Nothing to offer except pain and a headache.
Introduction
Since Grand Theft Auto's release we have gotten so many lame, weak and visually unstable knockoffs. That line should set the mode for this review. Anyways in this third person shooter you play as 3 characters.
The first is Freeze, a gangster who is trying to get out of the game, a police officer trying to clean up the dirty cops and a gang leader banished to Mexico (don't ask, I am certain you do not want to know).
Gameplay
Now don't get me wrong. There is a small amount of fun that can be found within this title, and that is taking out a lot of enemies. But as you all may know after a few levels of this style of gameplay it tends to get a bit linear and repetitive. Though you may have a nice array of weapons varying from dual pistols, pistols, submachine pistols, assault rifles, rocket launchers and even melee weapons they still cannot compensate for the lack of depth. And without depth there is no story and without a story there is no game.
Throughout the game you will find yourself taking cover in most of your battles for this is the most effective way to take out the baddies. If you even poke your head out in the open prepare to be killed instantly and rather painfully if I may add.
The thing I really liked about this game and what I thought was really well done was the on screen radar. This radar enables you to see enemies in any particular level. It comes in very handy for pinpointing their location and also for pausing to gather up your strategy (even though you might not need to strategize seeing that this is a wild shoot em' up).
Being able to play as multiple characters really adds some diversity to the gameplay factor. There are a few indoor and outdoor levels, but don't get all excited yet for they aren't as stunning as they may sound. All the environments just appear to be slapped on to the screen and it looks like not much work was put in to it.
Although so far I have been relatively nice in this review I have to say some bad stuff about this title. The game suffers a very annoying bug in the PC version. When the soundtracks are playing they skip often and this is extremely frustrating, especially because the soundtracks are the only thing they did well in this game.
The multiplayer aspects of this game aren't all that bad. In this section of the game you get to choose from a nice selection of modes. Ranging from cops versus criminals to robbery where you have to steal cash and return it to your base; they have it all. This also adds to the replay value of the game and puts a little bit of fun into it as well.
Visuals
Blah there is nothing great or excellent to talk about here. Everything has been seen a couple years back. The physics in the game appears to have not been tweaked to suite, which makes the game look like another cheap copy of some other third person shooter that happened to be great.
Sound
The soundtracks are awesome in this game. But there is one problem, remember the bug I talked about. Well because of that you won't enjoy any of the music available in this game. Other than that however the basic gunfire is pretty standard and is passable.
Overall
Don't rent, don't buy, and don't try. It's my new motto for games like this. I wish they had spent more time on it and really tried to make it stand out from the crowd. If you must get a game in something of the subject matter please pick up one of the GTA games. Even the first GTA in the series will do when compared to 25 To Life.