Payback

"It's Payback time in Apex's port from the homebrew Amiga title!!!"

Starting out life as an Amiga title, the GTA-like game, Payback, has been ported over to the GBA. Everything's contained in the package including car jacking and terrorizing with the tank. However, with an emphasis on the earlier GTA games, does Payback lie in the shadows as just another watered down GTA-clone?

Story: 8/10
There really isn't a strict storyline to begin with. You're basically just a lowlife criminal who has been busted from the joint and must do missions for a local crime lord. Nothing fancy, just the basic mafia story. It is nothing to make you grove about enjoying a movie with corruption and taking revenge on other gangs but then again this isn't a game about Scarface or the Godfather.

Controls: 10/10
The controls are very good in my opinion. You have the A button to go forward and the B-button to go in reverse while you control the direction to walk in with the Left and Right buttons on the D-Pad. There wasn't a problem for me playing with this control setup but for those who may think the default controls are too difficult, you can reconfigure them to almost any way you choose to make the game enjoyable for you.

Gameplay: 9.5/10
This is the real meat of the game. As said earlier, Payback is a GTA-like game. You can steal cars from anyone at any time, terrorize pedestrians in any manner, do missions for the local mafia boss, race in the streets, and etc. What sets Payback away from GTA you ask? For one thing there's points. You get points just from doing bad things in the game. Some include stealing a police car and killing the cop with his own car. This will net you a nice bonus. The same goes for the pedestrians. Another feature is the way you choose your cities. Unlike in GTA where can just drive over to the next city or area, in Payback you have to choose from between the cities, almost like Driver's Take-A-Ride feature. Another feature that Payback has is the Replay feature. This is basically a movie of your last crusade in a city from the time you began to the time you got busted or killed. It's a very niffy feature. Another feature which, really isn't a feature at all, is the way actually physics is used in the game. Cars can get less traction on certain surfaces like dirt and snow. Big vehicles like vans and buses whose speed isn't very good but have a high defense can knock smaller cars away while smaller cars like sports cars have a low defense but can speed down the road in an instant. The last feature is the Rampage mode. This mode is where the city selection I was talking about earlier takes place in. All you are doing is terrorizing pedestrians in any manner you see fit and doing randomnally generated missions accessed by the phone booths scattered around the cities.

Graphics: 9.5/10
This is something that may turn people away from the game despite Payback having some of the best 3D graphics on any Gameboy Advance game to date. The reason being is Payback's framerate. It is not bad at all. It runs really well and only slows down when there's a lot of action on the screen; an example would be blowing everything up in site with the tank. There's many graphical touches to be found in Payback. Pedestrians drip blood when you cause injury to them. The cars scrape and show visible damage when you're smashing into everything in site. There are lens flares and shockwaves from big explosions which have to be seen in order to be believed because the explosions are just marvelous. Not only that, there's a lot of landmarks which include a graveyard in one city, mansions, military bases, deserts, beaches, etc. This game is very detailed up to the point where it leaves skid marks on the roads from cars braking in an instant.

Sound: 8.5/10
The sound is not that bad. Actually, it's very good. The music themes come from old cop shows and mafia movies. Not just music but then there's sounds from the cars themselves. Cars can blow their horns when you hold up traffic, ice cream trucks play their little song, and buses make the little beeping sound when they're going in reverse. Sometimes the pedestrians make grunts or scream(only when you've jacked a bus) after you run over them or kill them with weapons.

Replay: 10/10
Despite it not having the taxi cab, ambulance, fire truck, and police missions, Payback does have some replay in it. For one thing is the randomnally generated missions in Rampage mode via any telephone. There are killing sprees but it isn't designed like GTA's rampages. You can always go back to the Main Missions and get a high score because Payback does have a lot of secrets including more cities. Then add the multiplayer to table where you're basically playing in a death match where the object is to get the most points or destroy all of your opponents. This game doesn't support the wireless adapter though.

Conclusion: 10/10
All in all, Payback's well worth the purchase if you like GTA or just want a game where you can terrorize pedestrians in any manner you see fit. It can keep you entertained for a while.

Pros:
-Great graphical touches
-niffy Playback feature
-weird names for the cars
-excellent box art
-great intro movie
-adjustable difficulty

Cons:
-would've been nice to have rescue vehicles like the ambulance and fire fighters
-better AI for the cops
-make the pedestrians do something other than serve the purpose as cannon fodder

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 03/28/05, Updated 05/31/05