Preview
This Is Vegas, Or At Least What Sin City Used To Be
May 05, 2008
Midway Games and developer Surreal Entertainment have spent the past three years creating a stylized open world Sin City for gamers to explore any way they choose in This Is Vegas. Built for Xbox 360 and PS3, Vegas revolves around four principle gameplay elements–Party, Fight, Race and Gamble. Staying true to the source material, the guys behind Vegas started out aiming for an M-rating.
Surreal, the dev house behind The Suffering horror games for Midway, hired former Cracked magazine editor Jay Pinkerton to bring this tongue-in-cheek take on the Vegas lifestyle to gamers. In the game’s story line, you get off the bus in Vegas with $50 in your pocket. You build up your rep through your new acquaintance Joey Nissan, a Vegas “entrepreneur” who introduces you to the “in crowd.” The nemesis of this game, fast food tycoon Preston Boyer, wants to rid Vegas of its night clubs and strip clubs and turn it into a family-friendly destination. It’s your objective to stop him from ruining The Strip. But how you go about doing it is completely up to you.
The game’s open world set-up allows you to do pretty much anything that an M-rated game will allow—which still means this game will be more tame than your typical National Lampoon R-rated flick.
“Sex, we’re doing more in a tongue-in-cheek kind of way,” said Alan Patmore, executive producer of the game. “We allude to sex. We’re not about having gratuitous sex. Our tone is more humorous so we’ll do things like cut the camera away and you’ll hear the girl moaning and the player character will come out with a cigarette. That’s in a cutscene.” Cliffy B would be disappointed.
Mini games, referred to as “gigs” pop up all over Vegas. Tasks range from running wet t-shirt contests as a bartender to recruiting strippers for a dance club–the type of thing that Vegas is known for, or at least, stereotyped.
“Joey Nissan’s always has these hairbrained schemes,” explained Patmore. “He gets you involved in a Mexican wrestling fighting circuit. And then later on you’re involved in male stripping and you have to do specific dance moves in front of a cheering crowd of women and they’re throwing money at you.”
There is of course the prerequisite gambling. Play at high-stakes tables with $50,000 per hand limits. Those who want to sway the odds in their favor can cheat with gadgets like special glasses that see marked cards. Just watch out for the pit boss, because he’ll take you outside and kick your ass if you get caught.
The one aspect of Sin City this game doesn’t cover? It’s already too late. The place got turned into Disney Land around 20 years ago, only less fake breasts. More on Vegas when it hits shelves this winter.
–John Gaudiosi
