Gangsters 2

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.

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.

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!