Crookz - The Big Heist

One of the best tactic strategies I've ever played

Not playable from level 12 whith that stupid timer.
No medkit for sometimes also very stupid.
People like my 75 who play slow want to have fun !!!
I play rts games since 1999 . But i hate timer games.

quite a good TBG. though how to 'solve' some of the scenarios can be a bit of trial and error (retrying with different characters, which I assume is the point...)

The game looks like it was an experiment to invent tactical stealth genre. In reality such genre has been invented long before which makes this game a joke.

Pros:
+ Optimization. Sadly, not many developers care about that these days.
+ Setting... I guess. Just trying to find something good here.

Cons:
- Tutorial. It's awful. I had a lot of questions while completeing it. Why to make 5 waypoints which do nothing and then to remove them? Why to... nah, too many "whys". Nearly each step makes no sence.
- Controls. You cannot drag-n-drop items to pass them between characters, it's hard to use items (too many clicks) and it's even painfully inconvenient to drop an item.
- Plot. It's murky and has no logic, the dialogues are weird, character's relations are not explained and are too raf-fetched. Characters talk like children with dementia, especially the "leader".
- Poorly designed characters. The locksmight and the hacker are most useful characters, always pick them if available. Bruiser is nice, lakes holes in walls and can temporaly knock out some guards. Contortionist can access some unreachable places which is not very useful. But the worst character is the "leader" whose only ability is to... run and be unnotices standing point-blank to guards. Totally useless.
- Missions. They are tedious and all look the same. Gets boring very fast.
- Planning. It's one of the main (and looks like the only) game feature but it's not needed much. You need planning only in rare moments. Mostly it's just a waste of time. While in Desperados 3 and Shadow Tactics good planning could make you through tough spots, in Crookz it can just save you a vew seconds.
- And yes, even character portraits are messed up. Is it really so hard to center them in their boxes?

Recommended for people who like heist games. Not as good as Blades of the Shogun or Partisans 1941, but a solid entry in the genre and worth a shot for those new to it. Particularly fun for planners who like lots of optimization followed by watching perfect plans unfold (a hardcore challenge is to run an entire map just off of a pre-planned route). I recommend checking it out given the competitive price.

The Big Heist is a tactical strategy game set in the funky 1970
a combination of puzzle and stealth game. Give it a try
theirs is even a demo for this game to try before you get the full game
The game has a pause feature for planning) and have each do different tasks throughout the map
If you like stealth you'll love it.If you like puzzles you'll love it.If you like both then you'll love it even more.
Nice art - graphics, music and decent controls.
Overall Crookz is a fun game which rewards tactical planning, and I think its worth playing, although hardcore stealth fans might find it a bit too casual.
Some small similarities to Door-kickers & vigilantes
The vibe of the game very much captures Oceans 11 movie

Solid game. Combination of Puzzle and Stealth game. Mesa liken. Give it a try - but be aware, you will see a lot of 70s fashion - kinda meh. but still - entertaining.

Does not work properly. Full of bugs. I was not even able to play it more than 1h because of that. At that time, there was no demo...

It's fun heist stealth strategy puzzle game, at least at first. I fell out of it when the levels became huge and everything was a slog. The game has a fun vibe and when the snare kicks in on one of the tracks, mm hmm.

Crookz is such a glittering hidden gem of a game. At first it is pretty simple, but the heists gradually crank up to where you need quick thinking and planning to pull off the job. Lots of replay with unlocking skills leading to different routes through a level, along with challenge mode. The latter really increasing the difficulty in a good way.

Visually vibrant, it captures the small touches of the 70s era. Story and characters seem obvious at first, but like the game, they open up with more layers of complexity. While the music bops along with an infectious beat. The vibe of the game very much captures Oceans 11, which I loved.

Would have been great to have added DLC and more thieves, but what's here is very good. If you like puzzles, lots of tools to play it your way, and heist games in general, then get Crookz. Which is usually cheap.

It's a steal...and a criminally good time.

Great game - style, stealth and strategy. Glad I found this and started over. First time I only played couple of levels and got stuck. Was a lot of fun and was compelled to go all the way through. Time based missions are stressful (had to look up tips to get some help on 2nd level of casino) and requires constant saving but quick save and time saves implemented well. A lot of fun to methodically go through and get through all the traps and guards with team members you pick to use.

