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GAMING
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BY Euan Scarlett
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​​​It’s April already, and in case that doesn’t make you worry about how quickly time passes, and make you feel old, it’s also twenty-five years since the Gorillaz first exploded onto the music scene with their self-titled debut album, Gorillaz, and we all nodded along collectively and declared that we ain’t happy, we’re feeling glad.
Before I continue with the usual miserabilist take on the current state of videogames and off-tangent meanderings that you’re all so excited for every month, I do want to start on a bit more of a serious note this month and point you all in the direction of some local Glasgow folks who are looking for some support:
R-Cade are an independent local business based in Saltmarket in Glasgow, which is a short walk towards the Barras from the pedestrianised bit of Argyle Street via the appropriately named Trongate. Their Retro Café and Console Arcade offers a way for visitors to play thousands of retro videogames on the original hardware and using the CRT screens of the time, as well as providing access to hundreds of boardgames and tabletop games which can also be played. Their website provides much more information about how the space they offer provides much more than that to those who use it than I can cover here, but on a personal note I can’t begin to say how important it is that we have places that can provide this type of hands on experience with the historical hardware which can place the classic games and the experience into context for younger, newer players as well as providing the nostalgia burst for those older players.
Unfortunately like a lot of small businesses at the moment they are getting kicked in the baws a bit by a combination of everything and the world going to shit, and it is possible we could lose this unique and cool thing that offers something different to the people of Glasgowtown because not enough people know about it and use it. One of things the comedy community is doing to help is supporting a new monthly fundraiser event mixing live comedy and gaming, ‘Finnish Ham Comedy’, where you can enjoy an evening of live comedy performances and join the ‘Crowd vs Comic’ gaming challenge. This month (April 2026) is headlined by the always brilliant Billy Kirkwood, is hosted by CJ Quigley, and co-incidentally features three of my favourite up and coming acts: Dominique Barclay; Scott Morrison, and of course, Australia’s Number 1 Impressionist, the incomparable RayJack Johnson, amongst the lineup.
If that sounds like your cup of the old chai, then tickets are £15 of your Earth pounds with all proceeds going directly to the venue, and more information can be found at the link below.
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Anyone else looking to help can also check the R-Cade website for more details.
That being out the way, back to this month’s report from the world of games and fun.
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Chuck Norris died. Well, what actually happened is that Chuck Norris levelled up, he literally said so in one of his last social media messages on his birthday. Death got a visit from Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris is off for a rematch with Bruce Lee. Mon the Chuck. All of the Chuck Norris obituaries were saying his last on-screen appearance was in 2012’s ‘The Expendables 2’, the second part of Stallone’s ‘Circle Jerk Trilogy’, but this ignores a 2020 guest appearance in an episode of the rebooted version of ‘Hawaii Five-0’, as well as 2024 straight-to-streaming shitfest ‘Agent Recon’. Written, directed, produced by and starring some guy called Derek Ting, and currently rocking a 2.4/10 on IMDB, this appears to be a sequel to 2021’s ‘Agent Revelation’, from the same team. This second part of Ting’s ‘Agent’ franchise unfortunately seems to have encountered the familiar problem, which sinks many sequels, of part two going all in, with big stars getting added to the franchise, in this case Chuck Norris as ‘Alastair’, and Donovan from V himself, ‘The Beastmaster’ Marc Singer, as ‘Colonel Green’, but not being as popular as the first movie, which at the time of writing in comparison has an IMDB score of 3.5/10.
