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Empire of Sin - Brenda and John Romero's turn-based Mafia strategy
- Thread starter LESS T_T
- Start date
Hellion
Arcane
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- Feb 5, 2013
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- 1,698
Metacritic's reviews seem to range from good to ok, but PCGamer's score ruins their average.
https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/empire-of-sin
https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/empire-of-sin
PCGamer's review was written by the same guy who gave Imperator Rome a 92% so take it with a grain of salt.
IHaveHugeNick
Arcane
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- Apr 5, 2015
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- 1,870,558
Judging by the reviews only alpha version is out.
Heroic Liberator
Arcane
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- Oct 2, 2018
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- 19,829
So this mess just released and it's meh at best:
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How does it compare with Omerta?
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Last edited:
IHaveHugeNick
Arcane
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- Apr 5, 2015
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- 1,870,558
John Romero is about to make you his bitch beta tester.
The real issue is that this title was pushed back to ensure more polish. Imagine the crap show they had on their hands initially? 
True Ukrainian
Arcane
Romero just managed to get released from the mobile game salt mines and he releases this. Keeping the daikatana spirit alive!
From reading the PCG review, game actually sounds like it will be good if/when the bugs are fixed, and when played at "not a chickenshit" difficulty.
sser
Arcane
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- Mar 10, 2011
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- 1,866,919
In a sense, it has potential. But there are bugs leaking out of every part of it and I only got a little ways outside the tutorial.
The UI especially needs work. Not sure why it requires you to scroll through stuff back and forth instead of presenting it all in one readable format. It's like everyone saw Civ4's awesome diplomacy web where you could see the state of numerous civs at a glance and thought, naw fuck that shit let's make it a 2005 iPod menu scroll. This is apparent literally at the character select which goes side to side with random characters.
Combat has some punch to it, but its primary competition here is Omerta which was a trainwreck. It could use a lot of work. Again, the UI is a mess.
The city stuff I haven't gotten into too far yet, the UI ESPECIALLY rears its head here. You'll see that in the pics. It seems you have a cadre of gangsters to keep around, but so far it seems mostly combat related. I really liked Gangsters' setup where you might hire a whole heap of muscle to help you move product, then hire guys with specialty skills to guard or run businesses, extort, kidnap, assassinate, etc. It felt like you had an actual empire with lieutenants and the like -- here they stratify that whole part of the game well beneath you. There's just faceless goons all over which you add more of through upgrades and the like. A bit of a shame.
I do like the loot stuff even if it's gamey.
The combat in many ways looks like Silent Storm which released in 2004 iirc. I kept having nostalgia flashbacks during animations, thinking bullets would start ricocheting and punching through walls, but unfortunately there's none of that. Aesthetically speaking it does have that 'punch' though as mentioned. Gun sounds are good, melee weapons have a disgusting crunch, and I quite like the combat music.
Some pics;
My first "execution" I don't even see as the game moves the camera through a wall
Example of a bug (and nightmare UI). I should have been able to shoot that guy, but it would never let me. But the dude in red was stuck in that pose for about 10mins, including on the city map, skirting around just like that.
Most intriguing part of the game is its engine which runs the city and management and battles all simultaneously. See below (as well as more UI confetti); I've no idea what any of those symbols mean. I mean the game seemingly tells you and also doesn't tell you cause they all moved the same regardless.
The UI especially needs work. Not sure why it requires you to scroll through stuff back and forth instead of presenting it all in one readable format. It's like everyone saw Civ4's awesome diplomacy web where you could see the state of numerous civs at a glance and thought, naw fuck that shit let's make it a 2005 iPod menu scroll. This is apparent literally at the character select which goes side to side with random characters.
Combat has some punch to it, but its primary competition here is Omerta which was a trainwreck. It could use a lot of work. Again, the UI is a mess.
