Have you ever wanted to play a game with a celebrity cast, featuring the likes of Michael Madsen, Danny Trejo, Vanilla Ice, or my personal favorite, Chuck Norris as the infamous Sheriff Norris? Well, Crime Boss: Rockay City is the game designed to tickle your fancy. Ingame Studios, A. S. and 505 Games have brought this title to reality, and it’s time to become the Crime Boss.

Crime Boss: Rockay City is an FPS based around organized crime. You have everything you would expect from a crime-based game, with strategy and your turf always being challenged, so you’ll inevitably end up in a war. You get to control the main character, Travis Baker, voiced by Michael Madsen, who was perfect for the character of Travis with his deep raspy voice. The game is based in the fictional city of Rockay where crime is at its highest, and the previous crime boss of the city has just died, so it’s all guns blazing to become the new King of Crime.

Baker’s Battle is where the action starts and one of the first people you get to see is Sheriff Norris, voiced by the infamous Chuck Norris, and I’m not going to lie, I shit my pants a little seeing the man himself in the game. Sheriff Norris is in charge of the law in Rockay, and it’s his mission in life to make sure you do not succeed. Baker’s Battle requires you to hire an amazing crew that you hand-pick for their special skills and expertise on certain things.

I quickly learned that the better the crew, the cleaner the job, and the less likely I am to see Sheriff Norris. It was awesome seeing rival gangs lead by some familiar faces, like Dollar Dragon, who was played by Danny Trejo, or Hielo, who was voiced by the Ice Ice Baby man himself, Vanilla Ice. There was also a cunning Asian warlord and an Italian Mafia, which I lowkey wanted to join. I liked the fact that in the Baker’s Battle, it did not matter so much if you died – you could come back that little bit stronger with permanent boss perks to help you on your journey to take out the infamous Sheriff Norris.

If you are looking for some more action once you have finished Baker’s Battle, you can jump into Crime Time, fast-paced and short heists that keep you on your toes that could also help in Baker’s Battle with the experience from practicing. These heists also go towards something, with being able to earn the money to upgrade the crew and weapons, making you a force to be reckoned with. You have two different options with these: you can do small hits, which are sweet and short, or the big heists that take a little more time but require more strategy. You can do these all alone or in Co-Op, or, if you have no, friends run some bots.

Urban Legends is packed with six short mini-campaigns which kept me on my toes more than I was expecting, and when I needed the adrenaline rush to hit fast with this game mode. The stories are told through cutscenes with three missions that need to be completed consecutively. You have four unique teammates and you are given some overpowered weapons which cause mass mayhem. The Urban Legends missions are high-stakes, high adrenaline-fueled madness. You are given the best characters and the best weapons that the developers could give you in the game.

The developers did a fantastic job of the sounds in this game with everything from the voice acting down to how the guns sounded to how Rockay City sounded, and voice acting played a huge part given the A-lister cast included.

There was a big expectation from the game with its voice acting and the developers delivered one hundred percent. I enjoyed getting immersed during the cutscenes, even during the dialogue on each mission, and knowing exactly who is voicing the characters is something different.

The sounds the guns made were just like you would expect and surprisingly didn’t sound fake, so I’m guessing they spent some time recording the different audio to get the perfect-sounding pieces. The environmental sounds were also immaculate, from the sounds the city made down to the elevator doors opening and closing, it all sounded like you were right there. I was overly impressed by the audio of this title.

Graphically, this game did not disappoint. The character models have been expertly crafted, with plenty of attention to detail, especially in their faces, and the de-aging of some of the actors to bring them more in line with the others almost has you feeling like you’re watching a movie from when they were younger.

The character models were not the only thing that looked stunning about the game; the environmental aspects of each mission were stunning, and again, there was so much detail in the smallest of set pieces. The thing you get to see the most, being a first-person shooter, is the gun, and these have been faithfully recreated, almost looking like you could reach out and grab them.

The controls on the PC could use some work, mostly with things like shooting not always being as accurate as you might expect from a first-person shooter, especially while you are being swarmed with enemies. The rest of the controls and movements of the characters felt well-optimized and well-used for what we needed in the game. As I mentioned before, the only thing I could fault about the game is the shooting accuracy, but this can be fixed at a later date with an update.

If you have ever dreamed of becoming a crime boss and having mass shootouts with rival gangs, or even the law enforcement of Rockay City, this game has been developed and published just for you. The A-List celebrity cast was enough to drag me in, but the gameplay and the rich story kept me hooked and wanting more.

Written by: Hayden Nelson