Official Website

Platform: PlayStation 2

Genre: Action

Number of Players: 1

Anyone who grew up back in the 1980's undoubtedly remembers the nations "War on Drugs." It wasn't so much a war as it was a skirmish, or perhaps just a little swat on the behind, but the media took to it, as did the entertainment industry.  There would be commercials on TV with whomever the flavor of the week was, telling kids how it was wrong to use drugs and there were better things to do. A few months later we'd see them on the news, busted of possession of some illegal substance. School had their own programs that featured speakers talking about the misery they experienced. This "war" allegedly still goes on today, but when you've found out that even your own government is guilty of trafficking drugs, it seems a little ludicrous.

While the 80's might have talked about how drugs were bad, the one thing that many of us remember, besides the horrendous sense of fashion, is that in arcades all across the United States, there was a game called NARC. This was the game that splashed "Say No to Drugs," on one of the title screen and showed that the best way to fight drugs was to grab some body armor and some semi-automatic weapons, gun down dealers in broad daylight, and collect their illicit money and stash. It's been over a decade since the game first saw the light of day, or the dim of the arcades as the case was, but NARC is back, and had controversy even before it was released.

The modern, revised NARC puts you in the role of two different NARC agents; Jack Forzenski and Marcus Hill, two men that have a very sorted past with one another. There's a new drug that's hitting the street called Liquid Soul and it's your job to get to the bottom things. Your journey into the dark side of the drug world isn't going to be your average beat though, and you'll find yourself taking a trip (in a couple of different ways) to all corners of the globe to stop this deadly narcotic.

NARC definitely is a different game than what we all played many years ago, or even recently on Midway's Arcade Classics 2. Action games have been getting broken down into sub-genres, and one of the most widely popular ones would have to be the crime genre, the notable success in this category being Grand Theft Auto, and many other games have followed what it has achieved. NARC, for the most part at least, borrows heavily from two different games in the crime genre, Grand Theft Auto being the obvious one and then none other than True Crime: The Streets of LA.

Much of the gameplay in NARC is mission based, and there isn't too many differences from what we've seen in other crime games save for the overall objectives. You will do some tailing, try and stop criminals, and just about every other mission type that we've seen in other crime based titles. Unlike the GTA series however that mainly has the main story itself with little else outside of simply creating a path of destruction, NARC plays on the True Crime scenario. Crime is running rampant on the streets, and besides doing your missions, you can arrest law breakers in order to make the streets a safer place.

Arresting perps is a little interesting. In some ways, I'm reminded of the WWE games here. You'll need to essentially lock up with them first and once you've done that you need to keep tapping until the meter resets. Then, press X at just the right time and you'll have them in cuffs. It's not always easy though, and at times they may escape, leaving you to chase them down, or there may be a little scuffle involved. At this point you can throw in a few punches and kicks for good measure or throw them to the ground. Grappling also serves as a good way to disarm criminals, but again, applying a little extra pain never hurts anyone . . . expect them.

Where the controversy came into the picture for NARC wasn't necessarily in the violent aspect, and that's something that many gamers embrace, but instead it all comes down to drugs. The drugs that you manage to confiscate can be used in a couple of different ways. If you want to play the role of the good cop, you can turn them over to police HQ and keep your badge level up, but again, that's if you want to be the hero. There is a darker aspect to the game. You can use the drugs that you've managed to get your hands on, and these will have various effects on the way NARC plays. If you drop a hit of LSD for example, criminals will appear with devil heads while those innocent bystanders will have jester heads on them. Sit down and take a few puffs and time will slow down, but if you want to live the fast life, some speed will do the trick. If you want to be an expert gunman, there's nothing better than a crack shot, and what better to assist with this than a little crack. Or, you can even sell your collected stash, and there's nothing more entertaining that busting a dealer, grabbing the goods, and then trying to resell their drugs on the streets, especially if its to the same person they were dealing to. Of course, they've usually run off by then, but it's worth a shot.

The drug aspect is a nice touch, but unfortunately is fails to be the thing that really makes the game a draw. Instead, NARC is just too much like too many other crime games to really be something that stands out well enough on its own to claim that it's original. It's simply just a repacked version of many other games with little that it truly redeeming. The graphics in the game aren't too impressive. The characters that appear throughout the game don't have any realism to them, not just in how they look, but also in the animations, and often there is too much repetition with some of the citizens on the streets.

The other annoyance I found with the game comes with the concept that while you can play the good cop/bad cop scenario, the game really has a lot of leeway as far as being able to redeem your status. If you mess up on the streets, you may lose your badge rating, but you can always perform those helpful, good duties to bring it back up. The same is true of the drug addiction aspect of NARC. You can find yourself needing a fix if you've decided to use a certain drug one too many times, but a simple shot will clear your head and relieve your desire to get high (until you start doing it again.) In NARC, cleaning up your act is simple, quite a contrast from how things really should be, but then again, we are talking about video games, aren't we?

I was really hoping that this new, modern NARC, would be the sort of game that would live up to the reputation of its predecessor, but I found myself yearning for the glory days (and luckily you can unlock the original arcade game.) NARC just borrows too much from too many other crime games and doesn't offer enough originality to make it the real addiction that it hopes to be. The only real saving grace is that it's one of Midways many discounted game titles, selling for a mere $20 brand new, and if you're looking for something to sustain your craving until the next big crime game this the streets, there really isn't anything wrong with paying so little for a game, but if quality is your thing, NARC isn't going to help you in that matter in the least.

-mike-