Crime Boss: Rockay City - PlayStation 5

This is an incredibly FUN game. I had a really great time with Crime Boss: Rockay City (which is a mission based first person shooter). I’ve noticed certain “pro” reviewers on streaming sites giving this game bad reviews. I’m aware that everyone is entitled to their own opinion but I’ve noticed that a lot of these “pro” reviewers: 1) haven’t even played the full game (I’ve noticed most have played for only 1 or 2 hours at most before creating their review. That’s like me watching the first 20 minutes of a movie and then giving the ENTIRE movie a bad review. The most annoying part of some of their reviews is that they will have their character running around with no cover and get angry when they die. This is a game where if someone is shooting at you, you MUST take cover. Hide behind something and shoot from there, don’t just run around in the open while 20 cops are all shooting at you. LMAO) and 2) Lately, A LOT of them have been giving highly negative reviews to almost every new game for clickbait reasons (resulting in some games getting much lower scores than they should since ultra negative reviews tend to get higher clicks for their videos). With that said, I have played and COMPLETED both of the main story modes of Crime Boss: Rockay City (Baker’s main campaign and the secondary Urban Legends campaign) and have a total of 35 hours (THIRTY FIVE hours) of play time for these two modes combined (and I included pics with this review to show this. Granted, you might have to zoom in to read the info on those pics since I'm pretty sure they are getting shrunk down in size).I really enjoyed this game and I’m going to explain why. This game may not be everyone’s cup of tea (and I’ll try to give enough details about the game as well as my own strategies as to how I beat both story modes so you have an idea on whether this game might be something you like) but I had an incredibly fun time with Crime Boss: Rockay City.This game can get VERY HARD at times, but it’s NOT impossible. It’s beatable (and I’ve supplied pics of my trophies showing that I beat both story modes as well as showing that it took me 35 hours to beat both story modes. I didn't get most of the secret hidden trophies but I did get all the main trophies for beating both story modes. With that said, I’ve noticed that a certain website claims the game only takes 6 hours to beat. You will NOT be beating this entire game in 6 hours. Whoever wrote that has no clue what they are talking about).The two story modes (which I played 100% solo, but one of them has an OPTIONAL multiplayer function) for this mission based first person shooter are:1) Baker’s Campaign (which is the PRIMARY story campaign and has most of the main story content. Your main character is Baker, played by actor Michael Madsen. Your primary antagonist? Sheriff CHUCK NORRIS. And let me tell you right now: Chuck Norris and his police force will DESTROY you… at first….) it took me about 25 hours to beat Baker’s campaign by itself (to kill off all the rival gangs and take all of their gang land) and it’s a campaign that starts off incredibly HARD (you are going to get shot up and Chuck Norris is going to punk you out), but it gets much easier as it goes on. During the first mission where Chuck Norris and his army of cops show up to fight you, you will DIE. You will die miserably. It’s designed where you will NOT win that first mission (you most likely won’t win the second mission either) and the game will kick the crap out of you and destroy you while Chuck Norris taunts you as you die a slow and embarrassing death. And you know what? That’s a GOOD thing. Let the game destroy you for the first few missions. Don’t worry, you will get your revenge later on when you become stronger. Keep playing and you will become stronger.This is how this game works: when you start, you are a weakling. You are a low level nobody who can’t handle a fight. You will have the crap beaten out of you. But when you die, the game will acknowledge that you are a weakling and will take pity on you and will give you a choice of special perk cards to power up your character.Everyone who actually PLAYS this game all the way through (not some “pro” reviewer on some streaming site who only played the first two hours) will have their own strategies as to which power up perk cards they will want first. In my humble personal opinion, I will suggest picking power up perk cards to make Baker (Michael Madsen) as powerful as possible. Now, that’s not to say that the other perk cards are worthless. You will NEED perk cards in other categories, especially when it comes to powering up your foot soldiers in gang warfare missions, powering up Michael Rooker’s character (he’s the guy with the green mohawk who is on your team), getting perk cards for more money, more soldiers, etc. There is actually a strategy in regards to the cards you might want to take depending on the type of things you want to prioritize.With that said, it is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT you level up Baker (Michael Madsen). During my second playthrough of Baker’s campaign I made the HUGE mistake of leaving Baker (Michael Madsen) on the sidelines since I wanted to protect him as much as possible (so I wouldn’t get a “Game Over”, because if Baker dies, the playthrough ends) and I was only taking my hired mercs with me on missions. The problem with this strategy is that Baker isn’t leveling up. And if he isn’t leveling up, you don’t get enough power up perk cards, which makes the game harder and the game will keep getting harder and harder as your characters stay weaklings (in other words: I STRONGLY suggest taking Baker / Madsen on as many missions as possible, or else the game is going to be harder and it will take you much longer to beat). Later on, I had to take Michael Rooker’s character with a bunch of my low level gang members to fight in a gang battle. Well, since I hadn’t gotten a lot of perk cards to power up my characters and I didn’t do anything else to power up my weakling characters, I ended up getting DESTROYED during that battle. My gang soldiers were dropping dead like flies and Michael Rooker ended up getting shot up by 10 guys with shotguns. Rooker died a very violent death and even AFTER he died, they still kept shooting him. LOL. That caused my entire second playthrough to come to an end.While I had died again, the game took pity on my weak characters and decided to give me a few perk cards so I would have a fighting chance and could power up my characters.Now here’s the thing with this game. When you die (whether