2/14/2006 5:28:17 PM
25 to Life PlayStation 2 ReviewBy Vichus Smith
“187: Ride or Die.” “True Crime Streets of New York.” “Crime Life: Gang Wars.” “Total Overdose.” What do all of these games have in common? They have all been created in the wake of the genre-defining “Grand Theft Auto” series--and they have all failed. “Grand Theft Auto” has come a long way from its 2d, overhead perspective days. GTA has been as successful as it has been controversial, and that success has come because the violence and taboo also came with good gameplay, high replayability value, interesting characters, and good level creation. The above titles are not the last of their kind. As you read this, many more thugsploitation games are coming to your PS2. The latest game in this genre is called “25 to Life.”
The first thing that “25 to Life” has managed to do right is snag a decent selection of hip-hop tracks. You don’t get to ride around in vehicles at any time, but you do get to cycle through all of the tracks on boom boxes located at random places in each level. You’ll find no real variety here: it’s straight hip-hop, and while some of the artists and songs are recognizable, the others are either uninteresting filler or original songs for the game. The game’s second quality feature is tagging. Tagging is really intended for the online multiplayer mode, but you can also tag any wall with your profile name over and over again. And that’s basically where my compliments will end.
You might start the game with a smile on your face, but it will slowly be erased. You begin as a criminal who is feeling pressured by his family life to get out of his life of crime. His partner agrees to set him free, but not before they do one last job.
Before you commit this last criminal act, you learn the game’s basics--and its flaws. First, you’ll meet the AI. The computer controlled characters consist of enemies and innocent people. The enemy AI pretends to be smart, but it’s really just running around really fast, and zigzagging. Your enemies also have amazing accuracy, which means you’ll die over and over again before you can get off enough shots. Meanwhile the innocent bystanders’ AI is as dumb as they come; instead of running for cover, most times they just stand around doing nothing, as if they don’t understand that all hell is breaking loose. You can grab people and use them as hostages, but a move like that will only buy you a few more seconds because the in-game cops don’t seem to care about shooting through a bank teller to kill you.
The dumb AI would make for almost no challenge if it weren’t for the manual aim. Manual aiming is just not needed in a game where everyone is able to kill you in the blink of an eye. Auto aiming and target lock-on may be much less challenging, but if everyone you try to shoot runs three times faster than they should, you can’t spend all your time trying to set your sights on them. Killing people is also inconsistent. Will you kill someone if you aim a sniper sight right at their head? Maybe. Will someone die if you plug a whole clip into their chest? Eh, it depends. The large variety of weapons available to you might matter if they would work the way they should every time.
Each level carries the storyline a little further. You get to play as one of three characters: police officer Lester Williams, Andre “Freeze” Francis, and his partner, Shaun Calderon. This gives you three sides of the story, but each level is pretty generic and all the characters play the same. The characters don’t say anything within the game, so you have to wait a long time for the sub-par cut scenes to tell you about new developments, twists, and turns. The graphics of “25 to Life” would be great, if this was the mid-90s. This is not to say that any of the previous thugsploitation games were visually mind-blowing, but the graphics here just don’t hold up to the level that video gaming has been raised to.
Another disappointment is the dull linearity. Could it hurt to have some kind of mini-games, some side missions, or some sort of personality to the game that give you an emotional tie to the characters you play? Nope, there’s nothing along these lines. Why should anyone play a game if similar stories have been told many times over?
So what do you get if you play through “25 to Life?” You get gear. Within each level there are your usual mission objectives plus optional objectives. With each objective you complete, you get clothing you can outfit your online multiplayer character with. The real question, though, that someone should have asked is whether you’d even want to play online if your offline experience was sub-par and unfulfilling. The answer is probably a big NO. Sure, playing against an actual person might be a lot more fun than playing against horrific AI enemies, but you might not find anyone to play this game with since most people are smart enough to spend their time playing better games than this one. When it comes down to spending your hard-earned cash on a game, only a few will buy “25 to Life,” and hopefully they’ll come their senses and return it for something better.
Ratings (1-10):
Graphics 6.5. Really behind the times, and at points it’s laughable
Sound 7.0. The soundtrack is okay and the character voices range from silly to just tolerable.
Gameplay 6.0. Sure, you can get through a level, but the manual aiming is just a bad move. The AI is stupid and they run around fast, so it only seems as if your opponents are difficult.
Story 5.0. This story has been told before: a thug tries to go straight, but he has one last score to do. The story is divided between a few characters, but that’s not much more interesting.
Replayability 6.5. Yes, there’s multiplayer for online and LAN, but if the single player’s not good, the multiplayer isn’t really worth playing.
Overall 6.0. “25 to Life” is just ho-hum--really weak. If this was a game from 10 years ago, it would get a pass, but you have to try much harder to take the crown from the “Grand Theft Auto” series.
25 to Life PlayStation 2 Review
