You are a gangster in a fully urbanised American city. Along with 3 other gang leaders you join the power struggle to take control of the city the best you can. Using bribery or violence you can get influence in City Hall, collect protection money and get informants to tell you where the other gangs are. You must also stand the true test of power that is, the last one standing is the winner.
This is a strategy game that you can't help but like, (unless you hate strategy games). Gangsters puts us in the situation glorified by The Godfather and a million other films sure, we wouldn't want to do it in real life but it's worth pretending for a while! The game allows you to build your gang, to feed off protection money, to open illegal businesses behind fronts and to attack, bomb or burn those who don't pay up. It gives plenty of options but they are easily picked up.
I have to say I always enjoy playing it but I know it has its limitations. The options don't all achieve something. It's difficult to see the benefits of bribing judges because you aren't told who is taking cases relating to your hoods. Also it's difficult to see what good employing policemen does and I've yet to work out how to give them more money as they never seem happy with what they get.
During the working week it is possible to view the city in many ways and at many speeds to see what's going on. However the actual control you have is limited and quite often you'll be there as an observer with little real control. What control you have is limited to telling your men to run away or open fire with their guns. It's difficult to get involved on any level below strategy because you find that whatever you do seems to make little difference. What is most disappointing is that it's almost impossible to crush even the weakest of the gangs even if you send 60 armed men to attack their headquarters! Usually a gang will only be defeated because the police arrest and convict the leader and not because a turf war has broken out. This lack of meaningful interaction with the other gangs makes it a bit dull after a while and it lacks character. The other gang's men come and go but you never get to know them or to fear them they're only coloured dots.
It does have plenty of good touches or nice tries such as the kidnapping function, but really the majority of it doesn't work once you send your men out and about. The huge map means that an alert system operates to get messages from your men regarding them seeing other gangs, being under attack or that they've completed their mission. However since there's little you can actually do about these I usually turn them all off!
Likewise the newspaper is used to report happenings in the last week however it is almost useless for assessing certain key things. For example it will report that the police shut an illegal business on such and such street but unless you go through the whole map clicking on each street to see it's name you've got no way of knowing where it was or who's it was!
Overall it's a nice try at a strategy genre that doesn't have much in it. However much of it is close but no cigar nice tries that don't quite work. Having said that it's still enjoyable to pick it up for short periods and pretend to be a small time hood on the make!
This is a strategy game that you can't help but like, (unless you hate strategy games). Gangsters puts us in the situation glorified by The Godfather and a million other films sure, we wouldn't want to do it in real life but it's worth pretending for a while! The game allows you to build your gang, to feed off protection money, to open illegal businesses behind fronts and to attack, bomb or burn those who don't pay up. It gives plenty of options but they are easily picked up.
I have to say I always enjoy playing it but I know it has its limitations. The options don't all achieve something. It's difficult to see the benefits of bribing judges because you aren't told who is taking cases relating to your hoods. Also it's difficult to see what good employing policemen does and I've yet to work out how to give them more money as they never seem happy with what they get.
During the working week it is possible to view the city in many ways and at many speeds to see what's going on. However the actual control you have is limited and quite often you'll be there as an observer with little real control. What control you have is limited to telling your men to run away or open fire with their guns. It's difficult to get involved on any level below strategy because you find that whatever you do seems to make little difference. What is most disappointing is that it's almost impossible to crush even the weakest of the gangs even if you send 60 armed men to attack their headquarters! Usually a gang will only be defeated because the police arrest and convict the leader and not because a turf war has broken out. This lack of meaningful interaction with the other gangs makes it a bit dull after a while and it lacks character. The other gang's men come and go but you never get to know them or to fear them they're only coloured dots.
It does have plenty of good touches or nice tries such as the kidnapping function, but really the majority of it doesn't work once you send your men out and about. The huge map means that an alert system operates to get messages from your men regarding them seeing other gangs, being under attack or that they've completed their mission. However since there's little you can actually do about these I usually turn them all off!
Likewise the newspaper is used to report happenings in the last week however it is almost useless for assessing certain key things. For example it will report that the police shut an illegal business on such and such street but unless you go through the whole map clicking on each street to see it's name you've got no way of knowing where it was or who's it was!
Overall it's a nice try at a strategy genre that doesn't have much in it. However much of it is close but no cigar nice tries that don't quite work. Having said that it's still enjoyable to pick it up for short periods and pretend to be a small time hood on the make!
