Gangsters

by Eidos

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000021YUI
• Item Weight: 8 ounces
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: March 2, 1999
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #25,413 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

If you secretly wish to extort your neighbors, gun down your enemies, cheat on your taxes, and build a massive criminal empire--but want to avoid the inconvenience of a long prison sentence--then Gangsters might be the game for you. Gangters transports you to a 1920s Chicago-style city for a gangland free-for-all. You start out as a small-time hood with big-time plans, and the only obstacles in your path to power are the cops, the G-men, and all the other gangsters that want you dead.

Game play is a cross between an empire builder and a business simulation. Your goal is to take over the city and make a lot of dough. You've got to finance your expansion with your businesses (illegal as well as legit) and hold your territory with muscle. Since not too many venture capitalists are keen on giving seed money to thugs, enterprising hoodlums have to turn to their neighbors for cash. Luckily, your neighbors have plenty of money, and they're happy to fork it over if doing so means they can continue using their fingers. So you go about recruiting hoods and extorting everything within your territory, all the while building and managing profitable public services such as booze distribution and well-lit brothels. It's a good gig until you're dead or in jail. So you want to avoid those unpleasantries by paying off cops and judges, while at the same time killing anyone who would do the same to you.

The above-mentioned activities may sound fun, but Gangsters only partially delivers on its promises. The interface is complicated without being comprehensive, forcing you to spend a lot of time looking for information that has been segmented into different menus. The diplomacy options are simplistic to the point of being nonexistent, which really diminishes the possibility of subterfuge. Visually, only the zoom feature gives you an entertaining view of the game. Unfortunately, after an hour of play, your territory is so large you can't afford to look at anything but the big map, which appears dull and gray. But even for all of its flaws, the original concept and over-the-top game play hold a surprising amount of entertaining hours. So, if you're a fan of The Godfather, Gangsters might be an offer you can't refuse. --Joshua B. Coombs

Pros:

• Wide variety of legitimate--and not-so legitimate--businesses
• Amusing sound and graphics

Cons:

• Tedious interface
• Extremely buggy without the patches
• Limited diplomacy
• Questionable business practices make this game unsuitable for kids

Product Description

Real Power Is Never Given.....Product InformationSet in a Chicago-like town in the 1920's prohibition period Gangsters is thestrategy game where crime pays!From extortion and intimidation to street execution or all-out bloody gangwarfare Gangsters creates a world you play a mob boss whose goal is to build anempire that controls the City. Played in a vast city filled with over 5000 individual characters Gangsterscombines real-time action in a highly detailed isometric terrain with anyeasy-to-use strategy planning interface to authentically recreate the seedyviolent and ruthless world of gangland mobsters.Product Features Both in-depth strategic planning and real-time tactical gameplay. Control every aspect of a 1930's-era mob "family." Recruit from a pool of 400 gangsters for your organization each with unique skills and assets. Enjoy a virtual world with over 5000 citizens. Multiplayer support for up to 4 players over LAN and INTERNET via mplayer.com System Requirements Pentium 133 (minimum) Windows 95 98 Me 4X CD-ROM Drive 16MB RAM (minimum) 2MB SVGA Graphics Card DirectX 6 compatible DirectX 6 compatible sound card Mouse and Keyboard 350MB of free hard drive space Multi-player up to 4 players TCP/IP supported 

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great game, little slow, December 25, 1999

By 

Logan (Vermont) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gangsters (CD-ROM)

This is a great game. It is fun, intense and takes much thought. The premise is a 1920's generic city that is loaded with gangsters. Your job is to run a crime syndicate and take over the city by defeating the other crime organizations, aquiring much wealth and owning a lot of property. The game is fun to play but it can be slow sometimes and a little repetitive. The game takes thinking too and isn't just a "run-around, shoot 'em up." You must negotiate with other crime bosses and pay off city officals. Making hits is great as well as bombing buildings. The game is surprisingly realistic and has much detail. Besides the fact that the game can be slow at the times, I highly recommend it. I wish I could give it a 4 1/2 stars. If your interested in the Mafia and some strategy, I highly recommend purchasing this game.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Complex but fun. Thank goodness for the pause button, December 22, 1999

By 

Stephen Sossaman (Westfield, Massachusetts, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gangsters (CD-ROM)

If you like the era, and if you like micromanaging as you build an empire (here, a business and crime empire), this is a fun game. The strong points include nearly infinite replayability, its nice mix of strategy (mixing legal and illegal businesses) and tactics (arranging and responding to street ambushes and hits), and the amusing grace notes -- like bribing police, intimidating jurors, and torching rival speakeasies The designers went to great lengths to give the gamer many choices, both strategic (there are three ways to win) and tactical. The game's drawbacks include the steep learning curve, a rather cumbersome interface, and the difficulties of keeping track of multiple events happening all over the map; the pause button helps here, but if you try to keep on top of everything, each game turn (one week) can become long and tedious. This is definitely for your more cerebral moods, not when you want a beer-and-pretzel quick and easy game.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You're are going to buy this game, see?, February 20, 2001

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Gangsters (CD-ROM)

Gangsters Organized Crime is, in my opinion, one of the best games ever made! I play it hour after hour, day after day, and it dosn't get old till you have to stop. The first time I saw it, I new I wanted it. I had never heard about it at all until I saw it. Finally I got it for my birthday. You can not believe how fun this game is. You start out designing your facial features from a pool of hair designes and faces. You even pick a nickname for yourself! Then you pick the gang color, the number of hoods, buisnesses, and money you have, and you'r of. Once playing you extort buildings so you can collect protection money. Buy buisnesses and send hoods to run them. Build illiegal buisnesses such as a speakeasy, casino, and lloan shark. While doing so you compete to gain control of the city from three other gangs. You purchase weapons and cars to take out the enemy. Order hits, bribes, and recruitments. Each hood has special abilities, so assemble indivisoual teams for certain perposes! Order your lawyer to pay of the police, and their no llonger a problem. Take out the witnesses and bribe judges to save your men, our you. You win when you have killed all other three gangsters, you become the mayor, or you go strait. This game doew take a few hours to get the hang of it, but it's worth it. It is'nt worth paying five dollars less to not be able to enjoy this wonderful game. There are a few thing that I hope will be improved in the sequal. You can only order eighty hoods in one week, you can not frame your enimies, and it is hard to get territory once some one else has it. These are minor though, I highly recomend this game. However, it might pay to wait a few months for the sequel.