I am not a huge strategy game player. Nevertheless I have enjoyed this game immensely. It starts off fairly easy (ino) with lots of leeway, but as the levels go up it becomes definitely more difficult but in a good way. Look at your maps, during the planning phase, carefully, to determine who you should take on the job. Some of these maps can take a good while, particularly if you choose to grab all loot in the level.

For a casual strategy game player, I think this game is perfect for you.

Update: After completing the game (not including the challenges yet), I have to say that this game is SERIOUSLY underrated! GREAT non-shooter stealth game.

Crookz The Big Heist is a genuinely good & really neglected stealth based real time tactical game with pause feature, that shares some similarities with games like Desperados/Commandos, inherently. Unlike those games though, Crookz has a more methodical way of handling movements & actions, and hence, can feel a bit slow paced.

It's a heist game, as the name implies. So, the levels are all basically interiors. You can't kill any enemies but surely can incapacitate them permanently using various methods, surreptitiously.

Pros:
+ Replayability.
+ Pause mechanic.
+ Preposterous story, like really!
+ 70's theme. Music really gets on you.
+ 6 pickable characters with unique skills & likable personalities.
+ Fantastically done levels which are challenging. This game is hard.
+ You can review a level thoroughly before starting a heist & pick characters(max 4 chars at a time) with skills suitable for that level.
+ Various items, that you can choose to take before starting a level or pick up while playing, really open up new ways to deal with certain situation.

Cons:
- Later levels can stretch long, like really long.
- Optimization. It literally boils my rig after playing continuously for 2 hours & then, the game starts stuttering. AAA games from 2018 don't even do that to me on highest settings.

All in all, this game is thoroughly underrated but absolutely recommended.

I really like this game..
The plus:
- nice voices
- cool art and detailed maps
- good control and gui enhancements
The only bad thing is:
- the storyline is a bit unrealistic
- some minor bugs
The biggest issue is that is seem to have a memory leak.. after some time game gets slow and does not load anymore.
After restarting the game eveything is ok again.

Think Monaco with the ability to control up to four characters and the ability to pause on demand. That said, this game made me think, plan, and strategize a lot more than I expected.

The only thing I didn't like about it is that it crashed, saw more than a few bugs, and one of the challenge maps it is impossible to get all treasures on. They appear to have stopped patching this game a long time ago so there's little hope of them getting fixed. These issues (except the last) are offset by the fact it saves every 30 seconds so you can generally just go back to a previous save to work around the bugs.

Crookz – The Big Heist is a game about a group of trained thieves, as the game title implies. The game introduces you to six professional crooks who were betrayed by their boss and ended up in jail. Upon release from prison, the crew reunites and is bent on exacting revenge against their traitor. The game is a tactical stealth strategy game played from a third person isometric perspective. Each heist mission begins with a preview of what the venue for the upcoming heist looks like. You choose four of six members of your crew, buy tools from the workshop from your income earned from previous missions. There are some members who must be used for certain heists, but you get to choose the other members according to their unique skills.

The brains of the crew is a female who runs like the wind and can hide in floor hatches. Other members include a professional locksmith, a contortionist who can crawl through vents to reach other areas of a venue much faster than walking, a technician who can turn off security cameras and manipulate switchboxes, a muscleman/pro wrestler who can knock out guards, and a robot that can be cloak in front of cameras and guards. Although the brains of the crew is fast and stealthy, I used her less than I thought I would, especially as the missions became more complex since her skills were not as useful as the skills of the other crew members.

There are 18 missions in the main story set in San Francisco, CA in the 1970s with lots of funky music. The missions begin in a straightforward manner, teaching you how to unlock doors using your professional locksmith or find the proper key throughout the mission. The missions become more complex since there are more doors that can only open by finding the proper switches and there are laser barriers protecting the rooms. There are switches that open doors in the immediate area, but at the same time close doors in other areas. These intricacies require you to move your crooks so that they end up separated from each other. For example, you may have one crook toggle a switch to open a door while another crook is in separate room toggling a different switch to open another door. The game is designed to be very slow paced and you will have to pause many times so that you can execute commands to each crook by marking waypoints. Venues for heists include a museum, a mansion, the Federal Reserve bank, and the famous San Quentin prison. The crew actually plans to get arrested on purpose at the end of one mission that leads to a mission in which they must escape from the prison. Each mission ends with a score and how much “heat” you picked up. Any heat will result in bribe money to be deducted from your earnings.