The city stuff I haven't gotten into too far yet, the UI ESPECIALLY rears its head here. You'll see that in the pics. It seems you have a cadre of gangsters to keep around, but so far it seems mostly combat related. I really liked Gangsters' setup where you might hire a whole heap of muscle to help you move product, then hire guys with specialty skills to guard or run businesses, extort, kidnap, assassinate, etc. It felt like you had an actual empire with lieutenants and the like -- here they stratify that whole part of the game well beneath you. There's just faceless goons all over which you add more of through upgrades and the like. A bit of a shame.
I do like the loot stuff even if it's gamey.
The combat in many ways looks like Silent Storm which released in 2004 iirc. I kept having nostalgia flashbacks during animations, thinking bullets would start ricocheting and punching through walls, but unfortunately there's none of that. Aesthetically speaking it does have that 'punch' though as mentioned. Gun sounds are good, melee weapons have a disgusting crunch, and I quite like the combat music.
Some pics;
My first "execution" I don't even see as the game moves the camera through a wall
Example of a bug (and nightmare UI). I should have been able to shoot that guy, but it would never let me. But the dude in red was stuck in that pose for about 10mins, including on the city map, skirting around just like that.
Most intriguing part of the game is its engine which runs the city and management and battles all simultaneously. See below (as well as more UI confetti); I've no idea what any of those symbols mean. I mean the game seemingly tells you and also doesn't tell you cause they all moved the same regardless.
Heroic Liberator
Arcane
- Joined
- Oct 2, 2018
- Messages
- 19,829
See:
Game is easy to cheese even when played on the harder difficulties and it's not a matter of bugs, but of bad design.
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then the alpha testers that will buy this will surely be paid... because it's alpha! and not a beta version and everybody knows the beta testers that buy a game at launch are not paid
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- Apr 24, 2015
- Messages
- 20,983
From the little that I saw there was 16-bit Nintendo graphics and effects of soy on unprotected body shown on that video.
- Joined
- Aug 8, 2017
- Messages
- 100
Frankly, I have to overall disagree and for a couple of reasons. To put any stock in something from 'pcgamer' boggles the mind. You couldn't find a bigger pile of queers anywhere, not even lacrymas closet. Seeing people take these things at face value from rank inferiors is disturbing.
Bugs. I played for several hours last night and didn't encounter any that I could perceive. Particularly in relation to pretty much every other 'release' this year, it is surprisingly smooth and playable. In fact, I would say that Romero showing some coding chops as it is smoother and faster then any other unity game from recent memory. It's a far cry from the cut and paste plugin monstrosities we've come to expect from the engine.
UI. Not sure the complaints there really. There's alot of information under the hood and to display and it's fairly concise and easy to access and look okay doing it. No, it's not year 2020 press B to continue level, it hearkens back to dos level information display and it's kind of welcome in my opinion. It reminded me of 1830s robber barons and pizza tycoon actually and thats a plus 1 where I'm from.
My disappointment comes simply from the fact that all the systems are in place to have actually made a serious and deep rpg which could have been a fresh take on the format. I don't know how it will shape up in the mid to end game but I did decide last night after my demo to give them money. It's not amazing but its definitely alright and better than many.
Bugs. I played for several hours last night and didn't encounter any that I could perceive. Particularly in relation to pretty much every other 'release' this year, it is surprisingly smooth and playable. In fact, I would say that Romero showing some coding chops as it is smoother and faster then any other unity game from recent memory. It's a far cry from the cut and paste plugin monstrosities we've come to expect from the engine.
UI. Not sure the complaints there really. There's alot of information under the hood and to display and it's fairly concise and easy to access and look okay doing it. No, it's not year 2020 press B to continue level, it hearkens back to dos level information display and it's kind of welcome in my opinion. It reminded me of 1830s robber barons and pizza tycoon actually and thats a plus 1 where I'm from.
My disappointment comes simply from the fact that all the systems are in place to have actually made a serious and deep rpg which could have been a fresh take on the format. I don't know how it will shape up in the mid to end game but I did decide last night after my demo to give them money. It's not amazing but its definitely alright and better than many.
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