Review: Stolen In 60 Seconds Brings Out The Criminal In You

Posted by: dgoldring on Sep 06 2007 - 1,503 views

Do you watch the Godfather movies and think, “I could do that”? Did you see the blurb the other day about the guy who masked his identity with duct tape and think, “even I could do better than that”? Admit it, you probably even take notes while watching the Sopranos.

If you answered yes to any of these questions (or if you have just wondered what it would be like to run afoul of the law for a few minutes), I have found a terrific game for you. Stolen In 60 Seconds puts you in the role of the crime boss, hiring a crew, planning heists and even collecting the loot.

Installation and Registration: Installation is pretty standard for this game. Simply download the file to your computer and load it onto your Windows Mobile device with ActiveSync (or Windows Mobile Device Center for you Vista users like me). Once you load it, you will have access to the trial which allows you to play only in training mode. Register to unlock all of the levels of this fantastic game.

Difficulty Levels: There are four different levels of difficulty in this game. Aside from the first, Training Mode, they all utilize the same missions and requirements. In Unlimited, you can restart the mission as many times as you want in order to try different tactics and figure out what will work the best. Once you have mastered the different elements of the game, you can move up to Many Attempts, which will (obviously) give you multiple attempts to complete each level. The most difficult mode is Three Attempts, in which you will only have three chances to maximize your earnings before moving on to the next level.

Training Mode provides an excellent tutorial. Unlike the other modes, there is no time limit or risk of capture by the police. Instead, each level in training mode walks you through completion of a specific task in the game. Once you have completed training mode, you will be ready to take on some more difficult tasks in Unlimited, Multiple Attempts, or Three Attempts Mode.

Gameplay: Before I get into the gameplay, it is important to note what this is not. This game is not Grand Theft Auto. It is not advocating the commission of criminal activity, nor is it teaching you how to do so. In fact, the crimes you commit in this game are really secondary to the puzzle and strategy elements of the game.

Each level — or job — begins with a phone call explaining your goal. This quick call will explain what you are trying to steal, as well as how long you will have before the cops show up. If you are still in the vicinity when the cops show up, you will be hauled off to jail.

Once you are finished reading about the job, you will find yourself in a small, dimly lit room. You, The Boss, sit in the shadows on one side of the table. Your potential crew sits across from your the glare of what appears to be a spotlight. On the table is a phone and large piece of paper (which could be a map, but we’ll get to that in a second).

The first thing you will need to do is hire a crew to complete the job for you. The Boss is always the driver of the getaway car. Tap on any of the potential thieves and read their dossier. This will tell you their history, how much they can carry, and what share of the proceeds they will expect. Of course, the better the crew, the larger share they will expect. It costs you nothing to hire additional crew members, so I suggest hiring as many as you can for each level. While this may reduce the share which you take away from the level, it will also maximize your “hands on the scene” giving you more carrying power and maximizing your haul. If you do some simple math, it is better to take 80% of $20,000 ($16,000) by hiring two robbers who each earn 10% (or $2,000 each), than hiring one robber at 10% who will only bring back $10,000 (meaning you earn $9,000).

Once you have selected the members of the crew, you will need to decide what tools to give each one. There are 12 tools in the game:

• crowbar
• sledgehammer
• saw
• jimmy (lockpick)
• drill
• oscillator
• pliers
• security scanner
• small explosive
• large bomb
• knife

Each of these tools has a variety of pros and cons. For example, the drill can quickly open doors, but will take longer on a safe than a saw might take. Tap the tool and then the “?” button to learn more about each tool. Doing so will show you that the best tool for safe cracking would appear to be the oscillator, however, it costs a significant amount of money.

Which brings us to the next point, unlike hiring your crew, arming them with tools will cost money. Each tool costs anywhere from $50 (crowbar) to $12,000 (oscillator). In addition to price, you must also consider the weight of each tool. Each member of your crew is limited in how much they can carry. If their tools weigh too much, they will break open the safe only to find they have no room left to carry the proceeds away. A small meter next to the picture of your crew member will show how much more they can carry.

OK. So now you have your crew and your tools put together, now what do you do? Well, that is where that piece of paper on the table comes into play. Click it and you will find a schematic of the building you are about to rob. But before we get there, maybe we could use a little more information.

Lucky for you, there is a mole on the inside of every heist. For a small price, he will give you additional information about the security in the building, where the high dollar figure goods are kept, and more. Now that we have all of the information, it is time to move on to the schematic.

