Extreme Force: Grant City Anti-Crime Preview

One of the intriguing elements of Namco's film-noir-influenced action game Dead to Rights was Grant City, the complicated and slightly twisted world the game was set in. The troubled town with the seedy underbelly certainly seemed to have lot of story potential outside of that one game, and Namco is attempting to shed some more light on Grant City's mythos with its upcoming multiplatform title Extreme Force: Grant City Anti-Crime, a game set before Dead to Rights that will explore the city's past.

While Namco is keeping the specifics of the story close to its vest, the game revolves around the efforts to stop the formation of a terrorist army in Grant City by a shady fellow named Liam. You'll assume the role of Joseph Santini, a member of Grant City's Anti-Crime unit, and undertake various missions designed to disrupt the terrorists' activities and bring them to justice. The missions will follow the standard range for this type of game and charge you with destroying a drug lab, rescuing hostages, preventing a jail break, and taking out a group of mercs, among other things.

The basic structure of Extreme Force: Grant City Anti-Crime will break down into objective-based missions that will be sorted by primary and secondary importance. The game will feature roughly 12 primary missions set throughout the city. The gameplay in Extreme Force: Grant City Anti-Crime has pretty close ties to Dead to Rights and features many similar combat moves. However, the game also features unique weapons and accessories that will help differentiate the gameplay experience. You'll find a variety of weapons to use in the game, as well as helpful gadgets such as night-vision goggles. You'll also have to use quite a bit of stealth to complete your objectives, and you'll have the option to call on support forces, such as snipers, in tough situations. The support mechanic works much the same way as using Shadow did in Dead to Rights--you'll have an onscreen meter that will let call on your support when it's full. In some cases, your support forces will add a new layer of responsibility, as you'll have to ensure they survive the level as well.

The game's graphics are coming together pretty well. We recently spent some time with the Xbox version, which featured a pretty solid graphical presentation. The game's look is close to that of Dead to Rights, and it boasts a solid amount of detail. Some of the locations in the game, such as the jail, are actually taken directly from Dead to Rights, while others are either original or set in different areas of the locations seen in Dead to Rights. The character models look good and move pretty well, and the environments make the most of their occasionally limited settings (there's only so much you can do with a cave interior, after all).

The game's audio is solid, and it does a fine job of drawing you into the experience. The weapons fire effects are already satisfying, and the voice work is decent enough. The game's tunes still need to be fully implemented, but hopefully they'll be a solid accompaniment to the action.

Extreme Force: Grant City Anti-Crime seems to have quite a bit of potential. Its gameplay and graphical ties to Dead to Rights make for a decent look and solid handling. The game's story is pretty interesting and should tie in pretty well with the Dead to Rights story. Hopefully the game will offer a unique enough experience to distinguish itself from its cousin--as it stands now, the game is solid but could use some polish to give it a distinct personality. Extreme Force: Grant City Anti-Crime is currently slated to ship this fall for the GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox. Look for more on the game in the coming months.