Thank you Kalypso Media for sending us this game to review!

I have seen and enjoyed my fair share of gangster movies.  My husband has never understood my family’s fascination with them.    If you enjoy classic mobster movies and simulation games, Omerta: City of Gangsters will be right up your alley.  

 You’re not exactly the Godfather in this game as your character doesn’t start off with much. You determine your gangster’s past and character stats by answering various questions.  Your responses will determine your mobster’s toughness, cunningness and likeability.  There are several scenarios and your character’s resources (and health conditions!) are reset at the beginning of each one.   What you do get to keep in every level is your party’s experience and members.  

The single player campaign slowly introduces and adds henchmen to hire.  Their daily wages and abilities vary.  After a few levels, they can learn new abilities like healing or stronger/more accurate attack moves.  The sandbox mode lets you choose your location, police and rival gang aggression levels and game difficulty level.  All of the mobsters are available for hire in this mode.  

No matter what mode you play, the backdrop is all the same.  The game takes place in the city of Atlanta in the 1920s. The tutorial will guide you through the basics of establishing breweries, distilleries, and speak easies for making and selling alcohol.  It will also recommend stealing cars to make jobs quicker to complete.  If you don’t want the police heat to increase, you can purchase cars at a dealership instead.  New cars are more reliable and don’t break down as much as stolen or used ones.  

In each mission you should seek out information on nearby buildings to see which ones are available for rent or purchase.  There are three building types and new construction buildings can only be purchased with clean money.  Most of your business will be conducted in dirty and sometimes counterfeited money.  You can establish hotels, casinos, pawn shops, pharmacies, Ponzi schemes, insurance companies and pizza joints.  If there is a rival business nearby the owner will lose favor with you and your business’ efficiency rating will drop.  

There are various ways you can handle your competition.  You can destroy their building with some firebombs.  Another option is to raid or steal from them and force them into bankruptcy. Alternatively, you can buy them out if you’re on good terms with the owner.  

If your headquarters is leveled up enough you can establish and hire accountants, lawyers and security companies.  Their services will improve your business efficiency, keep the cops off your tail and protect your buildings from rival gang attacks.  It doesn’t hurt to bribe cops, politicians, and actors to put a good word out for you.

 Most of the gameplay will be spent in the 3D overhead view of the city.  From here you can micromanage you buildings and issue orders to your henchmen.  Aside from looting buildings, there is a jobs menu where you can assign your crew to various liquor and gun jobs.  Sometimes the customers will haggle with you, and it’s important to keep everyone happy.  

Occasionally a raid may go south and the game switches to a battle mode.  In this mode you have to issue orders to your gangsters and have them attack, rescue hostages, and escape from danger. Units with healing abilities can only use their powers once per mission so be careful!  If a unit gets hurt, they can be healed at a clinic if you have one under your control.  If a henchman sustains three injuries they’ll die.  Sometimes a unit is captured and there will be a rescue mission available for them in the job menu.

Honestly, I enjoyed the overview game mode more than the battle system.  I was thankful that the battle system let me auto-resolve on non-story related battles.  I wish there was an option to speed up the game as it can drag on in both game modes.  Many people may find this boring, especially in multiplayer battles.  I did not find anyone online to play against.  

Unsurprisingly, like many mobster movies there is some language in this game.  While I did not hear any F bombs, lesser derogatory words and terms were used.  One of the henchmen would often say “worth going to hell for!” when I sent him on a mission.  Sad.

While Omerta-City of Gansters is entertaining for a little while, there’s a lot of waiting around that makes this game a tad boring at times.  I groaned whenever I had to do a battle sequence.    The base game will give you about fifteen hours of game time and there are several DLC expansions available that add more missions (noted with DLC on the map).  The gold edition of the game retails for $30 on Steam and that includes all of the DLC expansions while the Japanese Incentive expansion alone sells for $15.  There is one free DLC pack and the rest sell for $5 apiece. The main game is $20 which is half of its launch price.