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They also ignore that Chuck has another movie due out posthumously, the intriguingly-titled ‘Zombie Plane’, which is due out in 2027, and according to Wikipedia, this upcoming epic also stars world famous Queen fan and ex-plaything of Madonna, 90s Rap superstar Vanilla Ice, the proto-Eminem. The plot description is as follows:
‘Undercover agent Vanilla Ice, who trained under Commander Chuck Norris, uses his skill set to dispatch a plane overrun by the undead before fighter jets can neutralise it to save humanity from a zombie outbreak’
Well I don’t know about you, but they had me at ‘Undercover agent Vanilla Ice’ to be honest about it, and the Chuck Norris and zombies are just gravy. Also there’s actually a videogame related point to this because before I actually did my due diligence and researched this properly, I thought that Chuck Norris’s actual last on-screen appearance was in the 2023 FPS videogame (first-person shooter, remember, non-videogamers?!) ‘Crime Boss – Rockay City’, which co-incidentally also features world famous Queen fan and ex-plaything of Madonna, 90s Rap superstar Vanilla Ice, the proto-Eminem, as well as a host of other familiar faces amongst the cast, including Danny Trejo; Kim Basinger; Danny Glover; Michael Rooker; and late ‘Mr Blonde’ actor Michael Madsen, who takes the lead role as the boss of the player controlled gang in the single player portion of the game. Whilst the game garnered mixed or negative reviews on original release, and by all likelihood was probably legitimately shit, missing a number of features, lacking content and full of bugs, the developers have stuck with it and continually updated it over time and weathered the negativity and got it into a good enough shape that I’ve somehow managed to get over 100 hours of entertainment from it.
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If I was to hazard a guess, a huge amount of the initial budget was spunked on hiring the cast of 90s A-listers / 2020s were-listers to voice it and allow their likenesses to be used and apparently after their deaths also. The game was pretty rough at launch and probably would have benefitted from early access but got absolutely kicked when it came out, and I only tried it when it was on a free play weekend on Xbox and I was drunk and bored and enticed by the cast of familiar faces. I can’t remember when that was, but I enjoyed the hell out of what was there at the time but that was also a bit basic. But the stuff I did like remains the core of the game, it’s just been really well developed since the initial encounter and continues to get regular free content updates on top of mostly cosmetic dlc, and I am in the mood for championing the underdog at the moment despite the fact the game is still a bit rough around the edges.
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Crime Boss – Rockay City sends the player back to the 90s, where gangster Michael Madsen bumps off the local cartel godfather in Rockay City, a fictional US coastal city which is an almost-surrogate for the Miami depicted in Scarface and legendary 80s cop show Miami Vice, sparking off the gang war which serves as the games plot and informs the player goals. Clearly inspired by the similar and extremely popular ‘Payday’ series, the core gameplay has players in teams of 4 cast as members of a criminal gang, players then plan and embark on various heists, break-ins and robberies with the goal of exiting the level with as much loot and as little heat from the polis as possible. Crimes on offer range from the likes of simple cash robbery from gas stations; daytime jewel store heists and office safecracking to elaborate multi-stage high-security bank robberies and armoured car jobs that turn out to be polis set-ups and result in running gun battles with armed SWAT teams during the escape that echo those in Michael Mann’s ‘Heat’. The single biggest difference between Payday and Crime Boss is that Payday is a primarily multiplayer game that can also be played offline with computer controlled bots making up the other 3 members of your gang, whereas Crime Boss is primarily a single player game that also boasts multiplayer modes which can be played co-operatively.
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The main single player mode in Crime Boss is a rogue-like strategy game that has you managing Michael Madsen’s criminal empire and attempting to take over control of all the crime in Rockay City before the polis investigation into your nefarious activities reaches 100% and Sherriff Chuck Norris comes to get you. The territorial layout map of the city is always the same but your starting territory and that of any rival gangs is randomised, save for one corporate gang always being located at their corporate head office, and Danny Trejo’s gang always controlling most of the lucrative city center already since he takes over the cartel that formerly ran the city. Vanilla Ice and his gang of party-boy Eccie dealers always start as the player’s initial enemy and you are already at war with him, but other gangs can be negotiated with under the right circumstances if unprovoked or will not become aggressive unless the plot demands. Each player turn represents a day, and at the end of each day the Chuck Norris is coming meter is increased depending on what happened and how that day. On any given day, you can bolster your gang by hiring a number of new gang members based on your current gangsta standing and cashflow: gangstas are used to take over new territory and to defend your occupied territory from enemy attack. Each territory controlled provides a monetary or loot income or both, and increasing territory and loot and gangstas means increasing influence which means more gang and territory and yada yada. If the territory is not currently controlled you just need enough gangstas and money to take it, if it is occupied you are told how well it is defended and how well armed the defenders are and you can decide how many guys to send to take it over.
