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The Wait For It Podcast
Hosted by MrEricAlmighty and PhilTheFilipino, the guys discuss all things in Pop Culture from movies, gaming, anime and anything in between. New episodes every Wednesday, all you have to do is...WAIT FOR IT!
The Wait For It Podcast
The Game Room Where It Happens - Crime Boss: Rockay City
How can a game with Chuck Norris on its cover manage to fly under the radar? Join us as we explore "Crime Boss: Rockay City," a game that's a straightforward yet surprisingly entertaining experience. This will be one of our most casual episodes on this series because of the game's simplicity, but we'll still share our candid thoughts on its low-risk, high-reward nature and how it stacks up against other titles we've dabbled with recently.
We take a critical look at what is essentially Payday 2 gameplay trying to merge with Grand Theft Auto vibes. We’ll also dive into the importance of multiplayer sessions enhancing our enjoyment of the game. Despite some clunky mechanics and a lack of originality, we find it has the potential for a lot of fun moments, especially with friends. On the flip side, the game's limited updates can be a bit frustrating. But if you can get this game on the cheap (or "free" through services like PlayStation Plus), then we would recommend giving it a shot!
Interested in watching us play games? Follow us on Twitch! Want to hear more about how we got into gaming? Listen to the interview we did with Your Friendly Neighborhood Gamers!
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Speaker 2:Wait for it Gaming. Wait for it Anime PLUS ULTRA. Mr Eric Almighty and Phil the Filipino. Yeah, they've got you covered and all you gotta do is wait for it. This is the Wait For it Podcast. Hey, everyone, welcome back to the Wait For it Podcast. I am your co-host, phil Smith, aka Phil the Filipino, and joining me, as always, is your other co-host, mr Eric Almighty, aka Phil the Filipino, and joining me, as always, is your other co-host, mr Eric Almighty.
Speaker 2:And Eric, we are here on the 15th of September recording on a Sunday evening, which we don't typically do. Typically, I reserve these nights, especially during the football season, for recording about the football team that, for some reason, we continue to be fans of, but we had a little bit of a switch up in terms of scheduling. So here we are talking about something that you know brings us joy, as opposed to me talking about something that brings me sadness, which I'll do tomorrow night with my co-host, james Johnson, over on the Touchdown Jaguars podcast. But, eric, we talked about this a little bit in the pre-show. So you know, you guys, if you haven't checked out our Patreon yet, eric will tell you a little bit about that a little bit later in the episode, but we wanted to kind of tackle a game here that I don't think we're going to go into some sort of like 45 minute to one hour dissertation, like we have in the past couple of weeks in terms of episodes, where all of a sudden they just started getting longer and, to y'all's credit, you have been listening. So thank you so much. I don't think that's going to happen here. In fact, I'm wasting a lot of time right now trying to elongate this episode Because we're talking about a game, eric, that just kind of like came across my peripheral at one point because of a YouTuber that I watch and he's I'm going to actually shout him out I'll probably post this video in the show notes of the episode from a youtuber called kev do it, and he always plays games that are either like dead or they just don't get a lot of shine and he makes his friends play the games with him.
Speaker 2:So it's very similar to like. What I do is like hey, I throw out a game, download it and, as long as it's like on game pass or playstation premium, like this game is, it's low risk, high reward, right, and that's, I think, eric, maybe like the title of this episode. We don't do subtitles for this episode like we do for like Late to the Party, but it would be Crime Boss, rock A City, low risk, high reward, and I think that would really sum up this episode.
Speaker 1:I think that's fair because, again, there's a couple things behind this particular episode. For context, it's a very straightforward game. First and foremost, crime Boss, rock A City is the game that we're covering and you're like what is that? I get it. We're going to explain it to you pretty quickly. It's not a very difficult game to kind of figure out, but it is a lot of fun. And because it is a game that people haven't probably heard about or likely scrolled past many times on playstation plus, which is what happened to me when you brought it up, I was like the one with, uh, chuck norris in the picture. Is that what you're talking about? I knew of it, but many people, just like I did, probably skipped right over it and wouldn't have given it a second thought. It's exciting that we'll be't have given it a second thought. It's exciting that we'll be able to give people that second thought, but it is a very simple game.