as Baker / Madson or Rooker), the ENTIRE CAMPAIGN gets trashed and everything resets back to day one, including all the land you had taken over… all of that gets reset back to nothing (so this game is kind of like a violent version of Groundhog day. LOL). The ONLY thing you are allowed to keep is your power level (example: if you die at power level 5, you do NOT go back to power level 1) and you keep all your perk card powers (those do NOT go away, those are permanent) but everything else resets. Granted, when you begin your NEW day, brand NEW side missions and other new stuff will happen that didn't happen during the other playthroughs, so you do get some new stuff when you begin a new playthrough. Anyway, this perma death Groundhog day thing is going to sound highly intimidating to a lot of people and might scare them from the game, but it really isn’t. Yeah, the game is hard, but there is a secret way to make the game A LOT easier.SPECIAL TRICK!!!SPECIAL TRICK TO MAKE THE GAME EASIER:If you die in this game (don’t worry, the game lets you know it as the screen turns black and white and your character’s lifeless body is being shot up as it plummets to the ground), IMMEDIATELY hold down the Playstation logo button on the controller. This will bring you back to your console’s home page. Immediately Press the options button (most people call it the start button, but it’s real name is the options button. It’s that tiny button above the square button and to the left of the triangle button) and from the little menu that pops out from the Crime Boss square pic, immediately pick the option to close the game out. Assuming you did this fast enough, when you go back into the game, the game will restart the mission you died at (it will NOT restart the entire campaign, just the mission) and you can try again. This makes the game A LOT easier and you can keep doing this trick endlessly.With that said, there are a few times this trick will work against you:The opening mission during your first experience with the game. You MUST die at this mission. That mission is designed for you to fail so you can get your first set of perk cards. Also, I did NOT win the second introductory mission that happens after this either. Honestly, for your FIRST set of playthroughs, it’s best to play WITHOUT the special trick, just to get yourself use to the game and how it works. I didn’t start using the special trick till my THIRD full playthrough.The other time the special trick will work against you is when Chuck Norris finishes his investigation and comes at you with his ARMY of cops and your club is destroyed and all your money is on the floor in the streets and you have to escape. As far as I can tell, you are NOT supposed to win this situation. You can try and run from Chuck Norris’ SWAT team, but they WILL find you and they WILL kill you. I played this mission about 15 times and got destroyed all fifteen times. At the end of my third playthrough, I made it to the “end” of this mission where my escape van was supposed to be and it wasn’t there. Instead I was greeted by about 20 SWAT team members who turned me into Swiss cheese. LMAO.And you know what? Let Chuck Norris and his SWAT kill you when he finishes his investigation and blows up your club and all your money is on the streets. Why? When this happened to me at the end of my third playthrough and I died, the game took pity on me and showered me with SEVERAL special power up perk cards, which made my characters much stronger and gave me TONS of levels, which leveled up Baker / Madsen from level 10 to a level 21 (which is a nice medium power level and I was no longer that much of a weakling in the game).It was my FOURTH main playthrough when I started using the special trick like crazy and when the game started being a lot nicer to me and stopped being so sadistic towards me. LOL. It got easier. But NOT too easy (the game would occasionally start being mean to me again. LOL) but a lot easier than before.It was my fourth playthrough I started making actual progress and I eventually beat Baker's main story campaign.Here is how you need to beat Baker’s campaign: you need to take over all the other gang’s land. It took me a while to pull this off (I kept running into problems where I would take over another gang's land, but the next day the game would send that gang to take their land back and I would have to waste all my gang soldiers defending that land to the point where I didn’t have anymore gang members left to take over new land).There is a way to get around this and make things A LOT easier so you can conquer everything. How? I don’t want to give too much away (it’s more fun if YOU come up with your own strategy to do this). But there is a hint: there are certain side missions which will allow you to weaken the rival gangs. Do this and you will have an advantage. Also, there is a menu showing which gangs are neutral towards you and which ones are hostile towards you. What determines their behavior towards you? There is a reason for this. I won’t give it away (it’s part of the overall strategy you need to put together yourself) but pay close attention to your actions and see if your actions change another gang’s view on you. That’s all I will give away.While conquering land and coming up with an effective strategy to take over that land is important (yes, you will actually have to THINK CAREFULLY as to what type of strategies you want you carry out) you will also need to carry out special missions with Baker / Michael Madsen and his special mercs that he can hire to come with him. You need to do these special missions to level up Baker / Madsen AND to steal as much money as possible to fund your gang operations (if you don’t have money you won’t be able to effectively defend your land either since you won’t have money for things like higher caliber guns). You will have to take your band of thieves on missions which will put you near the mall, car dealerships and other places in Rockay City that have items and cash and steal as much stuff as possible. You will also need more money to hire more mercs and buy special guns for your mercs so you can do more jobs to fund your criminal enterprise. Meanwhile, if you have stolen things like electronics and other stuff and want to sell those for money, go give Kim Basinger’s character a visit and you can exchange all of that for money.This leads me to this: you play as a CRIMINAL in this game during the mid 1990's. You are not the good guy, you are the BAD guy. Your main adversary is Sheriff Chuck Norris. He is the good guy and he wants YOU dead (Chuck Norris is NOT taking