Maroc - 3RD-STRIKE.COM - A La Une - 01/Jan 01:00

It’s Only Money – Review

There wasn’t a whole lot of fanfare when Usual Suspects and Firestoke released their new game It’s Only Money last October. In fact, the game went under our own radar, despite being out in Early Access for well over two years before making the jump to a full release. It hasn’t been a smash hit either, if the game’s Steam Charts page is to be believed. As far as we can see, we’re the first review site to give It’s Only Money’s 1.0 release a proper look. It begs the question of what went wrong here. Is it the marketing? Or is the game itself just not very good? You could give the free demo a try before committing, or you could simply read our review before splurging your hard-earned cash on the game. After all, it may only be money, but we wouldn’t want you to waste it. Story Welcome to Rockhaven! This sprawling city forms the backdrop of your unremarkable life. That is, until Rockhaven’s mayor implements a new totally legitimate gentrification law, causing you to lose both your home and your job. Now homeless, you end up in the so-called Undercity, a rat-infested subterranean ghetto. It doesn’t seem all that fair, right? Unfortunately for you, this isn’t a matter of fairness but a matter of money. Things have an odd way of working out though, because the timing of your arrival in the Undercity coincides with the Beggar King’s plans to overthrow the tyrannical mayor. With his aid and a steady flow of resources, it’s time to return to Rockhaven’s upper echelons… and even claim your place at the top of the food chain! Graphics With bright, saturated colors and simple vector-based character models, It’s Only Money fully embraces a cartoon aesthetic, despite its gritty setting. Visual effects like stars popping up when hitting someone in a fight further add to this feeling. As you’d expect in an open-world game like this, there is also plenty of visual customization present, both for your character and for things like the vehicles you drive. Visual performance was decent as a whole, although we did run into some glitches when it came to NPC character model animations – more on those later. Sound Both Rockhaven and the Undercity are brought to life mostly through the kind of ambient sound effects you’d expect from the hustle and bustle of a cartoon city. That also means you’ll hear the occasional unexpected cartoon sound here and there, including when fighting. A particularly nice touch was that, in true GTA fashion, the soundtrack is delivered through in-game radio channels that you can switch between while driving vehicles. Granted, the music here isn’t licensed but we did enjoy messing around with this feature regardless. Gameplay The basic idea behind It’s Only Money makes sense: take the formula that made games like Grand Theft Auto and Saints Row so successful, but add a dash of family friendliness. It’s not an original concept, mind you. A decade ago, TT Games already did the same with the excellent LEGO City Undercover. The difference was that that game put you in the shoes of police officer Chase McCain, but here you’re able to live your life in a less law-abiding manner. The result is something that immediately feels familiar if you’ve played any kind of open-world crime simulator, but that handles things in a light-hearted and comedic manner. Your main goal is to overthrow the mayor of Rockhaven, of course, but half the fun of open-world games comes from becoming distracted with side missions and other things to do in your new urban playground. We certainly can’t say that It’s Only Money is lacking in ambition. Especially early on, the game’s plethora of things to do can feel overwhelming, even if they reflect your low societal status. It’s Only Money opens with your final day at work, and your menial tasks double as a tutorial section. You’ll be running from machine to machine, tasked with repairing them through micro-games. Your job skills are mechanically very similar to the things you’ll end up having to do in the derelict streets of the Undercity. Whether it’s rummaging through trash cans, looting the bodies of fresh car crash victims, or learning how to pickpocket, if there’s one thing that doesn’t exist in the Undercity, it’s morals. Resources are scarce early on, and you’ll be wasting plenty of time looking for just the right amount of trash to scrape by. You’re not the only down-on-his-luck inhabitant of the Undercity either, and you’ll end up in fights with other desperate scum. If you’re raising an eyebrow about the game’s supposed family-friendliness when reading about bum fights, rest assured that in-game things are resolved in a relatively cartoony way instead of being depicted as graphically realistic violence. Sooner rather than later, you’ll obtain a new home, and you can go wild with customizing it to your liking, through the aptly named AsbestOS. This feature alone is something you can easily spend hours on. Our biggest issue with It’s Only Money in its current state is that it still feels very much like an unfinished game, even after spending two years in Early Access and brandishing that big “1.0” final release moniker. For starters, despite all those bells and whistles, the game feels low on meaningful narrative content, with a lot of repetitive grinding required before you obtain the necessary tools to progress through the story. We also ran into quite a few glitches during our time with the game, ranging from NPC character models that got stuck on the spot, to fights not pausing while we entered menus and even outright game crashes. There weren’t any mechanical issues in terms of controls and the game felt very forgiving and accessible, but for a game that supposedly is out fully, we expected better. From what we understand, It’s Only Money will still be getting updates and bug fixes for the foreseeable future, so hopefully things will improve down the line. As it stands, It’s Only Money isn’t worth its €22.99 price tag. If you can pick it up at a discount and are patient enough to wait for a couple of patches, you might get your money’s worth out of it. That is, if the game can eventually pick up enough players to warrant getting those updates. Conclusion If we had to describe It’s Only Money in a single word, it would be “undercooked”. The idea of a cartoonish take on GTA is brilliant. The game feels very accessible and there are plenty of things to do in Rockhaven and the Undercity, at least for a short while. However, the lack of substantial, meaningful content and the persistent technical issues that we ran into killed most of our enthusiasm for the game. If this was still an Early Access release, we’d say the game would have a lot of potential, but for a full release, it’s not unreasonable to expect better.