The appeal of being a criminal is obvious. Glorified by films and TV, the life of the serial crook is one of fame, fortune, girls, glamour and lots and lots of smashing windows.
However, there is another side to the life of a criminal that the media isn't so quick to play up. You see, when criminals aren't robbing banks, there's a much shadier, darker, and downright scary side to their lives that, if anyone ever saw it, would surely put them back on the straight and narrow for good.
They actually have to plan their crimes.
Yes, for every heist, for every smash-'n'-grab, for every old lady that loses their purse, your average gangster will spend many hours sitting around a table in a darkened room, planning, researching and gathering information. And it's this most unlikely of subjects that
Stolen in Sixty Seconds has chosen as its inspiration.
Putting you into the shoes of a criminal, it's up to you to plan a series of robberies in order to escape with the maximum amount of loot, in the shortest amount of time, all while avoiding any unwanted attention from the pigs. (That's the police, to you and me.)
Sitting in your gang's den, you have a variety of tools you can use to plan your crime, including a selection of criminals, a telephone, for contacting informants, and a map of the area.
The first thing you have to do is select a criminal you want to hire, and then choose their equipment. From saws to large bombs, you can choose to equip your delinquents with anything that you can afford, and you can use them all in a variety of ways during the mission.
The majority of your pre-robbery planning, however, comes via the overhead map of the area that your group has access to. Upon selecting the map, you have control of an arrow, which shows exactly what your criminal is going to do. Using the control stick, you can then plan, second by second, exactly where you want your robber to go, and exactly what actions you want them to undertake.
If you have more than one thug taking part in a crime, you can switch between the two at any time, and as you plan the moves for the one villain, the other crook's arrow will be moving, showing you exactly what the other person's up to.
Finally, when the robbery takes place, the game lets you sit back and watch your masterpiece unfold, as the criminals you've chosen are beyond your control – they simply do exactly what you've told them to, and follow the plans to a T. In certain missions, you can control 'the boss', and basically follow your fellow crooks into a building, clearing up the bits they've missed, but other than that, you're helpless.
Of course, the chances are you won't get it right first time, and your group of thieves will either trigger some form of alarm, or get inside and realise the loot isn't where they were expecting. When that happens, it's back to the drawing board (literally), as you retool your men, and plan the raid again.
While it's a real game of trial-and-error, there's actually a lot of strategy to
Stolen in Sixty Seconds, despite the obvious moral issues. Choosing what tools to take on a mission is a real challenge, and this lends the game an almost unlimited replay value as you try different paths to escape with more of the loot.
If you fancy the moniker Criminal Mastermind but not the jail term that comes with it, this could well be the game for you.
