This review contains spoilers
Omerta: City of Gangster is a “What’s the Rumpus?” simulator/mafia simulation turn-based tactical combat game developed by Haemimont Games and released for the PC and the Xbox 360. I don’t know anything about the development of this game as information seems to be slim to zilch but the developers had previously worked on Roman city-building games as well as taking charge of development of Tropicos 3-5. In fact, that’s how I originally got into this game was hearing about how the guys developed Tropico 3 & 4 and loving my time with those games as a young lad and loving some Italian mobster shit, I had picked it up for the 360 back in the day. I hadn’t played it much other than Sandboxing a bit here and there before I eventually dropped it because it didn’t really do it for me like Tropico did because you couldn’t even build your own cities. I still have it locked up somewhere, but I decided later on at some point to pick it up on Steam for dirt cheap and give it a try. After playing Empire of Sin last year and still getting hooked on random Boardwalk Empire and Sopranos clips, I figured I’d give it a spin and throw my thoughts out there to see if it held up for me or it didn’t.
The plot, like most simulation games, is often simple and this one is no different; though compared to Empire of Sin it’s a little bit more involved. You play as Boss D’Angelo, who immigrated to the United States during the Prohibition Era (for the youngin’s, they basically banned booze and like all capitalism, opportunities were made illegally) from Sicily and tries to create a better life for himself and his friends from the ground up. He first gets coerced into working for Louis Castaneda, a capo underneath top boss Danny Corsini. However you’re eventually betrayed by Louis, protecting Danny from any retaliation as Louis wants to become the top dog. Working under Corsini, things go well for D’Angelo…that is until your brother also immigrates over from Sicily and becomes a federal agent. At first he doesn’t know and things go swimmingly before tension erupts over the Boss’s underworld position. He puts pressure on everyone in the city, and Danny decides that your brother needs to go. Against the criminal code, you assassinate the hitmen going after your brother and another war goes on until Danny proceeds to die. Now you’re the top dog, and the feds are putting the heat on you hard; however eventually you outlast the federal cases til’ the end of Prohibition and you retire as a rich man with the relationship with your brother mended.
It’s a bit of a simple plot but also a little bit more involved, something I actually enjoyed out of it. I could see this being a part of a television series of some sort just LIKE Boardwalk Empire with all the key players in the game and that was nice. It’s here where I’ll also mention that the DLC plotlines for the most parts are one-offs that take place within the story except The Japanese Incentive, which takes place right during your time working under Louis and has to do with a partnership with the Yakuza and a love triangle between D’Angelo, Yakuza Boss Hikaro Eda and his wife Mikoto. This is a separate campaign and as close as I was to the end, I wasn’t able to beat it due to glitches involving enemy spawns on the map. Hopefully I’ll be able to go back one day and figure that out but for now the game is done.
Speaking of gameplay, what is it compared to something like Tropico 3 & 4? No, not in the slightest. Well kind of, I don’t 100 percent know how to explain it other than this: you won’t be building anything like you do in Tropico and picking where you want stuff. Basically, you’ll start by creating your mob boss, giving them a name and choosing from a couple of pre-set scenarios for their origins which can affect their main stats. If you’re playing in the main story you will always be Boss D’Angelo as addressed but spiritually you can be “Timmy Fuchs” or whatever you like. Then you get into the game and there will be two different modes: the overworld section and the turn based combat sections. The overworld section is honestly to me the best part of the game, it’s where you’ll manage your henchmen, upgrade them, buy businesses, trade alcohol, and all the interesting stuff. You won’t be able to build any business any place, you’ll get a specific set amount of buildings where you’ll be allowed to build things like “Joints”, smaller businesses you can build to establish anything from a higher fear or liked rating to dirty or clean money or other bonuses or construction sites where you get bigger businesses that you can build but cost more. You build more businesses and acquire more money, money which you can use to bribe local snitches and such to give you the details on the rest of the district piece by piece. Over time you can hire more men to send out on jobs in both the overworld and through the job menu, where you can send them on random missions to do a variety of stuff from buying/selling booze, guns, laundering money or special missions depending on the scenario. If you get too much heat on you depending on your activities, I oftentimes wasn’t too worried because I usually had enough money on me to bribe them a lot of time, or you could perhaps snitch on a rival joint (of which there are independent joints) and get the cops to go after them. It’s honestly a simple system that can’t be boiled down to a steam review, and some people fault the game for not being complex. I don’t care, I enjoy simplicity because sometimes I’m really not in the mood for something in-depth. I think the most that it gets difficult is when you’re fighting another gang and I was only able to do that on the DLC, and sending people to get a car to commit 40 drive-bys for the chance percent hope that they vacate the business so that I could take over is honestly kind of a pain in the ass. Actually what I’ll say is that compared to the base game, the DLC actually has a lot more quality of life improvements such as the ability to hire guards, some real competition, adding certain businesses and the like.
