HANDS ON - Dragon’s Gold Cup is a chunky addition to Crime Boss: Rockay City, but fundamental issues remain

Trejo-ing really hard.
By Jonathan Garrett
25/10/23
Previewed on Xbox Series X.
Access provided by 505 Games.

Crime Boss: Rockay City is an uneven experience, boosted by well meaning performances from some very recognisable names. Although we didn’t review the original release at launch, the team at 505 have kindly given us access to the recent DLC drop, which features the first of three paid narrative expansions which add new missions and cosmetics to the base game. Much like Cyberpunk 2077’s recent Phantom Liberty, you’re free to dive into this new content from the off.

It’s always a treat to see Danny Trejo in anything, and his surly, gravel voiced performance in the original game continues here. Pairing him up with Michael Madsen is a B movie dream made real, and although context tends to take a back seat in games like this, the effort to give meaning to this more action focused expansion is appreciated. In fact, the game works best when it embraces its “Heat"-esque sensibilities; the AI tends to be too unpredictable to support stealth choices without becoming frustrating.

The combat is mostly quite forgiving, which helps particularly when you’re attempting a run solo, and then it will suddenly become incredibly challenging. The AI have these moments of possessed brilliance, but for the most part don’t exhibit a great deal of intelligence. They opt instead for more of an “Operation Metro / throw their corpses on the pile” approach. It’s so clearly balanced for co-op, especially when you’re having to haul gathered loot back to the van. The multi level heist is the star of the show in the DLC here, with much more varied level design that could typically be found in the launch content.

If Crime Boss: Rockay City didn’t convince you first time around, this won’t be rewriting any opinions. It’s a generous drop of content in a game that went to great pains to mix generated missions with more narrative specific content. But too many issues remain; texture wonkiness and occasional frame rate drips will frustrate, and the AI is far too inconsistent in the heat of the moment.

However, the pricing for this DLC is only £7.99, and since the main game was a budget price release to begin with, it shows a willingness from publisher 505 to remain competitive in an already crowded FPS space.

TARPS?

At the bottom of some of our articles, you’ll see a series of absurd looking images (with equally stupid, in joke laden names). These are the TARP badges, which represent our ‘Totally Accurate Rating Platform’. They allow us to identify specific things, recognise positive or negative aspects of a games design, and generally indulge our consistent silliness with some visual tomfoolery.