prisoners in this game, he wants YOU in the grave. LOL).While the story in this game isn’t some award winning Final Fantasy type story, it is a VERY FUN story if you enjoy 1980’s / 1990’s style action tales. You aren’t going to get some upper high class Final Fantasy style storytelling or a deep and complicated moral narrative Fallout style story here, but you are going to get a 1980’s / 1990’s style action tale with Crime Boss: Rockay City and it’s an incredible amount of pure FUN. The best are some of the one liners. I won’t spoil anything, but some of the one liners in this game are incredibly funny. They are also incredibly rated R (this game is rated M for a reason. It has a lot of naughty language. LOL) but they are funny and awesome. I love it!Baker (Michael Madsen) is your main character and the crime boss, Michael Rooker with his green mohawk is your secondary character (and you better keep him alive), Kim Basinger is your main woman and helps you with your finances (you better listen to her or else you will go broke), Nasara (played by actor Damion Poitier who played Goldface on the Flash TV show, but now he has hair and wears sunglasses) will help you along, Danny Glover is an ex-cop turned criminal who will help you plan out some special missions for you, and Sheriff Chuck Norris (your main rival) will try to murder all of you. LOL. Meanwhile, Vanilla Ice and Danny Trejo (Machete) will be some of your rival gang leaders and they aren’t going to like it when you try to take their land.Will you become the ultimate Crime Boss of Rockay City or are you going to let Chuck Norris literally taunt you to death (seriously, he TAUNTS you as you are dying when you die in this game. Norris isn’t playing around. LOL).Important Note: Try to finish taking ALL the land BEFORE Chuck Norris finishes his investigation. If you don’t, you will be screwed as his SWAT team starts coming at you with full force and you will have to do another playthrough. There are ways to SLOW DOWN his investigation (one of those ways is get special power up perk cards that will slow down parts of his investigation. There are other ways to slow down his investigation in game that I will let you figure out, but definitely get those power up cards that mess up Chuck’s investigation as soon as they start getting offered to you).As for the OTHER story mode:2) Urban Legends is the SECONDARY story campaign (story wise, it takes place during the middle of Baker’s Campaign) and it took me about 10 hours, but mainly because it starts off incredibly easy and gets INCREDIBLY HARD as it goes on (I died A LOT during the Dragon Dogs vault mission. I had to restart that mission at least 15 times before I mastered it). But once you figure out what to do, you will get better and you can beat it with enough practice.While Baker’s Campaign starts off incredibly hard but gets much easier, Urban Legends starts off easy but gets a lot harder. I came very close to giving up at the Dragon Dogs statues mission (the amount of enemies they throw at you is ABSURD. The armada of cops coming at you is in multiple waves which are ENDLESS). I don’t want to give too much away but some strategies I used to help me beat this absurd mission include : 1) When the SWAT guys with the shields show up, aim for the little window they have on their shields and keep shooting that little window on their shield and eventually it will break and you will hit their heads and they will go down. If you try to fight them in any other way, they will overwhelm you and the other SWAT team members will run in and overwhelm you. Getting rid of those SWATS with shields as soon as possible will make this mission a billion times easier. 2) Danny Glover’s character is in charge of ordering you around in this mission. It is HIGHLY important you listen to his directions because if you don’t, you won’t know which vault to break into and you will waste time, which will result in MORE Swat team members coming in and you WILL eventually die. 3) Try to use stealth for as long as you can before the security sees you (and they WILL see you eventually).In regards to the Urban Legends story mode, I played this AFTER I beat Baker’s main campaign. You get additional story scenes from some of the main characters (and you get the most HILARIOUS story scene of all time from Chuck Norris if you beat the ultra absurd and difficult Dragon Dogs statues mission. Let’s just say he will be incredibly ANGRY if you win that mission and some of his one liners are hilarious). My favorite was the last set of Urban Legends story mode missions where you have to get on the large boat. They gave me the BEST merc character in the game: this European blonde woman in a dress named Runaway who has some of the best one liners ever! You also have Kim Basinger giving you orders for this mission and it’s really cool.It should be noted that I played and beat Urban Legends SOLO. There is an option to play Urban Legends mission in an online multiplayer way. Well, assuming you have PS Plus for multiplayer (which I no longer currently have because they raised it from $60 to $80 and I don’t feel like paying $80 so I’m waiting for a deep discount Black Friday deal for PS Plus). I played and completed all of these missions solo with the rest of my team controlled by the computer.On another note, there is a THIRD mode in this game called “Crime Time”. I didn’t spend much time with this mode since it’s NOT a story mode. It’s really more of a multiplayer mode, even though it can be played solo if you don’t feel like playing with other people. However, it’s just the same content from the other modes, so it’s best to save the “Crime Time” mode for multiplayer OR you want to collect it's unique trophies solo.While I love this game, it does have some flaws. While I don’t mind revisiting the same locations more than once (especially since this game will switch around the placement of items each time you return to a location you have visited) some people might not like this. I didn’t mind since I was having a fun time.Anyway, that’s a long but general overall of the game. I supplied some screen shots (some showing how long I actually played the game and what I accomplished, even though you might have to zoom in to read it. Some of the other pics show off some screenshots I captured on Playstation 5). It should be noted that I found the controls in this game to be perfect (I didn’t run into any problems controlling my character and no problems aiming in this first person shooter. No complaints there since I felt everything felt perfect). Overall, I had a great time with this game.