My real peeve with the game is the turn based combat, which to me I just don’t feel feels great personally. It’s the basic turn-based combat where you’ll fight mobsters or cops, take cover, throw grenades and the usual stuff. I guess my main thing about this is that it’s just kind of tedious and doesn’t really feel good, and oftentimes I can’t really pin down why. I’ve seen some reviewers say that it’s because the amount of times you miss is too high, friendly fire is too much, that it’s repetitive, etc. I can’t really say too much about this because it normally isn’t my genre, and there are a lot of games that kind of play like this and have been more highly rated. I can’t give you a specific reason why other than I agree with all the above, and for a casual and chill time I also used WeMod cheats. However, there’s a downside to this: from what I understand the game gets REALLY glitchy. There were a couple of times where I would have goons that wouldn’t spawn, or there would be 100 something goons AND the last couple wouldn’t spawn. I was able to evade this for the most part through sheer luck, turning off certain cheats like infinite turns, and not using the Boss and instead using his henchman (of which some of them just suck, and some of them are pretty solid). It perhaps could be related to certain stats but I’m unsure. However, speaking of stats, I believe this is where the stats from the character creator come into play, and depending on the combat scenarios you win or other factors you can level up your character and gain perks like higher critical chance, the ability to save movement points for the next turn, and the like. I guess I’m just not into this aspect of the game and that’s sad. Maybe I’m just not used to the older styles, but who knows?
The sound design is pretty solid, and I’ll start with the music because I feel it perfectly captures that high energy twenties Jazz music that fits the vibe. You’ll hear the main menu theme a lot more often than anything else, but wasn’t really bothered about it and consider it akin to Tropico’s constantly looping caribbean and salsa music, which was pretty catchy and filled in really well. However, these tracks don’t seem to have names so get used to seeing titles like “Track 1” if you’re trying to find something specific. I’m also not seeing who created the soundtrack as I can’t find a name other than “Jack Carver'' but that could be the guy hosting the Youtube videos and that’s it so I’m unsure. Either way, it’s solid and can capture both the high and low energy vibes pretty well. Another thing that fits pretty well is the voice acting, which pretty much everyone plays their parts well, especially the Italian guys which I can’t get enough of. However, I can’t really give voice acting credits because I can’t seem to find any of those either so to wrap up voice acting: it’s solid and oftentimes I would be repeating some of these lines back to great effect. Sound effects are solid too from the gunshots, the car horns, the ocean waves and the bells ringing from the storefronts that all add to it.
Graphically speaking the game is fine, it’s a 360 title so it’s not going to be the most high definition stuff and even compared to Empire of Sin it’s very much low poly, but more consistent in it’s design unlike EOS. The overworld where you actually control the action looks great from when you’re looking down on the world below and seeing everything unfold. I think if there were a graphical low point it would probably be when you actually get into your turn based tactical gameplay, where everything looks okay but a little bit on the worse side. I don’t want to trash it too much, I’m sure this game was made on a low budget so that doesn’t concern me. How is the atmosphere on the other hand? Well it certainly captures the 20s Atlantic City vibe with the buildings of old, the pictures representing the various people you encounter, the colors being more muted in the menu but a bit more on the darkish side when in the overworld. You’ll see real buildings like the Boardwalk itself or the Traymore Hotel though I haven’t ever been to Atlantic City so I can’t really say what really looks 100 percent to the T, but even if it wasn’t I still feel it would fit what Atlantic City’s vibe would actually be. Overall, I can’t really complain much about this, it looks fine and that’s perfectly well enough.
Haemimont Games would later go on to develop Tropico 5 before seemingly being dropped from that series entirely. They would go on to develop some titles that I would recognize, though only from quick glances such as the action RPG Victor Vran, city-builder Surviving Mars and finally the tactical RPG Jagged Alliance 3. I only heard about the Jagged Alliance games through others so I can’t say anything about the quality of any of these games. However Omerta was one of those games where as much as I would appreciate the ideas that it had going for it, and as much as I maybe need to shrink back my expectations, it still isn’t the mafia simulator game that I’m personally looking for which is something like Gangsters except remade and with some new elements. I like certain bits and pieces of what it has but overall, it’s a painfully simple game with a monotonous feeling turn based combat that I’m sure some will be satisfied with and others wouldn’t. I was mixed, preferring they didn’t have the turn based combat but what can you really do? If you’re in the mood for a mafia game like this, you have patience and there’s a sale I would say why not give it a try? Just keep in mind that it’s kinda okay and that in itself is also okay.
