by The first thing you’ll notice when starting up Lawless is the insane level of detail applied to the arcade-style shooter’s characters and environments. It’s seriously one of the best-looking mobile games this side of Infinity Blade III. But much like how an intriguing-looking book might be devoid of anything interesting to say, a game’s contents may not match its memorable sheen — and that’s definitely the case here. The intense firefights and crew-based combat of Lawless quickly lose their shine, and it ultimately proves to be just another tepid free-to-play grind.
You won’t find a deep, complex story in Lawless — you’ll simply take the role of some thug who’s trying to rise through the ranks of a generic criminal organization. Each of the game’s short stages plays out like a shooting gallery, wherein the controls are wholly focused on tapping to shoot as mindless enemies pop into view. It’s like the arcade classic Time Crisis, but with better graphics and inexplicably worse dialogue.
Thankfully, there are loads of stages with slightly altered goals: don’t shoot civilians, blow up three vehicles, etc. And thanks to the great visuals, racking up kills for an end-stage payout is initially a lot of fun. But after the first hour or so of play, we found ourselves becoming disinterested; there’s only so much time anyone would want to spend shooting ducks at a carnival. And after you’ve leveled up your crew, there’s little incentive to keep playing.
Lawless does work in some entertaining social features, like adding Facebook pals as allies; those friends can then come along on heists, albeit as computer-controlled bots. And while there’s a huge selection of weaponry available, some of which unlocked after a stage, attaining the rest of those upgrades falls back on a completely unbalanced “gold” system that seems designed to push you towards in-app purchases. Buying a new assault rifle, for example, is almost impossible without spending real-world cash. And honestly, the payoff is hardly worth plunking down a couple of bucks.
The bottom line. Lawless is easily one of the slickest titles on the App Store, but gorgeous visuals don’t really equate to a great way to spend your time.
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