Lately Midway has been digging into their classic games for the current systems. Midway Arcade Treasures has seen success as a collection of Midway videogames ported over but we are also seeing new renditions of some older videogames as well. Area-51 and San Francisco Rush are in the works and here we have NARC. Not only has NARC been totally redone, but the original is intact as an unlockable. Of course when Midway announced that NARC will be released with a price of only $20, gamers naturally started to worry about the quality if it had to become a budget title...
Going through the game, it won't take long to figure out some of the reasons for this being a budget title. NARC contains a bunch of bugs and glitches. Some are simply annoying while a few get in the way of gameplay. Another thing affecting the game is the length. If you were to go through the main game missions and not play around with the free roaming drug busting-drug selling-hooker arresting-etc you will be done with the game fairly quickly. So is it good enough for the $20 retail price at least?
Personally, I've had a fun time playing through NARC and playing around outside of the missions. However, I have had the time to think about it and I'm disappointed at how good of a $50 game this could've been if they would've taken another year in development. In addition to fixing the lot of bugs and extending the length of the game, there are a few more things that could've increased the value to $50.
Missions, Side Missions, and Street Crime
The Missions in NARC puts you in the role of Jack or Marcus (though you don't choose) of the Narcotics Division. After a mission ends, you can then go back to the Police Station and go onto the next mission (or possibly a side mission) or you can roam the streets for however long you want. The missions range from chases, capturing pictures, protecting people to simply arresting and interrogating (see: You Are Under Arrest). There is pretty much just one way to complete a mission and not open-ended in that sense. Side-Missions are missions that don't advance the story and have you doing various duties as a cop.
Of course you don't have to play straight through the story but can go around and protect the city. Crime is rampant in the streets and the people need your help. Here's a list of most of the things you can do to help the city:
-arrest drug dealers
-arrest purse snatchers
-arrest druggies
-arrest protesters
-arrest street performers
-arrest prostitutes
-arrest suicide attemptors (who are about to jump off a building)
-arrest graffiti artists
-arrest drunks
-arrest attackers
Of course you can also help corrupt the city while helping it.
Good...Bad...I'm the Guy with the Badge Rating
NARC features a badge rating system that works but could've also been more advanced. The game starts you off as a street cop requiring you to improve your status before moving up to narcotics. To do this you simply arrest criminals and/or deposit drugs into the evidence locker at the Police Station. If you were to do things that cops shouldn't do- such as take drugs, sell drugs, kill people -your badge rating will fall. If it falls too low, you will be demoted and won't be able to enter missions until you improve it again. And here is where something more advanced would've been nice. It is too easy to "play bad cop" and then raise your badge rating back up to 100%. The point of NARC was to be Anti-Drug yet there really aren't permanent consequences when an officer of the law takes drugs?
Narcotics, Party of 1
Of course you are going to want to explore all of the aspects of NARC, especially the drugs. Using drugs while in a gun fight or in certain situations can help you depending on the drug. So if you want to go sort of in bullet-time or completely freeze the world, you will need the assistance of drugs. This works out good. The value of money doesn't seem to have a big implementation, however. Most of the stuff you can buy can be picked up for free. You are able to gamble if you want some side fun.
You Are Under Arrest...Not You, Him!
In the streets where you are at, people apparently prefer to walk rather than drive. But then again it's not a big location anyway. You won't see many cars but the amount of people walking around actually makes things harder on you. Numerous times you will be trying to grab onto a criminal but accidentally grab an innocent person. The controls themselves aren't too bad, however. Auto-aim is a bit weak, though. Certain guns seems to be better with auto-aim than others. This made things a little harder at times when you are surrounded (but this brings in the need for taking drugs) but is also a bit of a nice change. There is an aim mode for when you aren't under heavy fire that helps. With the exception of this, the game tends to walk you through most of the stuff. This is apparently due tothe fact that you have to do things the way they made it and can't find an alternate way.
They tried to add some strategy to the arrest process. A bar comes up when you grapple with a person and displays their health. Rapidly pressing 'A' will advance a blue bar over this until it reaches the point of their health. Then a marker will go to the end of the full bar where you must hit 'A' when it lands in a white zone. This is easily accomplished. The trick comes when some enemies are too strong and won't let you grapple them right away. If a criminal has a gun, you simply grapple and pull the thumbsick in any direction and press 'B.' Again, very easy. Fighting involves kicking, punching, throws and ground punches. When someone is arrested, during select missions, you can interrogate him by pressing 'Y.' If they don't talk, hit them till they are near death and try again.
The Graphical Presentation
NARC doesn't have the best looks for a current title but isn't too poor looking. In-game cutscenes look bland and not that great. The CGI cutscenes look very nice but are a rarity in NARC, unfortunately. This is most likely due to the $20 price.
Needed Mission:Who Stole the Custom Soundtracks?
Something that appears to be the next unsolved mystery is that on the back of the box it has Custom Soundtracks supported. Now it also says elsewhere on the back "Combines Classic R&B With Custom Urban Beats." Is that supposed to be the so-called custom soundtracks? Was there not enough time to add them? All I know is that they aren't here. The game's soundtrack has tracks designated to different parts of the city that you are in. Custom Soundtracks would've worked really well and is a disappointment for me considering this is my favorite Xbox feature. I didn't, however, let this get in my way of enjoying the game. The game's sounds such as sirens and background noises are realistic. Several times I though that there was a police car outside my window.
And if we are going to talk about missing things and customization, let talk about the menu. There really isn't controller customization. And for some reason you can only have 1 saved game. It calls it 'Save 1' but that's the only save there.
OVERVIEW
In the end it really seems like Midway wanted to get NARC released on schedule, so rather than delaying it and taking care of bugs and glitches they slapped a $20 price tag on it. Looking past the bugs, NARC is one of the better budget titles available. With more time, NARC could've been a good $50 game, but in its current state $20 is a good price. If you've been looking for a cheap title to play, NARC might be a good choice. Of course there are plenty of titles that are scheduled for release soon (making for another good reason why this should've been delayed).