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There will also be a random selection of heists and stuff to do each day for cash or loot to fund your goals, and you select up to four team members from your crew to undertake these missions. You always have Michael Madsen as an option, and a random selection of other senior gang members with varying skills and toolsets, you equip them up from your existing armoury or by using funds to buy new weapons from the catalogue, and then you play through that mission. You can switch between characters at will in single player and can give the computer guys basic orders, and whilst they aren’t exactly the brightest criminal experts if left to their own devices and often liked to run into a hail of gunfire to pick up a dropped loot-filled holdall, I can attest that they’ve been getting better at self-preservation, but were always absolutely fine when you understood their limitations and how they worked with the game’s ruleset, and can issue the correct orders and use them properly. I’ve stealthed every scenario in the game using bots in single player. Which is really great to be able to do, the jobs on the map do indicate the likelihood of how ‘loud’ the particular heist may be, and at the end of the day, the Chuck Norris is coming meter will go up slower if you act like a responsible and professional criminal and try to commit the crime with the minimum amount of collateral damage and unwanted popo attention – although you do have a single button press for pulling out your gun and shouting ‘All right everybody be cool this is a robbery! Any of you fucking pricks move and I’ll execute every motherfucking last one of you!’ or something along those lines. At which point all the bots also start pulling out guns, pistol whipping guards and hostages and ziptieing them. Which is nice.
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If the Chuck Norris meter hits above 100% you get a warning that Sheriff Chuck is on the way and a final mission in which Chuck Norris and the popo ambush your escape vehicle and you get a chance to grab what you can from the loot you’ve made spilling out the wrecked SUV and escape from Chuck Norris and his infinite army of heavily armed polis. Which is nigh on impossible, so you die. Then Chuck Norris taunts you and dares you to get better, and you start again, but with all the levels, weapons and perks you have unlocked already, so you get a bit further and it takes Chuck Norris longer to get you. Permanent perks for future runs are unlocked by paying Kim Basinger to decorate your office, or by levelling up Michael Madsen. Eventually, you will beat Chuck Norris, and get to witness his disappointment, frustration and anger. This is adequate reward and beating Chuck Norris at anything is life-affirming and worth experiencing even if it is virtual.
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It does have to be said that other than Michael Rooker, literally every single one of the performances from well-known actors is phoned in to the extreme, and this uniform lack of effort coupled with much of the script and cutscenes being as random as the mission placement gives the story mode a surreal boost that for me pushed this into the upper realms of hilarity, but your mileage may vary depending on your personal drug or alcohol intake. You can regularly buy Crime Boss Rockay City (the name never gets better, it is very silly) on PC, Xbox and PlayStation in sales for less than 4 quid, though I’d definitely recommend purchasing the Dragon’s Gold Cup and the Cagnali’s Order dlc packs which add extra missions and heists into the mix. It’s a lot of fun, and one of only 3 videogames starring Chuck Norris, unlike his erstwhile opponent Bruce Lee, who holds a Guinness world record for ‘most video game appearances by a real life martial artist’.
Bruce Lee, at the time of writing, can be murdered in a variety of ways by everyone’s favourite baldy killer as the current limited-time celebrity mission in ‘Hitman – World of Assassination’ but this will cause the player to fail the mission. This is because Bruce Lee is a cunt.
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Next Month – Bruce Lee is still a cunt! TTFN!
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