Company of Crime

While deserving accolades for trying something different and having two separate campaigns, ultimately they both end up feeling repetitive. Melee-focused combat is a fun idea, but there are too many problems and glitches. Though there are different classes, the combat is too repetitive and too much of the same thing to be fun for long. Something new was tried here, and that's commendable - it just did not hit the mark.

Fans of the genre should definitely play Company of Crime for its novel setting of London criminal underworld and rich melee combat, but it’s probably too low-budget to please your average gamer.

So is Company of Crime worth playing? I’d say definitely. The worst of it is pretty uninspired, but inoffensive. But the best of it is superlatively good. I hope this game gets a lot of circulation just so developers can learn from its greatest strengths. But that’s about design, and not about players. If this were just one part great game and one part mediocre game, I’d say that averages to good. But what nudges it a little farther towards greatness is the presentation. The music, the clothes, the art style all create a sense of atmosphere. There are more polished games out there, but few do as good a job at transporting you to their setting. There’s a universe out there where Company of Crime totally changed the genre forever. We live in the universe where it’s just a really cool game that fans of the genre shouldn’t miss!