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• Reviewed on: PlayStation 2
• The Good: Great soundtrack, excellent cinematic sequences, terrific graphics.
• The Bad: Controls are lousy. Feels very by-the-numbers and doesn't offer anything new.
• The Verdict: For hard-core fans of urban street crime games only. Not groundbreaking or interesting.
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REVIEW:

If there's one thing the video game market has a lot of these days, it's brutal urban combat titles that feature enough mean-spirited bad folks, military-grade weapons and run-down inner city ghettos to satisfy anyone's anti-social tendencies.

25 To Life is no different. A meandering, aggressive title, 25 To Life is another Grand Theft Auto-styled shoot-em-up. Only this time, you're playing multiple characters on many sides of the law. You're in the veritable lion's den of criminal activity, blasting up enemies in places from the roughest patches of New York City to shantytowns in Mexico. And, of course, you get to use almost every conceivable weapon known to hard-core criminals, ranging from handguns to scary-looking battle rifles.

In case you haven't already realized, 25 to Life is some hard-core stuff. Coarse language, shocking violence and a bad attitude make this title the kind of game real-life criminals would love.

First off, the disclaimer to end all disclaimers. 25 To Life is rated Mature. Why? I don't have to go into detail here, but let's just say many bodies shot up in 25 To Life barely resemble human beings after you're done with them. There's an alarming amount of gunplay in 25 To Life; the game programmers have gone to great lengths to recreate the brutality of urban combat, including the gory blasting away of petty thugs and cops alike. Cops shoot up criminals, criminals shoot up cops, hostages are taken, hostages get killed, explosions are abundant and bloody, the game rewards players who shoot enemies in the head — you get the picture. This is one title parents should not even consider letting their kids play.

25 To Life follows three main characters: gangster Shaun Calderon, Andre Freeze Francis and Detective Lester Williams. Over the course of the game, the three principals will cross paths numerous times in order to achieve the goal of ... well, to be honest, I'm not sure what. 25 to Life is mostly full of set pieces that feel cobbled together from various gangster movies like Heat, Get Rich or Die Tryin' or Juice. There's some mild intrigue over dirty cops, thugs who want to turn legit, and badasses being on the lam, but that's pretty much it — 25 to Life doesn't exactly set the console on fire when it comes to a compelling story.

This being said, 25 to Life is a great-looking and great-sounding game. The urban environments are lush and well-designed, the cinematic sequences have some grit and the characters are true to form. Moreover, the game's soundtrack is a gangsta rap fan's dream. Even though the songs get repetitive (and the boom box "switching of songs" during the action is kind of a cheeky nod to GTA: San Andreas), the music still gives the game some atmosphere.

Still, these positives are overshadowed by one significant problem: the game's controls.

25 To Life's controls are awkward to say the least. The aiming functions are difficult to get a handle on, and the game's character moves or attacks don't seem to aim automatically. Most of the control layout is counter-intuitive, including a crouching function that doesn't really help the main character avoid being shot.

Jumping is annoyingly difficult, and what could have been a cool function — peeking around a corner — is overpowered by really powerful AI that makes beating a level incredibly difficult. Even on normal setting, 25 To Life is very challenging, perhaps too much so.

Plus there's the nagging issue of killing enemies. While it's not a bad thing per se that programmers made it hard to kill enemies with a couple of shots to the leg (hurrah for realism!), in some cases you have to fire an entire clip of bullets to kill someone. But the biggest complaint has to be the Molotov cocktails and pipe bombs, which often don't even kill enemies. Huh?

Plus, why aren't cars featured more prominently in this game? Why are they there only to be blown up?

To sum this all up, 25 To Life paints itself as an edgy, cool street match between cops and robbers in the 21st century. The truth is, however, this game's mostly talk and no action. This title fashions itself as the ultimate hustler's answer to GTA: San Andreas. But it's more like a two-bit thug who listens only to 50 Cent, rides a lousy car and can barely fire a gun — he's just pretending.