When I first saw the concept of Gangsters 2, I was astonished. It was simply a great idea for a game, the setting of a pre-depression America where gambling and drinking were illegal and gangs and fighting were rife, with you acting as an up and coming gang leader who must use violence and prosperity from business to take out your foes. However, the game itself was let down by some major flaws...
Despite being a few years old now, this game is not lacking in terms of the graphics. The diverse, isometric layout makes for a very varied and realistic city scape. But the time does let it down slightly, with explosions and vehicles being an area of improvement.
Though the soundtrack captures some of the realism of this particular time period, it is, however, limited to only sound effects, lines of dialog, weather effects and small music bursts reflecting the currant situation, lasting only a few seconds. There is no constant background music, which is certainly something that could have been implemented.
This area is the one that completely destroys this game. The most perfect concept that you could really think of and the programmers killed it off. This game has some of the worst AI you will ever see. Period. On foot, your men will run to your enemy when you tell them to, but getting away is a different story. They will turn around and return to fire or you might just completely lose control of them and the gangsters will just run off in some random direction from where you want them to go. Even passing an enemy will flare off this situation and creates utter irritation. Cars are even worse. Control is simply non-existent. If you sent some men over to the other side of the city in a car and they cross an enemy, you won't see them at their target location for some time. They will continuously move back and forth down the road with the enemy, only shooting at them rarely. Parking is also bad. Spots could be far away from the place you want to go, these men are gangsters, yet they will only park in a legal space.
The game itself is complicated and though it does offer a tutorial, an improvement from the first game, it tells you nothing except the most easy thing to do in the game, select people and click on an enemy. It tells nothing of the major aspect of business, bribery and other key areas important to survival in this game.
Though the campaign is long, there is nothing to do after you have finished. It is unlikely that other people will play it anymore over the internet and the skirmish system has been taken out, something that would have been a good recovery for the game. It is easy to simply lose interest after a while.
This is an example of a great shame in the gaming industry, where an excellent plan is produced but the creators aren't capable enough to pull it off with excellent graphics, programming, sound and replay value. I believe that if a remake of this game was done, which was modernized and improved, then it would prove to be extremely popular.
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