Gangsters 2

by Eidos

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00004ZBOD
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: June 6, 2001
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,093 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Gangsters 2 takes you to a fantasy Prohibition-era America. To rise from the ranks of fledgling hoodlum to feared and respected made man, you must effectively run legitimate businesses during the day as a front for more creative enterprises at night. The gameplay is narrative driven, and features real-time action and strategy. You will have to use skills and cunning to build a team of mobsters, including specialists such as card sharks, hit men, arsonists, and safecrackers. You will receive in-game advice to assist in your advancement, plus a daily newspaper will keep you updated on the status of your empire, as well as those of your rivals. The campaign mode contains 20 episodes spanning 15 counties; alternately you can battle friends in the multiplayer mode.

Product Description

Gangsters 2 returns with the ultimate real-time, strategy gaming experience for the corrupt, criminally minded strategy enthusiast. You play a mob boss in Prohibition America who must build a tough and loyal crew to help you work your way up the "Family Tree."

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Better than the original, simpler yet highly addictive., June 8, 2001

By 

Jayson (Rancho Santa Margarita, ca, United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Gangsters 2 (CD-ROM)

Over two years have passed since the original Gangsters. While the original clearly had carved out a new niche genre, it was mired in complexity and micromanagement. Not so with Gangsters 2.

Hot House and Eidos listened to the gamers feedback and implemented many features to make Gangsters 2 much more accessible to players. The first thing you will notice is a much more intuitive interface. While I am still a little hesitant to give the interface a glowing review (It's a bit tricky to read some windows and decipher information at the building level), it is much more simpler than the original. And with the lack of micromanagement of each individual gangster (like the original), you control the main character, Joey Bane, and his lieutenants. All other hired muscle is controlled by you immediate family or built in AI scripts which are pretty good.

Upon loading the game, you will notice that Gangsters 2 revolves around the story of Joey Bane, (you). It seems your father (a big time mobster) was killed by the opposing family moving into the city. It is your job, over individual episodes, to move back into your home town, avenge your fathers death, and assume the role of mob leader. You start small, just taking over a neighborhood, but as he story progresses and you move on to episodes, you eventually take over the city, then neighboring cities, then eventually cross state lines setting up your empire.

Cut scenes between each episode move the story along in a concise fashion, and a pre-episode briefing is really good in defining your primary and secondary objectives. There is good feedback (could always be better) during the game from a 'family' advisor and reading the local newspaper. The Newspaper all allows you to hire 'specialists' that can carry on special assignments for you, lists obituaries, and clues you into other subtle hints and game progress.

The graphics are pretty good, but not top notch. A new addition to the game is being able to play at night, where street lamps light the streets and shading effects are more visible. Also there are seasons, so later in the game you'll notice the snow falling.

Game control is better than the original but is still tricky. Good thing there is a pause button (the game is real time) to re-issue orders. I found I made a few errors in assigning tasks to my gangsters only because selecting them is very sensitive. Game A.I. is also good, but could be better. When in trouble I have selected my gangsters to flee, only for them to sit around idle for a few seconds and get shot at before they run. And they seem to sometime run the wrong way! Also navigating your cars can be a bit frustrating. Seems that sometimes that computer chooses the longest path to get somewhere via car, when your car could easily take a turn down another street and get to a destination in half the time.

The manual is nice, explains pretty thoroughly what you can and can not do, and even walks you through the 1st two episodes. The only complaint about the manual is a few screenshots used for explanation are blurry.

Gangsters 2 offers multiplayer support!! Now that's awesome. You can have up to 4 Godfathers trying to compete over a city. However, it would have been much better if there was a random map generator for not only multi, but single players as well. After you complete the game in 16 episodes, you just restart it again at a higher difficulty level, but it's the same cities and same objectives.

As you move on from episode to episode, you take your hired hands with you, and dole out experience points to them in different categories based on performance: combat, stealth, or special skill (diplomat, distiller, bomber, hit man, driver, etc..)

