Gangsters: Organized Crime

[Quilty]

Gangsters is one of those strategy games I keep returning to over the years and falls among such often overlooked gems like Tropico due to its complexity (and quite a few flaws when it comes to the interface). However, I enjoy it for the freedom it gives you. Setting up illegal businesses, fighting your rivals, controlling politicians, evading the police and the tax assessors, running for mayor, bribing people, extorting, kidnapping, stealing, beating up unruly business owners, setting up ambushes, recruiting thugs, micromanaging your finances etc. So much fun stuff to do, and in such a beautiful 2D environment. I still remember realizing there was a complete list of all the people in the huge city, with their names and locations, which meant you could interact with most of them in one way or another. Pretty cool at its time.

So, has anyone else tried it? Did you enjoy it or maybe even gave up on it after trying it?

Here's a pretty accurate review: http://pc.ign.com/articles/160/160459p1.html

And a couple of screenshots:

 

[m_s0]

I played it a bit back in the day. Wasn't impressed, even though I loved the premise.

 

[SimpleComplexity]

I've played it and probably liked it but i forgot everything.
When i try to access that part of my memory there is nothing.

Edit: Now i actually remember something, i always hired the gangsters with the best firearms skill. And that Pizza Connection 2 is the far superior game.

 

[m_s0]

I looked up some vids on youtube and kinda want to play it again. The problem is, I won't have the time for at least a month. Damn you, Quilty

 

[Quilty]

I looked up some vids on youtube and kinda want to play it again. The problem is, I won't have the time for at least a month. Damn you, Quilty

:D

Don't give up on it as soon as you try it. The interface is a complete pain in the ass, but once you get over the initial hump, it's a joy.

 

[commie]

How does it compare to the second one?

 

[Serious_Business]

Interesting. I remember hearing about it back in the day. Will check it out, thanks

 

[Quilty]

How does it compare to the second one?

I hated the second one. Don't judge the first one based on its sequel, they don't really have much in common, apart from the lousy UI.

 

[Hoodoo]

Remember seeing this on the shelfs of video game stores as a kid. Never forgot about it but could never remember name.

Review makes it sound like a p decent game to, thanks

 

[zeitgeist]

I played it, still have the box lying around somewhere even, and it was generally decent, but there was one problem - the absolute lack of attachment to the gangsters you could hire. It somehow utterly failed to do what XCOM did, maybe it was because of the random generation, maybe because of the goofy portraits, I can't quite define it without going into in-depth analysis (and I don't remember enough of the game for that), but it all just felt so bland and generic and I couldn't bring myself to care about any of those little computer people at all.

I have a feeling that a game with similar mechanics would've worked much better in some other setting, maybe a scifi/cyberpunk setting like Syndicate, where it's expected that your agents are basically faceless drones.

 

[Quilty]

I agree, I never feel much connection with the gangsters, but I've never really thought of that as a flaw, though I understand how one might consider that a drawback. Go figure, I guess. In fact, I think I prefer the fact it's all so randomised and the little guys are totally expendable, since it adds to the atmosphere of the city.

Did the box come with any cool goodies? I only ever had the pirated version.

 

[Eyeball]

I remember this being hyped hugely back in the day - sadly, upon playing it, I was unimpressed.

There is an enormous amounts of options and supposed tactical depth here, tons of citizens to bribe/kill and lots of possible criminal acts to be carried out. Gangsters is a game with a great setting and tons of brilliant ideas.

But the entire game design simple shuts it down. You spend every "turn" giving orders to your gangsters at the start of the week, you then hit "go" and the week plays out and they carry out your orders. While initially interesting since the randomly generated town is huge and varied, the actual working week quickly becomes a matter of just setting the game to the highest speed setting and being bored while waiting for the turn to end and the next planning phase.

Gangsters would thus have been a ten times better game if it had been strictly turn-based and had cut out the entire streetview section in favour of a more streamlined UI. As it is, it tries to do too many things at once and fails miserably as a result, which is a shame, as you can clearly see the brilliant game it should have been through the cracks of bad gameplay direction.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

I agree, I never feel much connection with the gangsters, but I've never really thought of that as a flaw, though I understand how one might consider that a drawback. Go figure, I guess. In fact, I think I prefer the fact it's all so randomised and the little guys are totally expendable, since it adds to the atmosphere of the city.

