Gangland review

It’s about time we got some more mafia games; moviemakers have long since realised the entertainment value of mobsters. Their stories contain important storytelling elements such as violence, drama, family, respect, power, pride, love, hate and suits. Heck, mafia movies are the modern equivalent of Greek tragedies. Games are able to run even further with this because mobsters are “businessmen” and that doesn’t translate as well to the big screen. You wouldn’t exactly be riveted over Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro haggling over which merchant to extort but it’s more fun to make decisions like that in a game (among other things such as shooting people). So does Gangland succeed by taking this relatively fresh approach and mixing up the genres? Let’s take a closer look.

Take me down to the Paradise City

You play Mario (ha! – ed.), one of five brothers hailing from Italy. One night your brother Chico is found shot dead and evidence points toward the remaining three brothers who have vanished without a trace. Two years later you are sent by your grandfather to America on a mission to avenge your brother. Destination: Paradise City, where your uncle takes you in and teaches you the ropes.

First thing you do is create a profile for Mario (note that you can only play Mario in single-player mode but the other brothers in multi-player mode). For first time players I highly encourage setting the difficulty to easy while you learn the ropes, because starting the game is rough, as I will come to later. At first you will get assigned minor missions from Vincenzo, your uncle, but the game really gets interesting later when you get your own safe house and connections to other crime bosses.

At this point the game becomes a lot more diverse; for example you can get yourself a wife, have a child with her, and when that child is all grown up they will become a substantial help by answering the phone, increasing revenue (lawyer), being a super-thug (enforcer) or using charm to corrupt the enemy (seductress). Yep, there are three types of offspring. You will also get Challenges (as opposed to Conquests which are the storyline missions) which open up super units which are specialised employees such as ninjas, snipers, bombers, businessmen and so on. You don’t always have to walk on foot either; there are various vehicles that you will get, for example how does a tank sound? Paradise City has a lot to offer for an up and coming thug.

Learning the ropes

Let’s get the bad out of the way; despite being a good game Gangland makes a bad first impression. After playing it I’m reminded of something Richard Rouse (a game design writer) wrote as a rule of thumb for game designers when balancing a game; always think “Your game is too hard”. This is because the development team, and in some cases the test team, has been playing the game consistently and therefore loses sight of how hard it is to a beginner. But enough of the theory, let’s get down to specifics.

Most of us do not look at the game manual unless we absolutely have to. Well, guess what, you absolutely have to! There is no tutorial to teach you the controls and the basic commands which is very strange considering that the game uses a somewhat unusual method of moving. I kid you not, it took me 10 to 15 minutes to figure out how to actually move my character (and all the while he was pestering me to get a move on) because the regular arrow buttons don’t work, nor does left-clicking and nor does the WASD keys. Finally, after reading through the manual twice I found out that you have to right-click on the ground to where you want to move. Not a good start indeed. It’s the same thing with vehicles, you get no help in using them and it will take some time to get the hang of it. Add to that a somewhat clumsy camera and difficult targeting due to camera view obstructions and things don’t look good at the start.

I’d put a mafia pun here but they are so cliché

But wait! I’m not done yet with the whining. My two major gripes with the game are the save and the pause functions. The way the game saves is at intervals, usually after you kill a boss or cross into enemy territory. The problem is that between those saves you can be building your thug empire for half an hour or more, meticulously buying businesses and attacking enemies. One deadly mistake and you lose a lot of invested time. A little side note about saves though; when the game was released it was more unforgiving, now with the latest patch 1.3 they have added in some save points and fixed some other problems. So getting the latest patch right away is highly recommended!

Now my personal pet peeve for this game is the lack of a real pause function, a pause where you can still move the camera around and give your men orders similar to most role-playing games where you have a group. This would have been perfect for this game because you can take part in a multitude of battles at once, which can get a bit much. Instead you’re forced to wrestle with the clumsy camera and try to target your characters fast enough if you attempt to fight two battles at once (but it’s not recommended). This way you’re not competing against the computer, you are competing against the controls.

It’s actually a good game though!

Now I’ll tell you the key to this game and why it gets a relatively high rating. Listen closely: after you’ve learned the basics and gotten better (and accepted its flaws) the game becomes more fun! True, the flaws prevent it from being a great game instead of a very good game but it’s still a fun game with a lot to offer. Just remember to start on the easy setting! The mix of genres (real-time strategy, role-playing and a simulation) work well; you get the enjoyment of creating your evil empire strategically while continuously shooting at people. The game is very fast-paced, especially when you have to battle two or three other crime lords at once. Some strategy is often required and that’s where the super units come in (however sometimes being gung-ho works too!). The AI is not bad at all, characters flee, take cover and use their medikits when they are hurt; bouncers go after Mario, sometimes in droves, so keep him protected (by assigning for example bodyguards) at all times.

A big bonus is that the game doesn’t take itself too seriously (one of the dons is for example called Tom Jones and there are all sorts of references to popular fiction) and you get the feeling that the developers have put their main focus on the fun factor. Gangland has a lot of extra features that will keep you interested, like high scores and the multiplayer option. The developers (Mediamobsters) are currently working on Gangland II according to their website and that will likely be a very good game since I’m sure that they won’t repeat some of the “first big game” mistakes they did with Gangland.