Customer Reviews

Gangsters 2

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

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.

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!

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

Very disappointed in this *yawn* boring game. Graphics are poor...less than to be expected of a game at this price. The mobsters are not even The Sims quality...they are small and have little detail, barely can tell they are people at all. No satisfaction for those liking the sinisterism of being a mobster. You spend most of the time hunting moving square dots on a poorly drawn map. Blood is a single red pixel. Missions are boring and similar throughout the game. Little detail, no mobster feel. Menu and maps are frustrating to work with, moving between and across maps and menus will furiate you. Difficult to follow your mobsters on the map...hard to find a view that works. Its like playing blindly. Controls are not user friendly...unecessary button combos. The wrong click of the mouse can mean "game over"....and its extremely easy to make this mistake. Often times mobsters and vehicles will not move the direction you want..and will get killed. Not user friendly...bottom line...game is good enough to cure boredom but buy it when its 15.99.

I've never played the original Gangsters but I've heard enough horror stories to know what was wrong with it, but despite all the flaws people complained of everyone still seemed to enjoy the original. So when I saw the sequel on the store shelf I thought to myself that it would probably have all those flaws improved upon while still keeping it's great strategy elements. So I bought the game hoping to be able to live out my favorite scenes from the Godfather. At first the game was amusing, but after those quick 10 minutes, the game was quickly repackaged and returned!

First off, the strategy elements of the game are completely gone! Everyone used to complain about the micro-management in the first, so I guess the solution was to completely erase all management. You're basically told what business to buy and it just generates money.

The graphics are a bit cartoonish, but fitting. Although the graphics aren't realistic or polygonal they match the theme of the game and give it the appropriate feel. Unfortunately, that's all this game has! Good looks, good packaging, no substance!

The gameplay is terrible! You'll pull your hair out as you order your goons to drive two blocks away and watch him circle around the whole neighborhood before finally going to his destination... and hopefully he's not there to do a drive-by! The drive-by shootings in this game are just ridiculous. You'll quickly despise watching your thugs drive past, shoot, make a U-turn, drive back, shoot more, make another U-turn, shoot (you get the point). That doesn't seem like a very effective drive-by to me. Also, the people standing on the side walk never EVER take cover, they just stand there shooting at the car until they are FINALLY gunned down. What kind of dumb gangsters are these anyway? The AI definately needs improving! Also, don't get your car ruined. If you do, then you have the option of stealing your enemies car, but only HIS car. What sense does this make? My thugs have no problem with gunning down police officers but they refuse to steal an innocent person's car. I had to run 4 blocks (past rows and rows of perfectly good parked cars) to my enemies hideout to steal his vehicle. But basically what I am saying is that the AI in the game is pretty stupid.

Another thing that ruins the gameplay is the tedious and repetative missions. The game is basically open this shop, do a hit on this guy, buy that building, place guards here, do a hit on that guy... over and over and over again. And although carrying out a "hit" should normally be enjoyable, as you can tell from my paragraph above I found killing people to be quite the chore.

So if all of the micro-management is now non-existant and all of the action is absolutely horrendous and silly, what does this game have to offer? Simply put... boredom. The game is just too easy, too simple, and too shallow. Perhaps for the third game they should eliminate the tedious missions and make it more open-ended. Just allow you to hire thugs and build your empire. Also, they need to work on that AI a little. Why do these guys get lost in a neighborhood that's 5 blocks wide? And who ever heard of circling back around, better yet, making a U-turn while doing a drive-by? You're supposed to shoot and then high tail it outta there! Basically, it could have been a good game had they taken the time out to actually add some gameplay to it.

This game disappointed me too. I liked the original Gangsters quite a bit & played it off & on for a few months. But the game was sunk by its flaws, including a variety of nagging bugs, a difficult-to-master interface, too much micro-management, & a manual that omitted descriptions of important portions of the game. The game had a lot of options although I sometimes wondered if all of the options had been implemented--did it really make a difference if you set up your speakeasy behind a dress shop or behind a restaurant? Who knew & it was difficult to tell from the gameplay. But despite that, the game was fun & I thought the graphics especially were quite good.

