The Big Con

Aside from a couple speeding tickets from back in the day, I don't have much of a rap sheet. The life of crime always looked too difficult and stressful, and I'm all about making things as easy as possible. But maybe I've been wrong this whole time, because Ali, the teenager at the center of The Big Con, makes grifting look easy. Maybe too easy. This is a cross-country road trip to pickpocket, steal and scam as many people as possible to save a struggling movie rental store in the extreme 1990s. That's a totally bodacious setup, dude, but will a predictable story and overuse of pop culture references and outdated slang ruin the fun? As if!

Alison Barlow has a dilemma. Her mom wants the sarcastic teenager to go to band camp, but Ali doesn't want to go. You see, she just overheard a troubling conversation revealing that mom owes a bunch of shady loan sharks $97,000, and if she doesn't pay up, the mom 'n pop rental store she owns will be sold to Videoville. That's terrible news, and Ali knows that she can't let that happen. But what is she supposed to do about it? She's already offered to ditch band camp and work more shifts, but her mom isn't having any of that. There must be another way, but what?

As luck would have it, Ali meets up with a boy named Ted who has a plan. Seeing how stealthy the video store clerk can be, he suggests stealing the money. And not just by pickpocketing a few random people around town, but rather by traveling to Las Venganza by buses, trains and automobiles to scam an easy mark. With Ali's skills and Ted's know-how, they'll be the perfect con artist team. Like Bonnie & Clyde, except without the romantic relationship and the hail of bullets at the end.

This sets up a fun road trip where Ali travels from stop-to-stop scamming people out of their money. We're taught that we'll need to spy on the mark to reveal what they want, lay the foundation and then approach with confidence. For example, there's a bit early on where you'll need to steal a coveted toy from one person in order to sell it to another desperate father who will pay anything to keep their kid happy. You'll see a lot of this type of quest, turning the levels into elaborate scavenger hunts where you find the items needed to con the unsuspecting citizens.

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Another way to earn quick money is to sneakily walk behind people and yank the cash straight out of their pockets. You do this with a simple mini-game where you time the cursor to land inside a purple field. Ted tells you that this will get harder the more money they have in their pockets, but I never once failed this mini-game. It's easy, fun and surprisingly forgiving. It also gives you an incentive to thoroughly explore each level, both inside the shops and the main open areas, where there are all kinds of hidden nooks and crannies to explore.

All this starts out simple enough, but as the unlikely duo get closer to their destination, you'll find that the levels become deeper and more involved. You'll go from simply scamming people out of money to spying on them to gain valuable information. Maybe it makes sense to become friends with the guy who installed all the safes in Las Venganza, which means that you'll probably want to figure out his opinions on the heated CDs vs. vinyl debate. Trust me, he has thoughts. If you can gather up enough information, you'll be able to use it to pull the ultimate score and save the video store.

Right from the opening lines, I knew that I was going to like The Big Con. It has a great sense of style and place, as well as consistently funny writing. I loved Ali right from her opening line. She's a sarcastic teenager with a tough exterior, but the game does an excellent job of peeling back some of that toughness to show a vulnerable (and even scared) girl who is unsure about her future. She's conflicted and often puts up a front, but there's more to her than just sarcastic barbs and meta jokes. The game works because she's so likable, even in those moments when she's being a real shit.

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What's frustrating about this game is how straight-forward it ends up being. For a game about pulling a big con, there aren't many surprising twists. If you've seen a movie or TV show before, then you're going to be able to guess the entire plot within minutes of seeing the setup. A lot of con artist fiction will try to stay one step ahead by throwing out red herrings and constant misdirects. The Big Con doesn't really do any of that. It's so invested in you exploring the different locations and scamming everybody that it doesn't do much to throw you off the scent or reveal any crazy twists. It's definitely a con, but don't expect this to be anywhere on the same level of something like Ocean's Eleven.

I also wish that the individual grifts were more interesting. The problem is that so many of them are almost insulting in how basic they are. The tutorial sets it up like we're going to be doing elaborate scams, but pretty much everything can be figured out if you just eavesdrop on a single conversation. There also aren't a lot of people to con in these levels, which left a lot of the locations feeling like missed opportunities.

Even though it's not especially challenging and the story is too predictable, The Big Con still won me over because it's fun and we don't get a lot of games like it. There's a really cool concept here that I would love to see expanded on. Still, despite not quite living up to its potential, The Big Con is worth playing for Ali alone. She's a sharp and biting character that will leave you laughing no matter what crazy situation she's gotten herself into. You'll get sucked in with the '90s slang and references, but it's the emotional core and well-rounded character that you'll ultimately remember.