Did the box come with any cool goodies? I only ever had the pirated version.

No. Just a rulebook as far as I remember.

The game was alright. I managed to find my way about the game, took over the city on my third go and haven't played it since, though it was difficult beating the opposition. I might give it a run again some day.

 

[Havoc]

I remember a similiar game to this... ISO, Real Time... more fast paced. Can't remember the name.

 

[Trash]

Played it but quickly grew tired of it for one reason alone. The moment your gangsters met a few cops the game seemed to turn into some firefight sim. Loved the premisis and really tried to like the game but the casualty rate alone seemed to make todays Mexico look tame in comparison. I probably did something wrong but I just grew tired of it.

 

[Dirk Diggler]

I remember a similiar game to this... ISO, Real Time... more fast paced. Can't remember the name.

Gangland?

 

[Havoc]

Older than Gangster. Iso... zoomed out. The city was almost every time in three sections (two for the players and one in the middle with higher risk/pay places).

 

[Havoc]

Found it. Legal Crime.

 

[Killya925]

Trying to bring all the hardcore fans together so hopefully we can make something happen.
m.reddit.com/r/GangstersOC

 

[Ovplain]

Crime Fighter > Gangsters.

 

[Kalin]

Gangsters is a truly great game, I still play it fairly often. Would be fun to play it in multiplayer, but I'm really not sure how to set that up. Game Rangah doesn't seem to cover it, for example.

Also never did figure out how to take screenshots in the game, I tried with some screen capture software and whatnot, but they all come out massively enriched.

 

[sser]

I wasn't aware people even tried to play this game in multiplayer. It would be pretty sweet to do like a PBEM of it via multiplayer since it does have the we-go system in place, assuming it uses PBEM. (I've got the disc for the game around here somewhere.)

It is one of my favorite games, though. Not flawless by any means, but does get a ton of stuff right. It's a shame the closest we've gotten to another strategy gangster game is the clunky Omerta.

 

[Borelli]

Liberal Crime Squad is a game in this vein, manage agents, do missions, get money, multiple ways of doing everything etc. It's weird that there are no more "agency management" games being produced.
As for the game itself, i found micromanagement to be the main reason i stopped playing it, it is easy at the beginning when your men are just expanding protection rackets, but when rival gangs start the shootout all your
plans for that week go to hell. A shame really because it had potential to be a really good game.

Crime Fighter > Gangsters.

This. So much this.

 

[trym88]

Ok I replayed it now after maybe 13 years or something and I'm disappointed because it has much potential but fucked it up.

My normal difficult run (patch 1.4):
First I tried to play a little passive, only recruiting top gangsters and slowly increasing my territory. After a few weeks the other gangs had a shitton of gangsters and extorted the whole map like crazy. From this point there was nothing I could do anymore. I tried to set up a team of 5 stars intimidation hoods and tried to claim/reclaim a few blocks but they couldn't do jackshit, while the other gangs are increasing their territory nonstop. I tried smashing up a few blocks in order to increase territory and it didn't work either. Basically nothing worked. So I was like, what the fuck? and started a new game.
This time I copied the strategy of my opponents. I recruited as fast as possible 80 gangsters and extorted the whole map instantely. From this point I was in the great position where my enemies couldn't do anything to get their territory back. I could even do nothing, sitting just in my base and my enemies still couldn't take any of my territory because I was the one with the biggest power in the city. I didn't even need to defend my territory with patrols and so on... As long as I'm the dominant one statisticwise, my enemies couldn't claim my territory and I will be at the top forever. As soon as I hit like 75% overall city power all gangs started a war against me. Of course they failed because I tripled the amount of their hoods and made like 50k+ each week from protection money. From this point it was piss easy to win the game. I just took half of my crew, explored the whole map to find out the offices of the gang leaders and then I sent out out like 40 hoods to torch all of their offices -> win.

This territory system is so bad, I couldn't believe it. There is basically no point in doing crimes like intimidation, kidnapping, raids, smash ups, assaults, ambushes and so on. They are entirely redundant. I dunno how it is on hard difficult but I guess the system is the same and the opponents are just more aggressive.

So in the end it's just a race for early dominance. As soon as you have the dominance (this happens already after 5-6 weeks), you can chill out and win the game with ease without ever worring about your territory, money and hoods again.