When you take over buildings in the city, either by buying them, by force, etc., you must stay in control. For the building generate you money, and if you set up an illegal business (speakeasy, card den, brothels, brewery, distiller, gun smith, etc..) you rake in more money to expand your empire. Use money to buy better guns, recruit muscle, buy better armored cars, and buy influence over the police, the judge, the DA, etc...Bribery is big, however, the FBI are incorruptible, but every other figure in the game is. I love the drive by shootings!!! I often eliminate my opponent by taking out enemy gangs by Tommy and shotguns via a drive by, hop out of the car, and bust up their business (either by bombing, or killing those inside massacre style) and speed off before the police arrive. This disrupts the cash flow for your opponent, and even better if you can capture the business yourself and set up shop. You generate more money while increasing your influence in town! But be careful, you better hire guards for you new place, because your opponent doesn't like you taking over and will soon dispatch his own thugs to reclaim lost businesses.

One of your gang members in jail? No problem! Maybe you just need to put the judge or the DA on your payroll. Or maybe a breakout is more your style.

I'm just touching the base of things you can do. There are many illegal business to set up, cars to steal, people to kidnap, patrol your area, buy of the mayor, etc....

All in all, a very worthy sequel and worth the money.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars revised review, June 24, 2001

By 

"extremejam" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gangsters 2 (CD-ROM)

I got this game the first day it came out, and I have been playing everyday ever since. Well it came out only like 3 weeks ago! But I'm sure glad it's summer, therefore I can play this game till 2 AM and not wake up late for school. So as you can tell I find this game quite addicting and I've liked it very much since gangsters 1. I mean you can't disagree that just the idea of being able to control organized crime is wonderful and of course we can do it however vicious we like and do no harm whatsoever to society. I'm sure these kinds of games will totally revolutionize PC Game play and there might even be a new category for games called "organizing crime". There's a new game called Mafia PC, which will be coming out NEXT MONTH! We will see a lot more to come and I anticipate it. However there's some things I want to share as a reviewer.

Let's begin with the negative aspect of the game first. Basically I have to say I am not satisfied with the graphics and maps. There are minor improvements but the 3D graphics of the town are the same, you know sims style, gangsters 1, so that was quite dissapointing for me. The other part of the maps that I dislike is that the 2nd map which is 2D is actually the one you will be stuck playing with most of the time. I am serious about this, even says so in the tutorial. Imagine controling little green dots for people, little yellow blocks for cars and elminating other colour dots for enemies. Not too exciting. Even Grand Theft Auto or Commandos bird eye view style of map is better. However Gangsters 2 is not a puzzling as commandos and I believe one can get through all 20 levels of gangsters 2 without cheating. I am on level 15 already.

Ok, now what you want to know or maybe know already, the positive aspect. First I want to say the story is well written, you are a character called Joey Banes, who is trying to avenge his fathers death. Besides yourself there are tons of other characters you can hire who have different abilities, for example bombing, spying, assasination, driving, robbery, etc. Each player also have attribute points for example 1 being lowest, 5 being highest and you can add some attribute points after each level. This makes your favorite characters stronger and more invincible. The instruction manual is thin but very helpful. There is also a tutorial but I don't think a person who has played gangsters 1 would need it. This game is fairly easy to control. What I find most interesting about this game is that in order to beat a level, one cannot just go on a rampage , you must also have a strategy, a tactic. There are actually a lot I can say about this game but this is getting long so to the conclusion .....

I would like to give this game a 3.5 or even a 4 after balancing the positive and negative aspectbut I gave it a 3 because I believe, after beating a all 20 levels, a player would be satisfied with what they paid for the game but there is no certainty they would play it over again. So if you want to buy one I think the best to do is buy a used one or buy a new one while it's hot and sell it when your done. If this is not helpful enough, I believe the demo just came out, so go download it!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Moronic ai and pathing makes what could be fun, annoying, November 29, 2002

By 

JR L "JR" (Livonia, MI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gangsters 2 (CD-ROM)

This game is kind of simple and would be fun if it weren't for pathing and AI that makes the original Warcraft look smart. If your gangsters are wanted by the police, and getting shot at, they will pace back and forth in front of the cops like ducks in a shooting gallery until dead. This happens ALOT.

Also, if you tell someone, say a wimpy specialist, to go somewhere, he takes the direct route, even if it takes him past a hundred enemy troops (well, he'll be dead after 12 so no matter)

The idiotic ai takes what could be a simple but fun game and makes it feel like someone just wnated to put out their software a couple of months before they were finished.

A patch could fix this, but not too likely from eidos, customer service isn't very important nowadays.

Avoid this game.

--Alex