Crimecraft has been the most difficult review I’ve had to do for Loot Ninja thus far – not because of conflicted feelings on the game, but because it happened to be the most bland and uninteresting game I’ve been asked to review. Seriously, it’s been a painful one.

At first glance, it looks good – Grand Theft Auto meets MMORPG. On paper, it sounds good, but in practice, CrimeCraft is at best a loosely held together world with shoddy mechanics and less than stellar animations, and ultimately fails to engage on any level.

I usually tend to outline the flaws of games first in my reviews, but in CrimeCraft’s case I’ll have to switch the positioning, since the flaws outweigh the good int his game. For one, CrimeCraft has a lot of good ideas – especially the combat. It’s high time someone tried to innovate in the archaic gameplay of MMORPGs, and CrimeCraft should be applauded for doing so. The player versus player combat (when it happens) can also be entertaining, if frantic and infrequent. It’s also nice to see a game set in a time period other than Orcs and Elves, so I’ll give it that as well. Anyway, that’s the good stuff.

The bad stuff, however, is far more numerous and makes for a much more dilapidated game experience. The biggest issue I have with Crimecraft is the total lack of – well, crime in the game. That, combined with the fact that the city the game takes place in is sparsely populated and lacks any atmosphere that made cities in WoW, Aion, or Champions online feel so alive. Crimecraft’s Sunrise City serves as hubs for all the usual MMO mechanics – trading, training, and crafting, oddly enough.

The meat and bones of any good MMORPG is how the game handles the inevitable grind – for example, killing rats to gain skills and experience. Only in Crimecraft, the rats are people and… well, that’s about it. The main content in the game (the stuff that I could actually find, anyway) revolves around FPS-like map scenarios – kill a team of 10 players, kill a team of 10 AI controlled NPCs, rinse, repeat. It’s boring as hell, and numerous times I found myself asking why I would even bother playing Crimecraft as an arena shooter when so many better shooters exist.

CrimeCraft isn’t a MMORPG in any true sense – it’s more like a shooter game where you can actually run around in the lobby instead of sitting around making fart noises into your microphone while waiting for other players. It’s incredibly un-engaging gameplay just becomes too much of a chore to enjoy. Even if CrimeCraft is free to play, I can’t really recommend it, unless you’re looking to kill some time or fill up hard drive space.

[A copy of this game was provided by the publisher for review purposes.]