Console: Sony Playstation
Grade: C
Publisher: ASCII Entertainment
Year: 1997
Genre: Crime
Back in 1997, we didn’t have Grand Theft Auto games. Well, we had one, but it was only on the PC at the time and it wasn’t very good. We didn’t even have Driver yet, so our car-based crime options were pretty much limited to outrunning the cops in Need for Speed or just driving around the tracks backwards in Mario Kart. Atlus attempted to fill this gap with Felony 11-79, a mission-based driving simulator. Then, almost as if to make sure no one would ever actually play or even hear about their game, they released it exactly one week after Final Fantasy VII, quite possibly the most heavily hyped game ever. Oops.
As a master criminal, your task is to steal parts of an ancient statue for a wealthy investor. This mostly involves crashing into stores, crowded cafes, and other cars; as apparently the main qualification for being a criminal mastermind is “owns a truck”. This fact is made ever more apparent by the opening cutscene, in which we see our character steal the first piece of the statue by plowing right into a store and taking it. What happens from there is up to you.
The first stage takes place in Chinatown, as you make your getaway after the big heist. In order to escape, you need to pick up 5 sticks of dynamite, which are conveniently scattered across the neighborhood. In this post-9/11 era, that probably sounds suspiciously like an impending terrorist attack, but since none of the nearby pedestrians or passing traffic seem too concerned about the piles of explosives that are just laying around in the middle of the road, I guess that was pretty normal occurrence back in 1997. It was a more innocent time, after all.
Rather than localize the title, I’m pretty sure they decided just to rename the downtown level “Chinatown”.
Although clearing the streets of Chinatown of roadside bombs doubtlessly makes the world safer, that’s not your motivation. Instead, you need the explosives to blow open the gate to Michael’s Estate. Who’s Michael? Oddly enough, the game never tells us anything about him or mentions him ever again. So all we know is that he’s some guy who decided to build his mansion in the middle of the only road out of town, and then built a giant gate to keep people out. Look Michael, I’m sure you got sick of people driving across your lawn on their way to and from Chinatown, but that doesn’t give you the right to cut off an entire neighborhood from the rest of the world. You’re the one who built your house in the middle of the freeway, asshole.
Anyway, after blowing up Micheal’s gate, driving through his pool party, and escaping town, it’s on to Stage 2, the Seashore. One thing you’ll notice right away is that all the road signs in the level are in Japanese. You could make the argument that this stage is supposed to be set along the Japanese coast, but I find it much more likely that the developers simply didn’t bother to change the road signs from Japanese to English when they brought the game out over here. Remember those old NES games with the really bad translations that used to say things like “ONES WHO DOES NOT HAVE TRIFORCE CAN’T GO IN”? Well, at least those guys were trying.
Once again, you have to obtain another statue piece, only this time it’s being transported across town in a limo, requiring you to come up with an even more intricate plan than before. And by intricate plan, I mean “smash into the limo”. Really, that’s it. There’s no dynamite to pick up, no obstacles to figure out, not even anywhere you could get lost. You just crash into the limo and drive away. Then it’s on to Stage 3!
Ever wanted to do several million dollars worth of damage to Paris? I know, stupid question. Well, your wish is about to come true, because that’s where Stage 3 takes place. Paris is the trickiest stage of all, because the piece of the statue you’re looking for is being held by another statue! Whatever will you do? I know, smash into it! Of course there’s more to the plan that just that, since you also have to find a phone booth and call your associate to arrange a pick up. Anyone want to take a guess as to how you “use” a phone booth in this game? If you answered anything other than “smash into it”, you might as well just stop reading now, because you clearly haven’t been paying attention anyway.
Once you complete the Paris stage, you’re treated to the ending, in which the guy who hired you puts the statue pieces together and uses them as a key to open an ancient tomb. This causes his face to melt off… for some reason. By the way, the whole thing from beginning to end should have taken about half an hour. After that, all there is to do is unlock bonus cars by redoing the stages and trying to cause more damage, or do them faster, etc. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to have given each stage multiple missions with the different requirements, rather than making it a “bonus”? I mean, sure it would be hard to write that into the game’s intricate storyline, but I’m sure they could have figured out a way if they really wanted to.
Surprisingly, the controls in Felony 11-79 are closer to a simulation than an arcade style racer. Several of the higher-end cars require use of a manual transmission, and the cars handle closer to their real-life counterparts than they do in games like GTA or Need for Speed. While it’s certainly not a 100% accurate physics model, it’s not bad. Perhaps someday we’ll be able to reach mankind’s Utopian dream to perfectly simulate driving a Toyota Supra through a crowded shopping center, but until then at least we have Felony 11-79.
Aside from its incredibly short playthrough, the other big problem with Felony 11-79 is simply that it feels rather dated. It’s almost like some kind of bizarre Grand Theft Auto III demo that was reverse engineered to work on the PSX. In fact, the entirety of everything you do in Felony makes up only a small portion of GTA 3. I know it may not seem fair to compare a Playstation game that came out in 1997 to one that came out 4 years later on a more powerful system, but considering that both games sell for about the same price these days, it’s not a completely irrelevant issue. Some games may age like fine wine, but many just get outdated and obsolete.
Even so, the game isn’t a complete failure. The basic gameplay is fun, the levels are well designed, and the semi-realistic handling of the cars actually works rather well in the game’s favor. And unlike the barren tracks you get in most driving games, Felony 11-79′s stages feel “alive” – there are car accidents, beach parties, broken down buses, and just a lot of stuff that makes you feel like part of a larger word that works independently of you. It also features a really good soundtrack by the Surf Coasters. Sure, you’ll probably beat the game in half an hour, but at least it’ll be a fun half-hour.
