25 To Life
by Richard Holick
Platform: PS2 / Xbox
ESRB Rating: M
25 to Life is a third person perspective shooter. It tries very hard to have the Grand Theft Auto “feel”. It falls flat in that ,unlike GTA, there is virtually no fun. It is guaranteed a place of honor along such titles as Chicago Enforcer, Enchanted Arms, Aquaman, and Secret Service to name a few. However, upon putting in the game for the first time I had never heard much about it.
And the crapfest begins!
It starts out with the main character Andre “Freeze” Francis trying to make his “papers” in an attempt to get out of “the game”. His lady tries to persuade him otherwise, but he doesn’t listen and gets his family kidnapped. The dialog is extremely dry between him and his “partners”. Forget attempting to jump over obstacles as the vertical limit for any given character appears to be about six inches, meaning jumping on car hoods or crates doesn’t happen. You discover the amazing lack of programming ingenuity when you realize that a shotgun is less effective at close range than a sniper rifle and some cars appear to have a Kryptonian invincibility! The sound track comes from cordless 1980′s style boomboxes that are repetitive and sound virtually the same no matter which song is playing. Ammo is scarce (although enemies leave behind plenty of crappy weapons to “defend” yourself with) and baseball bats are one hit kills for the most part.
Here’s your story building.
The second playable character is a cop, Detective Lester Williams. Once again, horrible voice acting and poor dialog help to make this a less than fun experience. Your first objective is to keep your rookie partner alive. Your partner has the IQ of a garden gnome and doesn’t know when to back down. To make matters worse the plot twist is a completely foreseeable device. The police are worse off for weapons than the gangsters (don’t bring a pistol to an AK fight) who seem to be armed like a small army. The police smoke grenades are just slightly less effective than launching a pretty pink balloon at enemies.
Now for the drug lord Shaun Calderon. Hiding in Mexico, he is trying to wrest Tiajuanna from rival cartel members. In the cut scene he has two gold pistols. In the actual game play his pistol is weak as hell and requires multiple shots to slay enemies. He speaks Spanglish and has no other personality traits other than his desire to be a badass.
He bleeds from a spray paint can!
The Breakdown:
Graphics- The graphics were a huge disappointment for a game arriving so late in the PS2′s generation. As far as the various backgrounds were concerned, the colors were lack luster and extremely boring. There are three types of cars in the world. The enemies have little actual definition and the “blood” looks more like red spray paint. The cut scenes were done in a poor polygon format that left me extremely disappointed.
Sound- The weapon sounds were not horrible unlike the repetitious music and limited sound effects for enemies. The voice acting was choppy and did not convey character emotions well. Pure elephant shit!
Gameplay- Utter Crap! No driving cars, no open world, no witty/funny dialog, environments are not at all detailed, poorly developed story, poor character development, poor voice acting, the aiming mechanics leave a lot to be desired. The lack of transitional story between characters helps to make this one of the least entertaining experiences I have ever had on this console. Other game attributes that made this almost impossible were sloppy story telling and lack of an in game menu of any kind. That’s right! Unless you are some sort of time manipulator, you can’t pause the game which makes it extremely difficult to take any kind of break! The secondary objectives “unlock” character customizations such as outfits. Great for playing ghetto vs. ATF dress up in multi-player only!
Replay Value- I will probably never touch this game again. If you are some sort of masochistic gamer then there is a possibility you may be able to complete it. I realized that I had played this game for about five hours too long and was extremely shocked that my PS2 did not self-destruct in protest.One of the better things about this game was that thunderous wrath was not taken upon me for playing it (although I feel stupider for having played it). Activities more fun than this game include, but are not limited to: watching snails race, sniffing a dog, and watching paint dry. In short, this game would not be recommended for first time gamers or anyone who wants to enjoy themselves.
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