How to play
Every run starts in Lower Manhattan, parked on Broadway beside the job. Drive up to the marker, stop, and stay still for two seconds. That is the crime. Everybody standing within about 45 metres when you finish is a witness, and from then on the clock counts your time free.
The police build a description in five lines: vehicle, clothing, face, prints and build. Nothing happens at the scene until a unit is standing on it. Then witnesses are questioned one at a time, about nine seconds each, giving up build first, then clothing, then the vehicle. The lab works alongside: with one unit on the scene your face comes out after about 25 seconds and your prints after about 35, and more units work faster. A face or prints means identified - your name, your address and your bank card.
The run ends when you are killed (you have 140 health, and it only refills to 70 per cent after four seconds without a hit), when you are taken in at a traffic stop that matches you, or when the response collapses and you win. A win needs at least three and a half minutes on the clock and almost a full minute in a row with the heat right down. One sighting restarts that count.
You are paid 45 a second of time free, a little per metre driven, and 900 for each of the five boroughs you reach. A small share tops up next job's kit budget; the rest goes in the bank for guns and cars.
Tips and strategy
- Buy the mask and the gloves, and wear the mask for the job. The budget starts at 165 and the pair cost 95. Either one alone still leads to your name.
- Pick a quiet moment. Build, clothing and vehicle come from statements. With nobody about, they only get what the lab can lift.
- Take the mask off once you are clear. Press M. A balaclava on the street is the biggest single reason a patrol pulls you over, and your face is already safe.
- Pull over when the stop is clean. If nothing matches you right now, they check you and let you go. Speeding off, or ignoring the lights for 14 seconds, counts as running.
- Change cars where nobody can see. A new car drops the vehicle line unless a unit within 20 metres watches you get in. An abandoned car gets its plate run if an officer spends five seconds with it.
- Go inside, go up, sit down. Hiding indoors cools the heat, and standing still in a room cools it more than twice as fast. A barricade takes 2.4 seconds and badly slows their sweep.
- Pay cash once they know your name. After that, they watch the card live and come straight to the shop.
What's in it
- Seven pieces of pre-job kit: ski mask, gloves, cold plates, a change of clothes, a burner phone, drawn-out cash, and food and water.
- Five guns: the free pistol, plus a revolver, machine pistol, shotgun and carbine bought with bank money. You keep them, but carry one per job.
- Twenty-five buyable cars with tuning, body kits, wings, wheels, paint and liveries. You can also take any parked or passing car, cruisers included.
- Five boroughs, 24 landmark towers you can climb floor by floor, garage decks you can drive into, and shops selling food, clothes and a balaclava.
Questions
Does it save?
Yes. Your bank, kit budget, guns, cars and best time are kept in your browser. The title screen has a reset button.
Can I play on a phone?
Yes. A touch screen gets a steering wheel, gas and brake pedals, and USE and FIRE buttons.
Why did I get taken in at a stop?
They check what they know against you as you are now: your face if you are unmasked, your clothes if you have not changed, the car if it is the one from the job, and prints once you are identified. Build alone never holds you.
What do the cold plates and the burner phone do?
Cold plates let you swap the number plates on the car you just left: stand at it once they have your vehicle and press F. It takes four seconds, clears the vehicle from your description, and works once – and if a police unit watches you do it, they call the new plate in. The burner matters once you have been identified: without it, your own phone gives the police your position every two and a half minutes.
Can I still get away once they know who I am?
Yes, but it takes much longer. Stay unseen for about five minutes and the search runs down; every sighting starts that clock again.
How do I go back down the stairs?
F goes up, Q goes down. On the top floor F goes down too.