Thank you to Ultimate Games S.A. for sending us this game to review!

Crime Simulator is another theft-based game from developer CookieDev, a studio well-known for their prior Thief Simulator games. The Thief Simulator games were first-person stealth titles focusing on stealing items from houses in complete secrecy with built-in mechanics like casing houses before attempting a robbery to learn the patterns of its residents, figuring out where any cameras or alarms were, and what ways you could enter a house or get over a fence, just to give some examples. Crime Simulator, however, focuses on just stealing: before, you needed to practically act as a spy, but this time… This time you’re working a smash-and-grab. You can break down doors with bats, knock out residents with tranq guns, fight police, and even do it in up to 4-player co-op.

But the core gameplay remains the same, that being stealthily looting homes to earn money and pay off someone who bailed you out from jail. You can walk up to homes quietly, use lockpicks to open doors and gates quietly, then employ glass knives to get through windows, and occasionally use hacking tools to disable alarms or cameras. Even so, the option of going loud is no longer punished. Starting out, you can only carry up to five items at once, so the lighter the kit you travel with, the more loot you can carry out. If you’re spotted, make too much noise, or are caught on a camera, then you can be sure a resident will get spooked and call the police, which means it’s time to book it until they calm down and leave the area. If you manage to have police called too much, the next time you come to the neighborhood houses will have elevated security; resulting in residents being more attentive to noise and putting bars over windows you'll need hacking tools to get into.

Graphically, the game is just okay. It’s very much in line with prior CookieDev titles, where some models lack detail and can look plasticy, textures range from alright to blurry, and other visual effects like lights and camera cones are just average. It focuses on recreating urban environments with streets, yards, and houses, and it does so well with its environmental design. But it has a very uninspired visual style with humans and household objects that clashes with its attempted realism in urban designs. It’s an odd mix of more cartoony characters and objects combined with fairly authentic environments. This extends to the UI, which again isn't bad but lacks any personality or flair in the fonts or icons, as well as the animations, which feel very lifeless and floaty. There's a lot of character that could be put into a game like this where the focus is on crime, but it's largely absent.

This, unfortunately, extends to the sound design as well. With almost no music tracks in the game, most of the atmosphere must come from the ambient noise and sound effects. You have your typical ambient sound effects like blowing wind, chirping crickets, and so on. Other sound effects themselves are okay but they lack good mixing or ambient effects, meaning that things like doors or cabinets opening are played louder than you’d expect and sound like they’re coming from a speaker strapped to your head rather than the object itself. There also isn’t more than one sound effect per object, so repetitive actions like opening doors, cabinets, drawers, or windows quickly bore and pull you further out of the experience. Voice acting is also very poor and feels phoned in, making me wonder if they were pulled from voice packs rather than actors specifically for this title.

The controls are, again, just alright. Movement in general is sluggish, with your player struggling to adjust his running once in motion, while jumping feels very heavy and unresponsive. There were several times I needed to make a quick getaway over a wall by jumping between different objects to scale a fence, but the odd momentum and very slow, floaty jump made it difficult to do so. Additionally, the hitboxes on objects you can interact with and pick up are slightly off from what their model would have you expect. Performance isn’t terrible, with the game running well at low or high settings, and I didn’t experience any bugs or crashes.

The primary focus of CookieDev’s Simulator titles has been about the prospect of being a thief. Crime Simulator does this well-enough, but it rather frustrated me. Thief Simulator had detailed mechanics that documented the schedules of residents, including when they’d be asleep, when they’d leave the house, and so on. Crime Simulator (as far as I’ve seen) only has a very stripped down version where each house gets a sentence of info on the residents’ behaviors, but it still punishes you as if you should know all the info prior titles gave you. If residents decide to suddenly change rooms while you’re inside, you’ll be caught and have the cops called. If they were asleep but then wake up and find an unlocked door, they’ll get spooked and start running around the house looking for you. If you’re spotted on a camera’s cone of vision (which doesn’t show up until you’ve either stepped into it or managed to spot said camera, which usually blends in very well), then the cops will be called.

This resulted in several runs (or several times a run) where I spent many minutes gathering loot from houses, slowly carrying them back to my truck because I have to keep 2/5 slots filled with my lockpick and glass knife, and then getting spotted by a repositioning NPC who’d then derail the run. I’ve heard that the game is far easier in this regard with more players since they can help loot, keep a lookout, and break into places, but I can only speak to my experience with a single review copy. I can totally understand the angle of this being a lot more dumb fun with friends, but as a single-player experience it was not fun. However, it’s also possible that my approach to gameplay (being almost entirely stealth-focused) is not what the devs intended, and I was shooting myself in the foot by doing so.

Morally, the game is indeed about being a criminal and stealing from citizens. You are required to break into houses, steal items, destroy property, and even incapacitate residents or police to progress. NPCs can use language, though nothing more than would be found in a PG-13 movie, with some blasphemy present as well. Blood can spurt when harming NPCs.

Overall, Crime Simulator is a game with an interesting setup and fun gameplay premise marred by bland visuals and sounds, and a frustrating experience in solo-play. If you’re looking for a game for friends, I imagine this could definitely be fun with a bigger group at such a low cost, but as a solo experience it annoyed me greatly at times.

- Remington