The use of commands and waypoints is part of the game interface. The interface is pretty easy to learn, although it took a little time for me to learn the basics in the beginning. There is a context sensitive menu that you can use to make a crook use his/her specialized skill. In the case of the locksmith, you can right click on a security/steel door to bring up the menu that displays a key to indicate that he can lockpick that door. It is important to know each crook’s skills in order to choose them properly for a specific heist mission. This require a lot of planning before the mission begins. The planning phase also includes a look at the locations of the guards and their patrol routes. Therefore, the planning phase in this game provides ample opportunity for you to know how to approach a heist mission. You can also see the vision cones for each guard and camera so that you know when you can be detected.

There are useful tools that you can find in each mission and they can be purchased from the workshop. Tools include blowtorches to open safes and steel doors, dynamite to destroy to cracked walls, noise emitters to distract guards, and door blockers that can cement doors to trap guards in a room. Some missions have enough tools of a certain kind such as keys and crowbars, so that would allow you to choose a crook that would not include a locksmith. I think that skill for skill the locksmith was the most reliable crook of the crew because of his ability to unlock doors. The game requires access to many different rooms.

Completing main story missions unlocks challenges and there are ten of them. Challenges are based on some of the venues from the main story, but are all on a timer. You will have to complete the main objective, then head for the exit before time runs. One challenge begins with each crook in separate rooms and they must find a way to help each other reach the exit. This requires some serious puzzle solving with doors, barriers, cameras and guards. The challenges made my brain work so much since they require quicker coordination than main story missions and there is less margin for error.

The save system is one that is uncommon for games of today. You can save wherever you want and whenever you want. The game also seems to auto save every few seconds. However, there are technical problems with save files. There were times when I tried to load the game, but it would crash to my desktop. There were also times when I tried to manually save the game, but I would receive notification that an error occurred. These technical issues were more apparent when playing the challenges.

I would conditionally recommend Crookz because it is designed to be a slow paced, tactical stealth strategy game and it is a decent one. If you like tactical strategy games that require a lot of pausing before issuing commands to multiple characters I would recommend it. If you like fast paced games that don’t require much pausing, you may want to consider another game. In essence, it comes down to your taste in game genre.

My Score: 7/10

I give this a thumbs-up with some reservations.

It is an under-rated game in that there is a surprising lack of players for what is a competent (but sadly not exceptional) stealth game.

One thing that Crookz does very well is having a planning stage, where you can watch the guards patrol and examine the level in detail prior to picking a team and initial equipment to tackle it. This changes the feel of the game somewhat: Instead of a scrappy sneaky thief making things up as you go along, you are a master criminal crafting and then executing a devious master plan. Or something like that anyway.

You have several characters with mutually exclusive skills only some of which can come with you. In practice however, you almost certainly need the only character who can pick locks, the only character who can cut cameras, and the only character who can take out [most] guards. Item choices can partially mitigate this, but once you have found a team that fits your style, the other characters aren't really involved much.

The other big drawback to the game is that the skill development is not terribly exciting. For example, one character can sneak through light barriers. Except later on the higher security complex have laser barriers instead. Except that later on, your character gets a new skill allowing her to sneak through laser barriers as well. Yawn.

There are some challenge levels that are much harder -- and force you to use a particular set of team members and equipment. However, I did not have enough interest to want to continue once I completed the main campaign.

Overall, a decent game. But not an exceptional one. I bought it on sale, and suggest you do too.

It's great!
This game is a gem for sure. Grab it and enjoy no matter what price.
It took me a while to decide to buy it but it turned out to be one of the best buys I ever made on Steam.
This game will always call you when you are looking for something to pass a few minutes. Then when you start to play again it will remind you how original and fun this game is ...