Speaker 1:This is probably our most simple episode. There's really not much to get into as far as a breakdown. But I like it because, again, we can give that option to people and it gives us a little bit of a fun break compared to us going out of our comfort zone, or trying different games that didn't really pan out for one or the other. Again, the last couple episodes we've been struggling since june phil, another crab's treasure I really enjoyed it not your jam, sea of thieves, not either of our jams. And again, college football had its ups and its downs. So I think this is a great, nice little middle ground to bring us back to closer to returning to form, and I'm excited for what the future holds. We're just waiting, basically at this point, for Astro Bot to be on sale, so Phil will play it and then I can make him do an episode. But until then I guess this works.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's another good title for this Crime. Boss Rock A City and this works. This will do for now. It's the Babe, the Pig of video games we're going to talk about here Babe, the Pig reference. This evening.
Speaker 1:That's how this episode is going to go.
Speaker 2:Got a little bit of everything here in the way forward podcast. So, uh, you guys may be listening to the way forward podcast for the first time after running into us at ocala comic-con and I feel like I say that we have to like schedule these differently, because we're always like sorry, maybe this isn't.
Speaker 1:This is the one that's kind of like a little bit we have to like you have to reorder the episode.
Speaker 2:It's not even really like a bad example, we're just a little off tilt right, it's because, again, we had a blast playing this game, so we'll get to that here in just a moment. So I do want to welcome in any of those new listeners that maybe ran into us at ocala comic-con this past weekend or future weekend that is, uh, coming up here, and for all you returning listeners, once again, thank you so much for the continued support. Happy to have you and, um, we we appreciate you guys sticking around and riding with us as we again have turned the corner into the final quarter of the year, which is going to be a whole lot of fun. So, eric, let's jump into it here.
Speaker 2:Crime Boss Rake City is the game that we are discussing here today. It launched initially in March of 2023 to abysmal reviews just really, really bad reviews and it is a. To kind of give you guys a synopsis here from Wikipedia it is a cooperative first person shooter developed by in-game studios, published by 505. And the player assembles a team of criminals and is sent on missions to infiltrate, steal and defeat enemies in fps gameplay. And here's the was kind of like. Their big hook when it came to this game was the I'll say, voice actors, but these are all mainstream actors that you know, from either current day or very much, uh, back in the day. So, mich Madsen, chuck Norris, danny Trejo, danny Glover, michael Rooker, kim Basinger, vanilla Ice and Damien Poitier, and this was like, billed as a throwback heist video game with all these nostalgic acts that you may have known from back in the 70s, 80s or 90s.
Speaker 2:And there is a reason, right, eric, that you and I and a lot of our audience understand that voice acting is its very own, very difficult thing, and I'll say this right now neither one of us played the story mode in this game. That was not what we were interested in, never really touched it. We did do a mode where you could, like, go through the story and there were cut scenes from the story. Didn't watch them, skipped all the cut scenes because none of them are really important and also, once again, the voice acting is just very bad.
Speaker 2:Shout out to Michael Rooker, who we love. We've interacted with him at, like Tampa Bay Comic Con. I couldn't tell you what the story is about, nor do we really care to know what the story was about. And, eric, going back to that YouTube video that I saw, this game is all about cooperative gameplay, and not only that, but jumping into cooperative gameplay, that is really, really simple, so I'll hand it off to you, because you're the one that said this first. What is the game that you thought? This, the game that we've played before that crime boss actually ended up being? So yeah, share that with our audience.
Speaker 1:So the game that we, the game that we really thought was going to mimic this, and I guess maybe we thought a little bit, but as we played it we said oh yeah, this is payday. This is a enhanced, maybe better version of what payday two is Now. Admittedly, we have not played Payday 3. Could we have played Payday 3? Sure, but Payday 2 was fun, but it was missing fun elements in its own gameplay. It's really hard to kind of drill that down without going into a whole other game.
Speaker 1:This game I think Phil, going back to the kind of bad voice acting it also did have some campiness to it, like especially some of the dialogue with the characters.
Speaker 1:We were just playing this game a few minutes before recording just to get refreshed with it because it had been a little bit. And, phil, we were laughing at some of like the dialogue during the missions that we were doing and we did play a lot of the co-op, all of the co-op missions and we kind of experienced that fun through these characters in a non-serious way. And I think that's what I enjoyed the most is that we could have a really big laugh about it. We didn't have to take it too serious where a game like payday, I felt like we did take a little bit more serious, and it needed to um, because it was again missing some of those fun goofy like elements that we typically see plagued in bad video games.