This game plays like the Payday games where you go and grab bags of loot and make it to your getaway vehicle. But there are different aspects to this game, including a rogue like element that makes this game very interesting and engaging. There's a turf war going on and it pits you against several gangs. You have to defend your turf and take other neighborhoods as well. Doing so will throw you into a map with the opposing gang members, no slideshow with a dice roll, you actually defend and conquer. You can upgrade your base and your recruits. Some recruits have interactive story segments which is awesome. You'll have to make business decisions that affect the outcome in some situations. You have your main character played by Michael Madsen. You can choose him for your missions or have him sit out and use other recruits. But if he dies, your progress starts over. It's real easy to get hooked on this game and it brings some great ideas that are not in other games today. It definitely deserves more recognition.

Super fun game, I have no idea why the reviews were so harsh. There is more coming and being fixed, once you get the game be sure to visit the website. There is new (and some free!) content being added periodically.If you like Grand Theft Auto games or Saints Row you’ll like this. I got this because it seemed similar to those and I saw Vanilla Ice and Danny Trejo - how could anyone pass on that, right?

Crime Boss is an action packed blast filled with 80s/90s nostalgia! And Sheriff Norris has got to be the highlight of the game for me. Every scene he’s in never disappoints. Such a cool character. Hope to see more of him in the future. Maybe even a Sheriff Norris spin off game.

It would be better if the lay out was more like saints row. I like games I can run around and do missions as I please. You have to pick from a map the mission you do. I can only do 1 side mission each day to get money. The bad part is I need my people to help with a mission which after i use them on one mission they have to rest for a day to be able to use them again and it seems it only gave me 4 main guys to use on a mission. With each territory I try to attack or defend I lose most all of my soldiers. There isn't a good auto aim either so shooting your target is not easy a lot of the time. Also when holding down the button to buy soldiers it does it too fast to where it hires them twice leaving me with no money. I am now under attack on one of my territories and I can't pay enough soldiers to defend it.

bought this for my brother who likes crime games & the fact celebs play characters was a bonus sohell doubly enjoy it

Not fun

Was hoping for a well developed 1 player campaign. But it’s not very fleshed out.