Hothouse gets high marks in G2 for listening to the complaints about the original game since most of them have been dealt with here. The interface is easier to use & you no longer have to manage every single gangster under your control. But, in my opinion, they have gone too far. The graphics are cartoony & Hothouse has gone way too far in their effort to get rid of micro-management. Now instead of being able to buy any business,you can only buy certain specific ones & can only open certain illegal businesses in specific locations. This takes a lot of the juice out of the game & I never felt, while playing G2, that I was running a mob of gangsters as I did in G1.

The game runs fine on my 2-year old Pavilion & I didn't find any bugs in the time I played it. The pathfinding on the units is terrible though--cars especially would often go around three sides of a square to get to someplace that was only a block away from where they were. Doing drive-by's against other cars is also weird as both cars go back & forth down the street like a pair of medieval knights at a joust until everyone in one car is eliminated. On the good side, the AI has been changed & you won't see the massive gun battles that you had in G1 as the sound of gunfire drew every nearby policeman & gangster into the bloodbath. Of course, I kind of liked those gun battles (my best way of getting rid of enemy gangsters involved sending a "cannon fodder" guy to assault an enemy in front of a cop. When the enemy responded by shooting at my guy, he'd be attacked by the cops & a massive battle would result) so this is not all to the good.

G1 really needed nothing more than some tweaking & cleaning up but G2 has gone too far & created a game that is inferior to its predecessor.

The reviews are all old, but I'm still playing this game. I like it & am disapointed that they have not made another.

Very disappointed in this *yawn* boring game. Graphics are poor...less than to be expected of a game at this price. The mobsters are not even The Sims quality...they are small and have little detail, barely can tell they are people at all. No satisfaction for those liking the sinisterism of being a mobster. You spend most of the time hunting moving square dots on a poorly drawn map. Blood is a single red pixel. Missions are boring and similar throughout the game. Little detail, no mobster feel. Menu and maps are frustrating to work with, moving between and across maps and menus will furiate you. Difficult to follow your mobsters on the map...hard to find a view that works. Its like playing blindly. Controls are not user friendly...unecessary button combos. The wrong click of the mouse can mean "game over"....and its extremely easy to make this mistake. Often times mobsters and vehicles will not move the direction you want..and will get killed. Not user friendly...bottom line...game is good enough to cure boredom but buy it when its 15.99.

This game is even better then the first one. The small changes add big effects to the gaming world of gangsters. The little changes like the weather, the outside light, the way the gangsters looks. Its a much cleaner enviroment with more tougher officials and gangsters. You have way more control over these gangsters then you did in the first one. You get amazing looking cars from the mayor and also you can do drive by shootings and also bribe police. This is a must have as well. Best simulation game since the Sims.

Gangsters 2 lives up to most of what it promises. The setting is realistic, some strategy is involved, and upgradable gangsters, but it does have a few weaknesses. While IMO it is better then the original in terms of graphic, sounds, and ease of play, the open-endness of the game has been cut back. Set over a series of assignments, you travel across the "state" carrying out various missions in each city. While the missions barely vary (there are easy ways and hard ways for pretty much each one) there is a nice role-playing touch that allows you to carry over gangsters and improve their stats. However this is about as close to roleplaying a gangster boss you'll get to, and the same is true for the empire building aspect. Unfortunately while you can carry over gangsters and specialists, you don't carry over equipment or money (which is odd, considering your empire's growth). The missions get harder by tactical positioning of enemies and resources (yes there is a gathering aspect) and unfortunately the AI never really improves which means tricks from earlier scenarios work in later ones. All and all the game is superior to the first, but limited in its ability to really let you "be a gangster" and explore the seemy underworld.