Speaker 1:And in this case it's not a bad video game, it's just got really bad video game elements behind it, and I think that's why, upon launch, I wouldn't be shocked if that played a part in why it didn't do well, and I think that's probably why people have strayed away from this game, because it does seem, upon face value, to just be a bad video game. Phil, to your point, it works, it's fine, it's a good game in all sense of the word. Good, and I really, really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2:It's a really fun time for, again, a cooperative experience. I'll say this If you're just playing it by yourself, it's not going to be a lot of fun, it's not going to be something you're going to want to dive into. They have updated the game quite a bit between release and now so that you can like control your AI teammates, but it's just not going to be the same without the craziness that you can get into with friends. So also understanding we've acknowledged this on the podcast, eric that we know that we are very lucky to have a set of friends that will jump into games with us and we get to experience something like this that we would not otherwise. So I would say that if you're playing it solo, not worth the time, but it is free on I say free, but it's on playstation premium. So would I by any means purchase this game or spend money on it? Absolutely not. I've added it's like my steam wish list to see if it ever got down to like five dollars, and it never did. I think the lowest I saw was like 20 or something like that. That's still not something for the fact that I'm simply not going to jump into single player not going to be something that I would20 on.
Speaker 2:I will say a lot of the things. I think you kind of touched on it, eric. Like that plague bag video games. There's none of that here. There's no battle pass, there is no store, there are no boosters or anything like that. All the DLC, at least on the PlayStation premium side, was all given for free and I think that's really, really great.
Speaker 2:And unfortunately, you know, in comparing it to like a game like Payday, where Payday is being updated because it does have a relatively large audience, even though the response to Payday 3 has not been very good, it's kind of a bummer that Crime Boss doesn't have that core audience, because this is something they could update over time with more heists and more missions. And that's what we were doing. We were doing the long form heists. So there are jobs where you can just like go in, rob a bank, rob a jewelry store. They take like five, ten minutes and then you can do the heists which can take.
Speaker 2:I think the longest one that we did, eric, probably took up to half an hour and it was a lot of fun because, like, as you're progressing through the level, you're um face, but with different options and and another cool thing which is, I guess, does give it a little bit more replay value is the mission will update every time.
Speaker 2:So, for example, there is one of the first missions we did was in a bank, and each time we played that bank mission the vault would move or the number of security guards or the cameras. So all that like a dynamic leveling system is again something I was not expecting out of this game, which was thrown away into the trash heap over a year ago. So things like that. Like I said, it's kind of a bummer it doesn't have that audience, because I could certainly see us revisiting it if there was like oh hey, there was a crime boss update today with two new heists, let's go in and do them jump in, uninstall the game again, jump back in again in a couple months if they were to update it continuously. But unfortunately that's not going to happen no, it's, it's not.
Speaker 1:and again, this is this is what really happens with games that are kind of cranked out and they try to steal all the aesthetic of other games. So, like for this one, it is just an enhanced Payday 2, in my opinion and I'm looking on Reddit, phil that seems to be kind of the theme of the community is that's the same exact thing. On the surface level, though, it looks like a complete ripoff of, like a gta vibe for everything from, like the police symbols that go up to five uh, as far as your rating to just the aesthetic of the entire environment of rock k city, and I think that's really telling because, again, we're gonna wait so long and we waited so long for gta games, but, like when gta did bank robberies, like that is a huge feature of that specific grand theft auto uh, does this game do it better? No, uh. And again, this is not a game that's really enhancing any gaming elements you're already familiar with, but it is an easier and more accessible way to jump in.
Speaker 1:Like nothing about this game, phil required a tutorial. Honestly. You learn the button, you know what to do, you're good to go, the mistakes you make are very fun and it leads to a good time. It's not something you're going to take very seriously. So, again, while it's not an award-winning game it's not breaking the mold it is one of those games that I'll remember because of the time that I had, because of the friends we made along the way, and I really just think that that's all we can stress here when it comes to this game is, if you're looking to play this with other people, this is for you.
Speaker 1:If you're really bored and the idea of a single player, like payday experience, sounds good to you, with some bank robbery, robbery elements, sure go for that. But I don't think that's the audience we're talking to. I think we're talking to an audience that wants to play it with a group of people and maybe you're tired of playing the same old games. That's what happened to us and Phil. We did maximize it, I think, to the best of our ability. We have squeezed every little bit of juice left in that particular game.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I will say just to bring it a little bit back down to earth, mechanically the game is not very good. You got you move around really slow. The stealth mechanics are pretty bad, but you play this game for the memes and to have a really good time with your friends. You know, what's really irritating about this, eric is, let's see, it's september, february 2025. Some fucking streamer or TikToker is going to get a hold of this game and make a ton of content out of it because it's two years, it's like a year old or two years old, and they're going to be like, why have we no one been talking about Cryon Paws or Hot Base City? And they're going to have like Tim the Tatman or some shit's going to play the game on stream and then everyone's gonna all of a sudden run to it and, honestly, maybe that would be good because then we can get more content out of it.
