Each level starts with a briefing and a planning phase, which for the strategically-minded, gives them a perfect chance to plan their run to the final detail. They’re consistent almost to a fault, making exploiting them simple enough to make me think that’s required at higher difficulties.
The main thing that makes Crookz (a name I really dislike, by the way) good is the rules of the game. The map can be fully moved, with controls surprisingly similar to Tropico, also published by Kalypso, which did actually give me a bit of a leg up. Part of me thinks it could have worked better in co-op, but the sheer potential for other people trolling by getting caught (which instantly loses the map) throws that idea out the window. I found controlling multiple characters at once annoying, but that’s something I’ve had a problem with for years, which I think is a problem with me instead of the mechanics inherent in that style. In the isometric view, they’re also designed differently and have different colors, making finding them on the map amazingly easy.Ĭrookz takes an approach similar to Shadowrun Returns for perspective and uses a pauseable real-time gameplay style, almost entirely fulfilling my personal desire for a third-person stealth game that isn’t Alpha Protocol. All of them are fairly well-defined through dialogue, which is rarely wasted on things other than character development. He is, however, probably the smartest of the group overall. Even Murray, the eventual antagonist, doesn’t act like you’d expect based on his appearance, I expected him to sound like the stereotypical Irish character akin to BioShock‘s Atlas, but is instead not only a normal-sounding American.
Bishop, the hippy lockpicker, has facial hair to spare, yet comes across as extraordinarily standoffish. That trend carries through to all the characters, from the well-spoken dialogue to the subtle presentation. Instead of going the lazy route and literally stealing Beyonce’s character traits from the previously mentioned movie, Skilltree opted to create an impressively soft-spoken and highly intelligent character.
The main character, Cleopatra, is one of the best black female leads I’ve seen in gaming, but that’s not really a large pool to draw from. The initial presentation of the game looks like someone took Monaco and injected it with distilled Austin Powers: Goldmember due to the game taking place in the ’70s, and the characters definitely seem like they’re from that time. Thankfully, Crookz: The Big Heist continues the trend of worthy games, since as far as heist games go, it’s among the greatest that have come out recently, second only to Payday 2. Kalypso Media seems to be in a similar position as Deep Silver was a few years ago: decent-to-great games coming out, no major bad press about business practices (such as the split with Yager over Dead Island 2), and what seems to be an uncommon level of public trust.
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