Links:
https://omerta-city-of-gangsters.fandom.com/wiki/Main_Page
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/OmertaCityOfGangsters
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MgG92ZUZBw&ab_channel=Canalabandonadob
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHEm0j-0XIJibXs7yPzAziLxme0wZCzy-
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
The plot, like most simulation games, is often simple and this one is no different; though compared to Empire of Sin it’s a little bit more involved. You play as Boss D’Angelo, who immigrated to the United States during the Prohibition Era (for the youngin’s, they basically banned booze and like all capitalism, opportunities were made illegally) from Sicily and tries to create a better life for himself and his friends from the ground up. He first gets coerced into working for Louis Castaneda, a capo underneath top boss Danny Corsini. However you’re eventually betrayed by Louis, protecting Danny from any retaliation as Louis wants to become the top dog. Working under Corsini, things go well for D’Angelo…that is until your brother also immigrates over from Sicily and becomes a federal agent. At first he doesn’t know and things go swimmingly before tension erupts over the Boss’s underworld position. He puts pressure on everyone in the city, and Danny decides that your brother needs to go. Against the criminal code, you assassinate the hitmen going after your brother and another war goes on until Danny proceeds to die. Now you’re the top dog, and the feds are putting the heat on you hard; however eventually you outlast the federal cases til’ the end of Prohibition and you retire as a rich man with the relationship with your brother mended.
It’s a bit of a simple plot but also a little bit more involved, something I actually enjoyed out of it. I could see this being a part of a television series of some sort just LIKE Boardwalk Empire with all the key players in the game and that was nice. It’s here where I’ll also mention that the DLC plotlines for the most parts are one-offs that take place within the story except The Japanese Incentive, which takes place right during your time working under Louis and has to do with a partnership with the Yakuza and a love triangle between D’Angelo, Yakuza Boss Hikaro Eda and his wife Mikoto. This is a separate campaign and as close as I was to the end, I wasn’t able to beat it due to glitches involving enemy spawns on the map. Hopefully I’ll be able to go back one day and figure that out but for now the game is done.
Speaking of gameplay, what is it compared to something like Tropico 3 & 4? No, not in the slightest. Well kind of, I don’t 100 percent know how to explain it other than this: you won’t be building anything like you do in Tropico and picking where you want stuff. Basically, you’ll start by creating your mob boss, giving them a name and choosing from a couple of pre-set scenarios for their origins which can affect their main stats. If you’re playing in the main story you will always be Boss D’Angelo as addressed but spiritually you can be “Timmy Fuchs” or whatever you like. Then you get into the game and there will be two different modes: the overworld section and the turn based combat sections. The overworld section is honestly to me the best part of the game, it’s where you’ll manage your henchmen, upgrade them, buy businesses, trade alcohol, and all the interesting stuff. You won’t be able to build any business any place, you’ll get a specific set amount of buildings where you’ll be allowed to build things like “Joints”, smaller businesses you can build to establish anything from a higher fear or liked rating to dirty or clean money or other bonuses or construction sites where you get bigger businesses that you can build but cost more. You build more businesses and acquire more money, money which you can use to bribe local snitches and such to give you the details on the rest of the district piece by piece. Over time you can hire more men to send out on jobs in both the overworld and through the job menu, where you can send them on random missions to do a variety of stuff from buying/selling booze, guns, laundering money or special missions depending on the scenario. If you get too much heat on you depending on your activities, I oftentimes wasn’t too worried because I usually had enough money on me to bribe them a lot of time, or you could perhaps snitch on a rival joint (of which there are independent joints) and get the cops to go after them. It’s honestly a simple system that can’t be boiled down to a steam review, and some people fault the game for not being complex. I don’t care, I enjoy simplicity because sometimes I’m really not in the mood for something in-depth. I think the most that it gets difficult is when you’re fighting another gang and I was only able to do that on the DLC, and sending people to get a car to commit 40 drive-bys for the chance percent hope that they vacate the business so that I could take over is honestly kind of a pain in the ass. Actually what I’ll say is that compared to the base game, the DLC actually has a lot more quality of life improvements such as the ability to hire guards, some real competition, adding certain businesses and the like.