Speaker 2:But I assume and we didn't do it, I mean, I certainly didn't do any research before this, eric, I don't know if you did I'm sure that in-game studios is probably done updating this thing, um, because we had been out of it for a couple of months. We did get a bunch of updates in terms of, like, quality of life stuff, but no new content in quite a long time. In fact, the last update was on I just saw it. Gosh, I lost it, but it was. It was updated a little bit earlier in the year and, once again, probably something that's not going to be updated again. So, yeah, playstation Premium definitely worth a download I wouldn't pay more than 10 $15 for it on like Xbox or Steam I'm not sure if it's cross compatible or cross play between consoles and PC, but we got a good 10 hours out of it, which honestly, like that's a couple nights right. Like that's, that's a good week's worth of content.
Speaker 2:I know, like not everybody can get on and play every night, so jump on, play for a couple hours with your friends. I think you'll have a good time, and a lot of the characters, like you said, are really unhinged as far as their dialogue and some of it like so you know, so bad, it's good dialogue and stuff like that. So, yeah, it was just a really, really fun time and in an age where, like, it's really easy for you to get pretty worn out by playing the same stuff over and over again, like I've talked about it. I'm worn out on college football 25. We'll see what happens, uh, as the season goes on. Um, I haven't purchased like 2k 25 yet. I probably will when it goes on sale, but we're in this time right now. Once again, in the later on in the year, we're getting a little bit of slow down when it comes to multiplayer games. So if this is something, if you're looking for something to play with your friends, this is definitely it.
Speaker 1:And we cannot stress enough If you have an ability to play this game for free, that is what we recommend. Do not purchase this game. That's probably why, if they're not updating it and adding more content, that's probably why is because the assholes like us telling you not to purchase the game. But I would not recommend buying this game unless it's a really good deal and, again, you have a group of people to play with.
Speaker 1:But, phil, for the sake of us, maybe not like retelling or re-going through a lot of the same points, because I think, again, just like this game, there's only so much you can squeeze out of it, and we set that stage at the beginning that this would probably be more of a straightforward episode, more of a personal like. We really enjoyed this game. Let us tell you about it type episode, not necessarily an in-depth breakdown that's going to really impress you. Honestly, phil, is there anything else that you wanted to talk about this game from its current status, anything in the future? I don't think, again, we really have anything for this, because it's just a game that kind of exists in the ether and we think it's a good time to go play it.
Speaker 2:No, I just learned, though the apparently the level cap is 155. That's why, I got to level 18. I was on 12 in a couple of weeks so, and and they had raised it too, which means there were already people near that, and then they raised it up to 155. So hey, shouts out to the community. Man, they can keep a game going for a very, very long time I mean that means there are people playing this.
Speaker 2:Think about it like I it I don't have the Steam numbers up in front of me More people playing this than people were playing Concord. I think they can take that as a win that the game is still up and running and people are having a good time.
Speaker 1:That's pretty telling. I am worried, though, that the five people playing Rock A City at level 150 and above are going to come at us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's no competitive multiplayer at least.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're going to come at us and be like you guys missed this, this and this. This game is great.
Speaker 2:I know, and yeah, it's fun. It's a fun game that is mechanically broken in multiple ways, but that's part of the experience. So other than that, there's not really much else to talk about. Like we knew this was going to be a short and sweet and simple episode. You came to us, hopefully, for a recommendation.
Speaker 2:Here it is man, crime, boss, rock A City. Oh yeah, and I think the mission we just played tonight, eric, was like a DLC that they added a little bit later, so could we go back and play it, like on a harder difficulty? Sure, do we want to. Not really Cause like those changes are nice in terms of like level design, but it's not going to be enough to keep us playing consistently. So I'm pretty sure all of us uninstalled it after this. But who knows what will happen, maybe if something will pop up in the future and we'll play it again. They still like, they still stream with their community, so that's really really great. But yeah, I think at this point all we can do is just hope that maybe they'll throw us a bone and we can have an excuse to jump back in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the game is somewhat challenging. Like, again, it's not going to. It's not, you know, souls-like challenging of a game, right, but it is. It is not just a breeze. Like you will have some sense of challenge, as any game that involves, like, any sort of stealth or like fighting your way out of a situation, can give you, because those games obviously will have that situation where, like you get impatient, you do something stupid. Those are the type of things that really plagued our gaming experience with this, but again turned it into something fun and not very frustrating. Like I didn't find us getting frustrated with too many of the maps or the modes when we had to do them more than once, and we can't say that for all games. So, at the very least, kudos to you, rock A-City, for pulling that off with this group.
