25 to Life for Xbox

The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund is only one of the groups that organized to halt the sales of one of the newer Xbox video games. The name of the game that caused this stir was 25 to Life. The NLEOMF was not the only organization to blast this "cops and robbers saga". Many parents and other community groups let their feelings about the sales of this "shoot ‘em up" fantasy. Although many game sellers did respect the request not to stock "25 to Life", it could still be bought very easily.

 

Eidos is the group that produced 25 to Life and they determined that this would be one of the "cops and robbers" video games based on gang life in the streets. They created a game that offered a collection of some short stories where players would choose to live the life of a different character. The idea was to let a person experience the gaming world of everyone including both the good guys and bad guys. You get to customize your online character the way you want, and this is a pretty cool feature.

Surprisingly there may not have been that much interest in this particular video game had it not been for the strong controversy surrounding it. All reviewers and players tended to have the same negative opinion about it. Universally, "25 to Life" was thought to be poorly designed by the gaming public and they all determined that it really was not much fun to play.

This Xbox version was created to take advantage of the high sales of "gangsta" themed adventures. However video games still have to stand on their own merits if they are going to be really popular with the public. Xbox was about to discover that you can't just design a game around a theme and expect players to be enthusiastic about it. You have to deliver something "that really rocks" and in this instance, "25 to Life" is still doing time and standing still.

When you play this game you are given control of one of three on- screen characters. Each of these characters has a unique destiny. There is a punk named Freeze and he is trying to leave the gangster life behind. In order to get out of town alive with his family he has been given one last job which is going to result in chaos. The player can also elect to take on the life of a cop who discovers that his coworkers are all working for, or with, the bad guys. The third persona is that of a new Latina "gangsta" who is just climbing to the top of the criminal underworld.

There are just way too many events that are occurring simultaneously. Gunplay erupts on every corner and while the game does score on action, it makes no sense in the long run. This is one of the few video games where players seem to kill everyone indiscriminately. Bad guys, good guys, partners, yourself? It does not seem to make a difference when you play 25 to Life. Most video games allow you to create a connection with the on-screen characters, but that is sadly lacking in this version.

Video games should also have longer story lines but you can finish everything that 25 to Life has to offer in 1-3 hours. Of course Xbox Live does have a multi-player online version of the game available, but there seems to be few who are even remotely interested in entering the fray. If you do find a group there are different scenarios to try out including gang versus gang, cop versus gang and cop versus cop.

 

There is a lot of violence, but that is about it. 25 to Life has few onscreen enemies to defeat, a bare-bones plot and few weapons for you to use. There are some pistols, Uzis, flashbangs and a few smoke grenades that are available to players. As far as video games are concerned this one is basically just boring and uninspired. Players are faced with numerous drops in the frame rate and a lot of graphically engineered bugs. As you advance through the different levels it also appears that you are facing the same background repeatedly.

According to Eidos they deliberately made the background so that it would seem like any street in the country instead of having an identifiable location. The audio effects are on par with the rest of the game and the sound effects and voices end up being totally lame although people who are hip hop fans will undoubtedly appreciate some of the tracks that are used.

Here are some of the top cheats you can use when you play the Xbox video game, 25 to Life.

• Get additional medical supplies and ammo from vacant rooms on the prison level.
• You can Unlock a bonus level known as "Beatdown" after you complete all 12 of the missions.
• Unlock the starting outfit for Freeze when you make it to your car.
• If you escape and make it to the getaway car you will unlock a bank robbing outfit.
• Trap old Shaun in that subway train and unlock his Getaway Digs.
• You need to make it to Mendoza' vehicle with the evidence in order to unlock Officer Williams
• If you can make it to the subway you are rewarded by unlocking DJ Envy.
• Kurupt is unlocked if you find and destroy Saragosa.
• Serve the justice to Shaun and unlock the Tech H9ne.

 

 

Overall there are some good features that this Xbox version presents to players. For one thing there is a lot of attention paid to small details such as how each character dresses or moves; or  how a cop holds a gun. 25 to Life is one of those video games where it a lot more fun to play against some friends instead of using the single player option. You can choose your style of online gaming from Capture the Stash, Tag mode, Robbery mode, solo deathmatches and standard team strategies. The Raids are exciting because you can kick down doors and grab the bad guys right in their hide-outs.