The schematic will show a layout of the building. If you purchased any additional information, it will be marked in different colors on the schematic. Move each member of your crew through the building by tracing a line on the schematic. As you approach each door, case, safe, or other object, you will need to determine which tool to use to open it. Based upon which tool you use, time will elapse while you break through the door, crack the safe, or disable the alarms.

This leads us into the one area of the game which I felt could use some improvement. When you use a tool, that action will be immediately marked on the schematic, however, an appropriate amount of time will pass on the clock in the lower right hand corner. If you switch to another crew member, however, the clock will jump back to the time of his last movement. You can fast forward the clock by tapping on it. I found, however, that is was extremely difficult to keep the two in sync. As such, one member of my crew was constantly sitting in front of an open door because he had been told to pause for too much time. There should be a way to simply tap on your crew to bring them all into sync again.

Once you have grabbed all you can carry, head back to the car and get out of there. Watch the clock, however, because when it starts flashing red, the cops are on their way.

OK. Now that you have planned your heist, there is only one thing left to do, carry it out. Just tap the car icon at the top of the screen and you will be presented with a bird’s eye, cutaway view of the crime scene. I do think it would be nice if you could examine this view (sort of a snapshot view) during the planning of the heist as it helps you determine the layout in a more coherent manner. Nonetheless, you can watch the action unfold in accordance with the plan you laid out on the schematic. If you need to improvise, you can always call the driver out of the car to help out. When you are finished, or if the cops are coming, you can always tap the getaway button to drive off.

Of course, if you drive off before the job has been completed, you may risk losing some of the money, or worse having one of your crew members hauled off to jail. Once you have escaped, you will return to your hideout where the proceeds of the crime will be divided up.

Graphics: The graphics in this game are extremely well drawn cartoons. There are no 3-D graphics here, however, this is not the kind of game which warrants or requires such graphics. In fact, much of the game is dialogue driven. I found the graphics and animation to be appropriate to the gameplay, which is really all anyone can ask.

I did find, however, that some of the dialogues could have been handled better. For example, on most dialogues, in order to exit the message and return to the action, you must tap a green check to accept or (where appropriate) a red x to cancel. It would have been nice if a simple screen tap would clear the dialogue rather than tapping the small green check.

Additionally, when selecting your tools, tapping the green check toggles between selecting and deselecting a tool. Tapping the red x accepts your selections. This was extremely confusing. Since the check and x are usually used throughout the game for accept and cancel respectively, the buttons in the implements dialogue should have utilized different words or graphics.

Audio: Do yourself a favor with this game and play with the sound turned off. You will be given that option at the beginning of each game. The sound in this game consists of some digitized music which sounds slightly clock and dagger, but otherwise really does not advance the game at all. There are also a few sound effects: alarms, police sirens, doors and cases crashing. These are minimal, and are often drowned out by the music.

Saving: Saving is no problem in this game. Each time you start, you will be given the option of starting a new game or continuing. If you select continue, you will pick up on the same level you ended the last time.

Languages: This is a small bonus, but the game can be played in any of eight different languages. I was extremely impressed that a game like Stolen in 60 Seconds, which has a lot of text based elements, included so many localizations natively in the package.

Conclusion: Stolen in 60 Second is one of those rare, truly original games. When I first heard of this game, I had a real concern that it would be advocating and encouraging criminal behavior. I am glad to see, however, that although it depicts criminal activity, that is not the focus of the game. Instead, the main focus of the game is the fantastic puzzle and strategy elements of the game. Yes, the puzzles are in the context of controlling cartoonish characters through the criminal underworld of planning and completing criminal activity. However, this is not Grand Theft Auto. This is a game which requires a great deal of thinking and planning in order to solve each puzzle. So, whether you aspire to be the Godfather or just an ordinary criminal, check out Stolen in 60 Second and come how complicated committing even the simplest crime can become.

Vital Stats:

Name: Stolen in 60 Seconds

Developer: Herocraft

Platform: Windows Mobile 6

Also Available, Windows Mobile 5, Windows Mobile 2003 SE, Palm OS, Symbian OS, Windows Mobile Smartphone

Where to Buy: Herocraft

JAMM Store

Price: $11.75

Technorati Tags: herocraft, games, puzzles, strategy game, stolen in 60 seconds, just another mobile monday, jamm

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