Speaker 1:But, phil, I do not have anything else to say about this game and at all. I did uninstall it. So we wanted to do this episode. There is a time limit for you to play this and once you've reached it it will expire. And, phil, while I'll never probably install this game again to play it again, I will have fond memories of it and that's all you can really ask for for a game that's essentially been forgotten about by all intent and purposes. So let's uh, let's wrap this bad boy up, and we are going to work hard to figure out what our next two games to end the year are. So look out for that. But next month's game, october we are excited a big hitter and we're hoping it'll turn out pretty well.
Speaker 2:So be on the lookout for that yeah, and a game that has been generating some buzz online because people really, really want it to return. So we'll see. Last thing I'll leave you guys with is for all the reviews on steam. It's got mostly positive reviews. It is only 20, so, again, that's not like too far above what I recommend paying for it, but recent reviews are mixed, but mostly positive all around. You're going to see the Metacritic score and these are all going to be basically based on what happened when the game came out in March 2023. 52 Metacritic score with a 5.3 average. I would be interested to see like what those would look like if reviewers came back in and reviewed it with a fresh set of eyes after all these updates. Again, mechanically still a pretty broken game, but just a really, uh, really, really fun time. So, uh, guys, yeah, thanks for listening to this episode. We appreciate you checking it out.
Speaker 2:If you were listening to this before the weekend of september 20th, remember, I wanted to remind you guys that ocalaala Comic Con is coming up this weekend in Ocala, florida. If you're listening to us here in Jacksonville, it's a short, two-hour drive south and it's a whole lot of fun. The lineup this season this year is going to be really, really or is really really great. Eric and I will be there in a little bit of a smaller capacity than we are with, like Bold, matsuri and Brick City Anime Festival, but we're still going to be down there hanging out and we do have a panel. On Sunday We'll be playing some games with friend of the show, supan and Jaha, so Sophie will be down there joining us for all those games. That'll be a whole lot of fun. But if you want to find all the rest of our content, you can click the Linktree link in the show notes of this episode. You'll find all the rest of our.
Speaker 2:We have one more episode left this month and it is our very, very fun discussion with my acting coach, rebecca from Creative Veins. We had an absolute blast speaking with her and of course, we have what Did I Miss coming out a little bit later this month. I've got the two guests lined up. Eric has no idea who they are, but he will find out next week when we record. You can support the show a couple of ways. One you can follow us, of course, on social media, instagram, tiktok, discord and Twitch being the most important ones. You can also leave the show a five-star review. Spotify, apple Podcasts, subscribe, follow like all that stuff over on our YouTube page. All of that goes such a long, long way, but if you want some of those extra perks that we tease every now and then, as far as the podcast goes, eric will let you know all about that.
Speaker 1:So for additional support beyond all the free stuff you could do, you can always go to our Buzzsprout page. And3kato. Corey, stefan and Briar are helping to support the show and, in exchange, getting perks like behind-the-scenes access and early access to episodes like this one. But if you cannot get yourself into a giving mood, you're not able to, whatever the reason is. The likes, the comments, the shares, the listens, the engagement all of the above is always appreciated and if you're new from Ocala Comic-Con, don't be a stranger. We'd love to hear from you and let us know, if this is your first episode, what your second episode experience was, because, again, this is probably our most straightforward episode that we've done in quite some time. With that being said, my name is Mr Eric Almighty. That is my co-host, phil the Filipino, please don't forget. We release new episodes every Wednesday on the podcast, with bonus content on platforms like TikTok and Twitch, and all you got to do is wait for it.
Speaker 2:So I heard you're looking for a go-to source for entertainment. Wait for it Gaming. Wait for it, Gaming. Wait for it. Anime PLUS ULTRA. Mr Eric Almighty and Phil the Filipino yeah, they've got you covered.
Speaker 1:And all you gotta do is wait for it.
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