You can save when you want to. You can pause when you want to. You can play at your own pace. You can try different strategies. You can reload levels and give it another try on just a click of the mouse. And most important you can just have trying different plans.

Play this for a while and stop when you find something more flashy to play but this will always call you back.

Crookz is a strategy game with some light stealth elements, where the player takes control of a gang of career criminals who are trying to pull off a series of heists, with the ultimate goal of stealing a valuable artefact called the Luna Stone.

Each heist starts with a briefing where your crew explains the mission objectives and gives advice on how to complete them. You can see a detailed map of the building, complete with guard patrol routes and vision cones, plus the locations of security cameras, laser sensor alarms and locked doors.

Most heists allow you to bring four out of the six available crew members, each of whom have their own unique skills. There's a specialist lockpicker, a thug who can temporarily knock out guards (you can't kill anybody) and punch through weak walls, a technician who can disable electronic security devices, a contortionist who can squeeze through air vents, a runner who can move much faster than everyone else, and one other who I won't mention because of story spoilers.

You can also find items during a heist, or buy them during the planning stage, that can allow non-specialists to perform certain actions. For example crowbars will let anyone open a locked door, and anyone can KO guards by using chloroform. Other items that I found really useful include noise makers which can draw guards out of position, and door blockers (basically some kind of industrial strength super glue) that can trap guards in a room so they don't interrupt you later.

Map layouts are really intelligently designed to allow multiple solutions, by bringing different team members and using different items. Once you start the heist, the action is in real time, but you can pause to issue commands. You can save at any time and there are frequent auto saves, so if you make any mistakes they're easy to undo.

Crookz' biggest weakness - and I seem to be saying this about alot of games lately - is that the AI is dumb as a brick. If a guard sees one of your people they will chase after them, and if they catch them its an instant mission failure. However, if you can break line of sight, the guard will go to the last place they saw you, look around for a few seconds, say something like "must have been my imagination", and just go back to their normal patrol route. They won't keep searching or alert the other guards.

And as long as the guards don't actually see your people, they won't react to alot of suspicious situations. They don't care about most doors opening and closing before their eyes, or laser grids shutting off unexpectedly. There was one heist where a guard heard me use dynamite to blow up a weak wall, they came running over to investigate, but I had just enough time to get out of sight. He examined the massive hole in the wall for a few seconds, shrugged his shoulders and went back to his normal route. On another heist I KO'd one awkwardly placed guard half a dozen times as I travelled back and forth across the level, and he never called for backup, or raised the alarm. I can also remember one time I trapped a guard in a room, he was banging on the door calling for help, another guard walked past the door and just ignored it. I actually started to feel bad for exploiting their stupidity.

Heists are linked together by a fairly decent story, although they tried to make too many jokes with the dialogue that I didn't really find very funny. It took me 24 hours to complete the game and there are some additional challenge modes that I haven't tried yet. Controls work fine with mouse and keyboard and the only bug that I can remember was when I tried to order my lockpick guy to use a door blocker on a locked door, the only option I was given was to pick the lock, which I didn't want to do. I had to give the door blocker to another team member and have them use it.

Overall Crookz is a fun game which rewards tactical planning, and I think its worth playing, although hardcore stealth fans might find it a bit too casual.

This game has gotten zero buzz and very little attention, but that's a shame because this is honestly a great real-time-and-pause tactical squad game reminiscent of classics of the genre like Commandos. Gameplay is challenging but never impossible, and there are almost always multiple ways to achieve your goals within the missions.

The 70s vibe is pretty good (aside from some glaring anachronisms, if you're old enough to notice them), the soundtrack is solid, and the graphics, while nothing stellar, are clean and crisp. The writing is definitely on the weak side, and unfortunately much of the voice acting is pretty horrible. But those are the only faults I can find with this title.

tl;dr version: Do you remember games like Commandos and Desperados? Did you like those games? If you answered yes to both those questions then this game is for you.

Full review: Crookz is an isometric, real time with pause, tactical stealth game set in the 70s that follows the exploits of a group of professional thieves.

