadistic way, the first five or six times you see it. Then it too becomes old and tired.

You'll eventually get involved in battles with so many opponents that you can barely tell what is happening on screen. The lack of a decent targeting system makes it pretty frustrating. Then you have your "helpers" who do nothing useful and just get in the way all of the time. You can give basic commands to your fellow partners in crime, but they still do more to hurt you than help.

To help break up the monotony you can pick up weapons, which can help you to do more damage faster, like swords and pipes and even guns. The guns pretty much are useless due to bad camera and impossible aiming. But the melee weapons can help, even though they really don't add anything interesting to the terrible gameplay, they just make it possible to endure more of it.

Sometimes the game is helpful and tells you what you need to do and where to go to complete your missions, while at other times, your only hint is a minor mention in one of your 'emails'. So in some cases you'll wander around aimlessly, not knowing what to do next. Not that you'll really care after about an hour or two.