Genre: Action
Publisher: Eidos Interactive
Developer: Avalanche Software
Release Date: January 17, 2006

I usually like to start off a review with a pithy, eye-catching comment. In the journalistic profession, it's called a hook, an easy-to-read section at the beginning of an article meant to draw readers in and hold their interest. However, I'd like to use this space to instead make the following request:

Don't ever play 25 to Life. It's terrible.

Only recently have video game developers begun to pander to the popular American "gangsta" lifestyle. Problem is, most of the available titles have sucked to the point of implosion. All of the current thug games that do not have Grand Theft Auto in their titles fit the above description, including Vivendi's 50 Cent Bulletproof (a $50 commercial for the titular rapper) and Konami's Crime Life: Gang Wars (voted by many publications as the worst game of 2005). However, the genre enjoys near-invulnerability to criticism, as the copies keep flying off the shelves.

Into the jewel-encrusted fray struts 25 to Life, conceptually a glorified version of the classic playground pastime Cops and Robbers. Aside from the one-player mode, the main draw is an online mode where thugs take on the 5-0 (with a SOCOM comparison on the back of the box). Mentioning SOCOM in the same breath as a piece of opportunistic garbage like 25 to Life does Sony's excellent Navy SEAL simulator a severe injustice. More on that later; let's first take a look at the single player experience.

The introductory movie is a jarring mishmash of grainy, heavily pixilated textures and nigh-unintelligible dialogue. The main character, a charming young man nicknamed Freeze, spouts clichéd nonsense about being true to the streets, and apparently owns stock in the word "f%$#" for as much as he uses it. From what I could piece together, he wants out of the game for the sake of his young son, but as Michael Corleone once said, they keep pulling him back in.

As a character, Freeze is thoroughly unlikable and has almost no personality, serving as the game's expletive-and-bullet delivery device. He and 25 to Life's other playable characters are just shallow caricatures of the flavor of the moment: borderline-offensive stereotypes of African-Americans.

25 to Life is enjoying a wave of controversy almost certain to boost sales, but let me be frank: I was disgusted by the outright murder of police officers. At least in the Grand Theft Auto series, the cops were depicted outlandishly (and as quite corrupt), and so the player didn't feel too bad about wasting them. No so here; it made me very uncomfortable to gun down everyday cops who were just doing their jobs. On more than one occasion, I sympathized more with the police than the character under my control. In case you're paying attention, Eidos, that's bad.

The game takes itself so seriously that it almost becomes a parody, with scowling gangstas unloading insane amounts of ordinance towards demonically corrupt police officers while rap blares in the background. Every inch of 25 to Life almost begs to be considered hard-edged, and ends up falling flat on its face. (Any game developer that includes "OMFG!" as a difficulty level should be officially sanctioned by the government as a member of the Axis of Evil.)

Now on to the actual gameplay. Imagine if 2001's Max Payne had been stripped of its signature gimmick, the now-ubiquitous slow motion gunplay. Now imagine that Max's enemies were brain-dead cops and gangbangers that preferred a drunken stutter step instead of actually evading his attacks. 25 to Life owes Max quite a bit of credit, as it apes his game in almost every way; everything from the ugly graphics of five years ago to the awkward control system has a parallel here, but for some reason developer Avalanche decided to ignore the "compelling narrative" and "being fun" parts.

Prepare for asinine level objectives as well; if you're expecting something deeper than "kill 25 enemies," you're out of luck. The broken AI doesn't help matters, as most missions involve cops that start turning you into Swiss Freeze from a football field away. Health packs are plentiful, making skillful gunplay unnecessary. It's not like it could help you anyway, as foes can take a shotgun blast to the grill without flinching.

Things get a little better in the sound department. The sound effects are awful, of course; all guns sound the same, dialogue is limited to strings of obscenities, and it seems that every cop remarks, "Not like this…", when you perforate them. (Very unnecessary.) However, the soundtrack is quite solid, with both old- and new-school rap represented. The older stuff tends to be better than the new, but I appreciate the variety.

As for the graphics, let me put it this way: position Freeze at the just the right angle and you can see inside his head (an empty dome with huge eyeballs inside). It goes without saying that I reproduced this glitch many hilarious times.

Surely there can be at least one bright spot in this dismal failure of a game, right? Okay, so the graphics are terrible, the missions have been attacked by politicians for their senseless violence, and the game is in general a desperate poser. Is it at least possible to have some stupid, mindless fun with 25 to Life? Yes and no.

Probably the most engrossing part of 25 to Life is pimping out your custom character for a go-round online. Completing secondary objectives earns new gear to customize an online avatar of your choosing. Xbox Live jockeys will be able to squeeze at least a bit of enjoyment out of 25 to Life by blasting the living crap out of one another.

The online play bears only a superficial likeness to SOCOM's far superior experience. Yes, up to 16 players can throw down in a number of different modes. (Robbery is CTF, but street.) Without the pathetic AI to get in the way, an all-out firefight can be shockingly entertaining, though not very cerebral; whoever has the bigger gun usually wins. However, the number of cheaters populating 25 to Life's online community is completely out of control. Entire clans are somehow impervious to bullets, and move much faster than the average gangsta. The number of 13 year old white kids with a fascination for the N-word is also unacceptably high, though sadly they seem to have become an institution on Xbox Live.

It's always depressing when a product comes out that is clearly meant to capitalize on the "latest craze." (Anybody remember the Spice Girls game?) 25 to Life is the kind of hideous trash that damages gaming's reputation, resulting in the genesis of the Jack Thompsons of the world. I need to go play Pokemon or something, to get this awful taste out of my mouth.

WorthPlaying for life, yo.

Score: 4.0/10