Payback

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery"

Payback is a Grand Theft Auto clone created by a single guy in his spare time, originally for the Amiga and later ported to the GBA. I don't mean to use the word "clone" in an insulting manner, but there is no better way to describe Payback.

Payback's story is minimal: you're a lowly thug, and you must rise through the ranks of organized crime in various cities. When you've gotten to the top in one city - i.e. you've reached to mandatory amount of points - you move onto the next, conquering each city until you've gotten them all.

The graphics in this game are quite good. Although the game maintains a 2D top-down perspective the whole time, everything is rendered in 3D, or at least pseudo-3D. You get nice weather effects like snow and rain, skid marks and nice looking explosions and particle effects. This looks miles better than the Grand Theft Auto port Rockstar produced. However, the game has the tendency to drop in frame rate, especially when things explode.

The audio, however, is pretty lacking. There's no voice overs, and the music is composed of repeated, canned MIDI tracks that get tiring after a while. The sound effects in this game work, but they could have been much better.

Gameplay wise, Payback is almost entirely a clone of the original Grand Theft Auto. You're tasked with taking over 3 cities in 6 stages, and each successive stage is locked until you complete the previous one. In order to complete each stage you must meet a mandatory point requirement, and the easiest way to do this is by doing jobs. Jobs are handed out at payphones, and range from tailing somebody, to races, assassinations, drug deals, et cetera. Each time you complete a mission, your score multiplier also increases. Sound familiar? Of course, committing petty crimes will also get you points, but not in the same ballpark as doing missions. There are several key improvements Payback does make to this original formula though. For one, they added a heads up display that was painfully absent in the first GTA, but present in GTA2 and each game onward. You get a reading that displays your health (or your vehicle's health if you're in car), the lack of which was my main problem with the first GTA. The second change is in how Payback handles police response. Instead of having varying levels (such as SWAT, FBI and National Guard), the police vary in terms of numbers. They're usually armed with shotguns, so they're deadly from the get go, but the higher your wanted level the more they will come after you. You can lose your wanted level by getting a car resprayed but you can also just wait it out, although it takes longer when your wanted level is high. The third change is in the weapon selection, which includes your fists, a pistol, a shotgun, a Gatling gun, a flamethrower, hand grenades, and a rocket launcher - quite a bit more variety than in the first GTA. Lastly, there are a few miscellaneous changes, such as being able to fly helicopters and pilot boats (both not as great as you'd think) and a few missions that take place indoors, also something not present until Vice City as far as I know. To add to replayablility, there's a multiplayer mode and a sort of rampage mode where you try to get accumulate as much points as possible causing wanton destruction.

If you don't have the GTA port or just want something similar yet different, get Payback. NOTE: unfortunately for those of us in North America, as of this time the North American version is unavailable so you'll have to do things the hard way and import it.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 07/09/07