25 to Life

"Not even a rent. Just stay away."

25 to life is a crime shooting which I is kind of trying to hit the line between Half-life: Counter Strike and Grand Theft Auto. Where does it land, you ask? In some kind of void purgatory in between, drifting into an endless abyss of boredom and wasted time.

Graphics 7/10
The graphics? Well they are actually kind of detailed I thought. The characters, when they are shot, actually bleed in the appropriate places, which I have yet to see in a shoot. Of course when the bleeding is the best part of the game, you know there's something wrong. The environments are the usual gritty urban locales like warehouses, banks, the streets of Tijuana, an apartment complex, same old same old.

Story 3/10
The story? Well...there is one and that's about it. Something to do with a guy name Freeze who wants out of a gang, but due to the biggest gang cliche ever, you can't leave the gang because of some "for life" loyalty bond thing. So he ends up in jail because he was set up by his friend (another playable character), ending up in jail for, you guessed it, 25 to life. There's also a cop who is a playable character but he dies too early into the story to be any importance at all. I'd go through the rest but I want people to stay awake through this review.

Gameplay 3/10
I've never really played a game that controls like 25 to life except for maybe GUN, but GUN had decent controls. 25 to life's aiming system is to demanding. Whereas some games give you a little slack and let you hit a guy when you should have missed, 25 to life has you missing when you should hit. Neither's very good, but missing when you were aiming dead center at point blank range is just inexcusable. The AI is pretty dumb too, I mean they firebomb THEMSELVES! The positive side? Well it's easy to switch weapons, and there are some objectives and unlockables.

Sound 1/10
Games like 25 to life tend to always have one kind of soundtrack. Yep, nothing but a bunch of lame hip hop rap music that is constantly playing the entire time. Not only does it suck, but due to some programming error, the music volume is like four times as loud as anything else! Also, the guns all kinda sound fake, and the voice acting? Three minutes into the game some twenty year old guy posing as a little kid asks the main character Freeze when will be able to "run with his crew" and then a third character, appearantly Freeze's wife, using the phrase "sticky icky oowee". The original Resident Evil had better dialogue.

Replay Value 1/10 or 4/10
This really depends on whether you have Xbox live or not. I don't so I thought this game had less replay value than a game of Pong. Now if you have Xbox live I *think* it might be better, since you can unlock clothes for your online avatar. Still, crappy multiplayer with dress up ontop doesn't make a good game.

Overall 3/10
Since I've said so many negative things, I'm going to say at least two positive things. For one, the background of the main menu makes the game look like it might be good, as does the box art and the pictures on the back of the box. Now I haven't met a gamer one who buys a game because of what's on the box, so take it from me when I say stay away from 25 to life. If you don't rent or buy crappy games, developers will refrain from making them until the next great game comes out for them to copy. Don't even look at it when you're shopping for or renting games. Stay away.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 04/19/06