Who doesn’t like playing as an underworld boss whose main objective is to take over an entire city? That’s right, Crime Boss: Rockay City is a unique spin on some of the popular game series like Payday and GTA, from a lovable cast to challenging gameplay. Ingame Studios offers this and many more.
Crime Boss: Rockay City is a Rogue-like, First-Person-Shooter game developed by Ingame Studios and published by 505 Games. Crime Boss: Rockay City may not promise you the most riveting experience you would ever have. But, it offers a lot that many games fail to do so.
Crime Boss: Rockay City offers a gaming experience with an overwhelming cast of well-known Hollywood stars of the last century. Paired up with a cooperative experience & challenging missions, potentially making Crime Boss: Rockay City the perfect game to enjoy on a weekend afternoon with a group of friends.
Also Read: Top 8 GTA Rip-Off Games That You Will Enjoy
1. The Legendary Chuck Norris In The Game
Carlos Ray ‘Chuck’ Norris was a legendary martial artist who debuted in the film industry in the late 70s. But Chuck Norris was well-recognized through memes during the 80s and 90s for his badassery and corny acting. For a veteran actor who ages like fine wine, Jarek Kolář made the decision. By bringing in Chuck Norris to play Sheriff Norris in Kolář’s newest game, Crime Boss: Rockay City.
The 65-year-old legend Chuck Norris voiced Sheriff Norris and also had the character modeled as a younger version of himself. Jarek Kolář quoted, “We haven’t cast them to our story. We have invited them to go back in time, let them experience the things they have been famous for 30 years ago.”
It was clear early on in the game that the cast was mainly hired for nostalgia reasons rather than their voice-acting abilities. As it was evident, Chuck Norris’ acting wasn’t up to fans’ expectations. Even so, it was a trip down a memory lane for many fans of the 80s and 90s Hollywood action classics.
2. The Inspiration Behind Travis Baker
Travis Baker is the main lead of any crew you put together. Travis Baker is a charismatic criminal with a cowboy persona. And though Travis could be unlikable to some, he’s a character you’ll get used to nonetheless. Michael Madsen is Baker’s voice actor, who does a good job representing the character as intended. However, Travis Baker goes beyond just his scripts.
Travis was heavily inspired by Mr. Blonde from Reservoir Dogs. An antagonist played by none other than Michael Madsen himself. Jarek Kolář states Michael Madsen’s rude and selfish personality sells the character. Hence, Jarek Kolář attempted to reflect such traits onto Travis Baker.
3. The Game’s Audience
Crime Boss: Rockay City is not a game for just anyone. It is designed in a very specific style, which is very noticeable through the cast of actors and dialogue options. Additionally, with a hardcore mission structure and randomization of perks, the game could be a bit too overwhelming for the wider audience of casual gamers.
With a challenging gaming experience, the game’s story is structured and presented to cater to the fans of early 90’s action Hollywood. But, unfortunately, it also includes the poor representation and clumsy dialogue tropes of such films. However, the cast can be a bit wacky with the dialogues in an attempt to capture the younger audience into trying out the Rockay City experience.
4. In-game Deaths Truly Matter
For decades we have had games with a retry option, allowing players to respawn with little to no repercussions after the character dies. Likewise, we have also seen too many games where NPCs’ deaths could potentially worsen the experience or, in the worst-case scenario, ruins the save file, a common risk in games like Skyrim, Dark Souls series, Elden Ring, Hitman, etc…
Likewise, in Crime Boss: Rockay City. Each character has a death counter, allowing them to die only a limited number of times on jobs before they are permanently out of commission. Hence it is no wonder why the characters are given a random assortment of traits. Seeing how they probably won’t have a lasting effect in the game.
The crew members that permanently die; could be replaced. However, Travis Baker, as the main character, has no option but to live. Because Baker is the last line of defense between the player and the completion of the game since Baker’s death would take the player back to the very beginning of the game.
So, the game allows you to take out either Baker and crew or a crew without Baker, giving the players a fighting chance by having to choose from a risk-free experience or a challenging one. However, If Baker isn’t taken on a job, he will never properly level up.
With no checkpoints in the game, the possibility of death always remains at large. So, as they say, don’t get too attached to your partner in crime.
5. What Is The Game’s Connection With Damion Poitier?
Daimon Poitier has starred in Avengers 1 as the initial appearance of Thanos. But, most importantly, Daimon is the official actor and voice actor for the character ‘Chains’ in the Payday web series and the videogame series, respectively.
Crime Boss: Rockay City is often compared to the Payday series with a similar theme of a group of criminals partaking in bank heists. Daimon Poitier is cast to play ‘Nasara,’ the second-in-command of the underworld, which a certainly an interesting choice of the cast made by Jarek Kolář. Could this be a coincidence or intentional?
6. This Wasn’t Jarek Kolář’s First Rodeo
Crime Boss: Rockay City’s director, Jarek Kolář, eagerly anticipated the game’s release. However, this wasn’t Kolář’s first contribution to the gaming industry. Kolář began his journey as a game developer in 1992.
Jarek Kolář has contributed to several games throughout his career, including The Secret of Donkey Island (1994) as an artist and 7 dní a 7 nocí / 7 Days and 7 Nights (1994) as the developer.
Jarek Kolář then founded the company Pterodon in 1997. In 2003, Pterodon merged with Illusion Software, making games like Vietcong (2003) as the lead designer and Vietcong 2 (2005)
Later, Jarek also contributed as a senior game producer for well-known 3rd person shooter games like Mafia II & Mafia III.
Finally, Jarek became the head of development for Ingame Studios. This allowed Jarek to complete an ambitious project that he had in mind. With a team of 70 members and now as the director of Crime Boss: Rockay City, he has certainly come a long way.
7. A Payday & GTA Clone?
From mission design and the game’s objective to the freedom to strategize one’s approach, it makes Crime Boss: Rockay City a very similar game to the Payday series. The similarity comes down to the publisher as well, since both games were published by 505 Games, giving them a common ground to compare with.
Crime Boss: Rockay City is also noticeably similar to some of the GTA mechanics, features like Guns: The gunplay closely resembles the newer iterations of the GTA series, Heat system: The more crimes you commit, the stronger the opposition, Heists: The most well-known missions in GTA V & GTA Online are mostly Heists and Characters: Both games feature lawless criminals as playable characters.
It is possible that Crime Boss: Rockay City has incorporated several features from such inspirational games into the game. However, it still did not do enough to outshine its original competition.
8. The Future Of Crime Boss: Rockay City
It is not the first time a video game franchise has incorporated cultural references from external sources to popularize the game. Fortnite and Super Smash Bros. have thrived by introducing popular characters from relevance outside the primary game world.
Crime Boss: Rockay City might have had a bumpy start, upsetting many fans with a well-anticipated game. However, it may be rejuvenating to know that Crime Boss: Rockay City’s future might be looking brighter than you think.
The game director for Crime Boss: Rockay City, Jarek Kolář, said, “We have so much post-launch content planned, it would seem wrong not to include a few new stars, right? We have a lot of Hollywood history to play with here, I can’t say too much, and I don’t want to give anything away!”
