OK… Soul Control (I have to listen to The Streets to write this)
Designed and created by young people for young people showing the dangers of knife crime and gang culture
(perhaps they should have used some old people who have made games)
This is a great thing, using video games as a medium for something serious, but I think the aim may have gotten lost somewhere in the development process… We will get back to this.
THE GAME BRUZ!
‘Oi Oi Oi’
The gameplay is you control an english youth through 3 missions such as returning a game, paying the electricity bill and going to a rave. The game looks like a 3D gta 2. Along the way there are crime related temptations, which will test you.
These tests are pretty silly because as we run to pay our electricity bill we are tempted with the chance to rob someone at knife point and we all know that paying the electricity bill is going to be so much cooler.
Thank god my black sister (something went wrong because the player is white) can finish getting her hair did.
Paying the electricity bill
So to look at it, you may say to your self “NANG! This be well mank” (ugly), but remember this is set on the harsh London streets, and if you have been to the real London you would know that it is grey, low resolution and has poor level design. Between levels there are live action videos to set the scenes up, the acting is… anyway! The controls are ‘interesting’, you use w,a,s,d to control your bruz but if you are running forwards you can’t actually turn at the same time so you have to run, stop turn and run again. You can use the mouse to control the turning which sort of works. The animations are also very jittery. You can run or walk, I don’t know why you can walk as there is never any point to.
The level design is well unfit
You have an arrow that points you to the goal but you have to try traverse the ugly maze of fences and houses to get there and most routes end up being dead ends. You can also walk straight through a lot of the scene items.
All that being said the game does have a good sound scape, the ambient city noise and talking npcs on the street aren’t bad. The conversations are only text though.
This rave be Nangin’!!!
The weird thing is the choices in this game. You can choose to break the law or play it clean but the game doesn’t reward you for doing the right thing, if anything it prevents you from doing anything interesting.
My first play through I managed to deal some drugs, rob a guy at knife point then shoot some rival gang members. My second play I returned a game, payed a bill and ran away from a fight, YEAH I’M A HERO!
The final decision you have to meet your friend at a rave who tells you the West Side boys are around the back and you are going to help him shoot them. Being a good boy I said no, and it exited the conversation and then nothing happened. With the conversation the only way to make it progress is to agree to shoot these guys. So you can’t even be good in this situation, when you go and find the westside boys you have the choice to shoot them or ‘run away’. What the hell kind of a decision is that, they could have worded it like ‘be uncool and shoot them’ ‘BE AN HERO! RUNAWAY!’
RUN AWAAAAAAAAAAY!
But check out what you get when you run away
I think that should probably read ‘Coward teenager runs away, peers think is square’ How did I even save him?! Who did I save?! Did I save someone because I chose not to shoot them? Is that how you become a hero now days, by choosing not to be a villain?
Check what happens when you DO shoot
I assume seeing I did the shooting, it wasn’t me who died. SO I totally blasted those west side foo’s and got away with it. Yeah! I’m well tits. (good)
SO the moral of this game is, you can play it safe and pay bills and run away or you can be an English OG and soldier your way to the top!
So I’m ending this article now and hitting the mean streets to do some crime.
Oi Oi Oi!
Love those comics at the end ^_^
1 | Joerdgs April 9th, 2008 at 5:32 pm^ same
2 | p3lb0x April 9th, 2008 at 11:44 pmLol, “Are afros back?”
Priceless.
3 | MstrNetHead April 10th, 2008 at 4:24 amsorry for missing lots of posts.
“A game made by young people to prevent young people from getting into crime”
sounds like one more reason to stay out of trouble
4 | rebirth12345 April 10th, 2008 at 9:37 amBest. Article. Ever.
5 | Atron April 13th, 2008 at 2:01 amJoredgs:
6 | ddgc April 13th, 2008 at 4:53 pmLove those comics at the end ^_^
Thirded.