Gangsters vs. Gangsters 2

First off, I would like to applaud Hothouse Creations for the creation of both of these games. If you have wanted to know what it is like to control a mafia crime family, now is your second chance with the recent release of Gangsters 2. Compared to the first Gangsters, with gameplay overwhelming at first, Gangsters 2 has made a definite improvement in several areas. It incorporates a story line that pulls you in from the beginning. Even though this story line is cliche when it comes to mafia stories, it still sets the mood for the levels you are about to embark on. The setting, you are the son of a crime boss who was ruthlessly gunned down by rival gang members. Living outside the city in which this took place, your character, Joey Bane, decides to avenge your fathers death and move back to the city to do so. And this is exactly what you do. But, you avenge his death in the first section of the first level. So killing your father's killers is not the goal of the entire game. I won't get into too many details regarding other goals of the game, as their are too many, but you will soon be involved in taking over businesses, then running illegal businesses out of them. Making and shipping moonshine to other cities, doing a driveby or twelve, stealing cars, bribing cops, breaking out fellow gangsters from jail, and so on.

Compared to the first one their are definitely some advantages to Gangsters 2. The planning strategy is better, as their is no beginning of the week to do all your planning. You plan as you go, and this is an advantage to the game control. In the first one if you sent a team to rob a bank, than that's all that they did, rob the bank then go back to headquarters. This is assuming you didn't instruct them to do anything else. But if in the middle of that week you wanted them to do another job, you had to wait until the beginning of the following week to give them the order. The second installment of Gangsters solved this problem. As I stated before, you give them orders whenever you like. The planning stage is ongoing. In addition, Gangsters 2 has day and night, and various weather conditions. A definite improvement over the first Gangsters that only adds to the realism that is already apparent. Part 2 makes it alot easier to get a grasp on the gameplay. The tutorial is informative and gives you a good amount of information to get you started.

Now, the only downfall of Gangsters 2, at least in this writer's opinion. Multiplayer is far weaker than in the first Gangsters. If you have played the first one, you know that the multiplayer was very much like the single player version with the exception that the other players are your enemies, or allies, depending on how you chose to play. You could run illegal businesses, be chased by the police, and otherwise have a good law breaking experience, very realistic. You could even co-op with a friend and fight off other computer controlled gangs. In the second one, their are no computer controlled gangs in multiplayer, so their is no point in doing co-op unless you have more than two players, which isn't always possible. Their are no cops to chase you, cutting down the realism another notch. You can buy businesses, but turning it into a brothel, or any other illegal business is not possible. Basically the goal of multiplayer is to kill, kill, kill. Even though the designers of the game give you the illusion that you can select a scenario, it comes down to who can kill who the quickest. If I hope for a patch that would solve these multiplayer issues, would I be waiting for hell to freeze over, probably, but I can certainly keep my fingers crossed.

I have only touched on the surface of this game. Their is much more to it than I had the chance to write about. I loved Gangsters, and I enjoy playing Gangsters 2 even more, with the exception of multiplayer. Who knows, maybe it will grow on me eventually. Would I recommend this game to players who liked the first one, definitely. Would I recommend this game to players who haven't played the first one, absolutely. Would I recommend this game to those who only played multiplayer on the first one, not yet I wouldn't, but give it some time. Even Hothouse Creations can make mistakes. But then again, I am only one opinion.

If you have a question or response to this article please feel free to email me at wusthof@hotmail.com