My real peeve with the game is the turn based combat, which to me I just don’t feel feels great personally. It’s the basic turn-based combat where you’ll fight mobsters or cops, take cover, throw grenades and the usual stuff. I guess my main thing about this is that it’s just kind of tedious and doesn’t really feel good, and oftentimes I can’t really pin down why. I’ve seen some reviewers say that it’s because the amount of times you miss is too high, friendly fire is too much, that it’s repetitive, etc. I can’t really say too much about this because it normally isn’t my genre, and there are a lot of games that kind of play like this and have been more highly rated. I can’t give you a specific reason why other than I agree with all the above, and for a casual and chill time I also used WeMod cheats. However, there’s a downside to this: from what I understand the game gets REALLY glitchy. There were a couple of times where I would have goons that wouldn’t spawn, or there would be 100 something goons AND the last couple wouldn’t spawn. I was able to evade this for the most part through sheer luck, turning off certain cheats like infinite turns, and not using the Boss and instead using his henchman (of which some of them just suck, and some of them are pretty solid). It perhaps could be related to certain stats but I’m unsure. However, speaking of stats, I believe this is where the stats from the character creator come into play, and depending on the combat scenarios you win or other factors you can level up your character and gain perks like higher critical chance, the ability to save movement points for the next turn, and the like. I guess I’m just not into this aspect of the game and that’s sad. Maybe I’m just not used to the older styles, but who knows?
The sound design is pretty solid, and I’ll start with the music because I feel it perfectly captures that high energy twenties Jazz music that fits the vibe. You’ll hear the main menu theme a lot more often than anything else, but wasn’t really bothered about it and consider it akin to Tropico’s constantly looping caribbean and salsa music, which was pretty catchy and filled in really well. However, these tracks don’t seem to have names so get used to seeing titles like “Track 1” if you’re trying to find something specific. I’m also not seeing who created the soundtrack as I can’t find a name other than “Jack Carver'' but that could be the guy hosting the Youtube videos and that’s it so I’m unsure. Either way, it’s solid and can capture both the high and low energy vibes pretty well. Another thing that fits pretty well is the voice acting, which pretty much everyone plays their parts well, especially the Italian guys which I can’t get enough of. However, I can’t really give voice acting credits because I can’t seem to find any of those either so to wrap up voice acting: it’s solid and oftentimes I would be repeating some of these lines back to great effect. Sound effects are solid too from the gunshots, the car horns, the ocean waves and the bells ringing from the storefronts that all add to it.
Graphically speaking the game is fine, it’s a 360 title so it’s not going to be the most high definition stuff and even compared to Empire of Sin it’s very much low poly, but more consistent in it’s design unlike EOS. The overworld where you actually control the action looks great from when you’re looking down on the world below and seeing everything unfold. I think if there were a graphical low point it would probably be when you actually get into your turn based tactical gameplay, where everything looks okay but a little bit on the worse side. I don’t want to trash it too much, I’m sure this game was made on a low budget so that doesn’t concern me. How is the atmosphere on the other hand? Well it certainly captures the 20s Atlantic City vibe with the buildings of old, the pictures representing the various people you encounter, the colors being more muted in the menu but a bit more on the darkish side when in the overworld. You’ll see real buildings like the Boardwalk itself or the Traymore Hotel though I haven’t ever been to Atlantic City so I can’t really say what really looks 100 percent to the T, but even if it wasn’t I still feel it would fit what Atlantic City’s vibe would actually be. Overall, I can’t really complain much about this, it looks fine and that’s perfectly well enough.
Haemimont Games would later go on to develop Tropico 5 before seemingly being dropped from that series entirely. They would go on to develop some titles that I would recognize, though only from quick glances such as the action RPG Victor Vran, city-builder Surviving Mars and finally the tactical RPG Jagged Alliance 3. I only heard about the Jagged Alliance games through others so I can’t say anything about the quality of any of these games. However Omerta was one of those games where as much as I would appreciate the ideas that it had going for it, and as much as I maybe need to shrink back my expectations, it still isn’t the mafia simulator game that I’m personally looking for which is something like Gangsters except remade and with some new elements. I like certain bits and pieces of what it has but overall, it’s a painfully simple game with a monotonous feeling turn based combat that I’m sure some will be satisfied with and others wouldn’t. I was mixed, preferring they didn’t have the turn based combat but what can you really do? If you’re in the mood for a mafia game like this, you have patience and there’s a sale I would say why not give it a try? Just keep in mind that it’s kinda okay and that in itself is also okay.
Links:
https://omerta-city-of-gangsters.fandom.com/wiki/Main_Page
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/OmertaCityOfGangsters
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MgG92ZUZBw&ab_channel=Canalabandonadob
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHEm0j-0XIJibXs7yPzAziLxme0wZCzy-
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/