Players assume the role of a man named Randal Meyers, who performs criminal acts in order to pay off gambling debts to the mob. The need to pay off huge debts establishes the premise for this "open-world" action game. Presented from an overhead perspective, the game allows players to roam freely around the urban environment and perform various missions—both legal and criminal: delivering pizza, driving busses, stealing cars, robbing banks, delivering stolen goods, being a hit man. Although players can use shotguns, machine guns, grenades, and rocket launchers to kill rival mobsters and police officers (occasionally civilians) in hot pursuit, the actual depiction of violence is somewhat minimal: the graphics are a mix of retro and cartoon 2.5D; the characters resemble tiny specs when viewed from above; there is no blood, and acts of random violence against civilians and officers raises players' "wanted level," triggering a strong police presence. In other words, the context (rather than the depiction) of players' commission of violent-criminal-acts-for-money is what warrants the Teen rating. The dialogue also contains the expletives "a*s," "damn," and "hell."