Pros:

* 70s setting
* 70s style funk soundtrack
* Strong tactical gameplay
* Missions play out differently depending on your chosen team members and tools you brought with you
* Great difficulty curve
* Elegant and user friendly UI
* Game autosaves every 30 or so seconds

Cons:

* Less than stellar visuals
* Mediocre writing
* Enemy AI is a bit too easy to exploit
* Rare pathing issues

Crookz plays a bit like the old Commandos and Desperados games, except even less combat focused. The idea is to break into a facility, steal or plant something, take any other goodies you can along the way, and get out without being caught. To achieve this you have a team of thieves, each with their own unique skills. Most of the time you can't bring the whole team along, so you much choose carefully who to bring for the job. There are tools available which can make up for skills you lack, covering areas that other teammembers that got left behind would have taken care of, but these tools are consumable (1 use) and you have very limited inventory space.

One of the best things about this game is how good the UI is. You can pause the game at any time and give out a set of instructions to your team members, including multiple waypoints and multiple commands at each waypoint. Furthermore you can delete any individual command at any waypoint or any individual waypoint and the game will connect the remaining waypoints for you, making adjusting plans on the fly rather user friendly.

The game starts out very easy with rather straightforward missions and easy to bypass security. Missing skills can be easily accounted for with tools found in the levels themselves or by taking a different approach. The game difficulty definitely ramps up though and the missions get more and more complicated and it become almost impossible to cover all bases with team member skills and tools, so you have to improvise in some areas to get past obstacles. The missions have some replayability to as you can go back to them later when you have access to other team mebers and skills at your disposal (each character has multiple skills that unlock as the story progresses) and try to beat your previous best score.

There is also a challenge mode with particularly difficult missions that you need to attempt with specific team members and tools on hand. These can be real tricky.

For the most part, pathing is pretty good, though once in a long while weird issues arise, like a character trying to take the long way around through a hole in the wall when there's an open door right in front of them. These can be worked around by doing smaller steps with your waypoints and happen quite rarely. Also, the enemy AI seems a little too easy to exploit and to get away from when they spot you. You need to be able to exploit the enemy AI to some degree to get past some obstacles, but it seems a bit too easy to trick them or lose them when they pursue you.

Overall, this is a game I very much enjoy playing. The gameplay is really solid and the game can get quite challenging with a lot of moving parts to try to keep track of and complicated security systems to try to bypass. If you're looking for a tactical stealth game then you owe it to yourself to try this game out.

A fun little game, reminds me a bit of Commandos (minus the violence).

Pro:
- pretty good auto-save system, you usually only lose a few seconds
- can be paused to plan and synchronize actions
- each character has unique skills
- 70s!

Contra:
- consumables can partially replace unique skills
- you cannot bring the whole team to a mission
- occasional stutter when unpausing or assigning actions to waypoints
- AI behaves stupid in some cases
- loading times are bad (OK for initial level loading, but too long for savegame in the same level)

I am pleased I bought this game as it is challenging and fun to play, with 18 missions in the campaign and a seperate challenge mode where you race the clock with a predetermined team and set of tools.
The missions start off easy to allow you to learn the game mechanics, then it gets more difficult which requires more planning and time to think which makes the pause and plan feature come in handy.
There are six characters to choose from all with unique skills, for example there is the acrobat who can slip through vents and laser barriers and a electronics expert who can disable security systems. The characters can form a maximum team size of 4 which you can decide on in the planning phase to decide your favoured approach as there are many methods to complete the jobs. It is possible to complete the heists with any team combo with the use of tools found on the mission map itself and the choice of three tools for each character you can decide on and carry from the planning phase.
Your job is to steal something or setup conditions to make the next heist possible. There is a "heat meter" for gauging how many times the guards and cameras have spotted you which should you max out will end the mission, the heat meter can be lowered by using a tool on a camera security box if the meter gets too high.
Guards are either stationary or on a route which you can observe through the use of a hotkey, you can either sneak past them by avoiding their cone of vision, distract them away from their route or knock the guard out with your thug or other character who has the chloroform tool if possible. Some guards can not be knocked out.
There are plenty of tools and tactics which allow for a creative solution to each heist and I am giving this game a thumb up as I am enjoying the experience.