Game Review: Playfish's Gangster City Introduces Narrative And Special Effects to Facebook Games

• Title: Gangster City
• Genres: Strategy, Role Playing Game, Social
• Game Developer: Playfish
• Game Publisher: Electronic Arts
• Released: January 2010

Summary:

Gangster City is a great Facebook game that introduces several innovative gameplay and presentation elements to the mob wars game model.

Pros:

Enjoyable, engaging cinematic story scenes with real voice acting. Atmospheric music. Memorable characters. Fun, exciting ‘quest’ sequences. Smart leveling system. Well defined ‘family’ system.

Cons:

Can be difficult to find your next ‘quest’. Would like to see ability to make strategic decisions within quests. UI can be a bit confusing at times.

Full Review:

Gameplay:

Gangster City is a game where your goal is to rise through a city’s mafia underbelly with the goal of eventually gaining power, money and an empire to call your own. The story element also rears itself in that you’re out to find out who killed your father, and exact revenge on them. The game starts in Little Ireland, and you get your first jobs from a bar owner and his daughter. As you do missions, you gain experience which gives you additional strength to complete more difficult missions. You also lose “energy”, which is slowly regenerated every few hours. This makes the game a 10 minute experience that you check in on at various times during the day.

You also need to build up the size of your ‘family’, by finding friends who play the game and adding them as key members (Consiglieri, for instance) in your family. The more members you have the more bonuses you get in missions and the more missions you can do at once: one of Gangster City’s innovations is that you can send your family members out to do quests for you. The other members also receive bonuses for doing these quests.

As you gain experience and unlock new missions, you also acquire new items and weapons that you can use. As you progress, you also unlock new locations on a huge city map. Each location provides new opportunities for quests and story scenes, so the player really has several incentives to continue growing in Gangster City. That said, if you want to accelerate your pace, you have the option to head to the black market, where you can buy Playfish cash and subsequently buy energy packs, allowing you to continue doing missions to your heart’s content. The idea of Playfish Cash is interesting, and buying some of that cash means that you can use it across Playfish’s growing number of quality titles. 1 Playfish Dollar is worth about $0.20 and 2 Playfish Dollars can buy you an energy refill in Gangster City.

The other element of gameplay is purchasing locations on the map to own. In the first few minutes, you can buy a hotel that earns you significantly more than its cost, and this becomes a steady stream of revenue for any player. You must order a friend to secure your landmark to earn that money, though.

Presentation:

The presentation is excellent in Gangster City. From the high-production animations to great characters to the sound and music, this feels like a next-generation Facebook game. The story is fully voice acted, and brings you into the tale in a unique way, different from other Facebook games. The battle scenes are incredible and really bring you into the world, and have a slick diagonal UI which lets you see your character’s attack results with ease.
The UI is great for the most part, as Playfish has mastered using big, clear icons and everything that is doable is clearly marked. There are definitely times where I wished to see a home button that would take me back to the home page, instead of having to click “exit”, but that wasn’t a big deal. I have a feeling that this will be something they clear up soon. Another area of interest is the map, which is gigantic and most of it is unlocked when you start. This reminded me of the console-based Grand Theft Auto game and really made me feel like there was a lot to explore.

Lasting Appeal:

The game’s leveling structure means that there is a huge lasting appeal for the game. By slowly gaining notoriety and buying buildings, the players feels like the whole city can eventually be conquered, and the game won’t feel complete until that’s done. In addition, the great family mode means that all players will be looking to expand and include their friends as part of their ultimate team. You can also rob competing families, so the competitive element is high.

Sociability:

The social side of the game isn’t too strong, other than the fact that you can employ your friends in your click or rob from them. That said, because robbing and engaging with fellow players costs your energy, it’s something that is done with purpose, and plotting to steal money from the right enemy can be an extremely rewarding feeling.