Gangs of London
SCEE
Playstation Portable

For once, I’m genuinely torn between loving and hating a game. None of this, “I kind of like it” or “this sucks” but more “god this can be frustrating but playing skittles is so much fun!”

Gangs of London: noun – The Getaway with poorer gameplay and enough mini-games to make you dizzy and vomit, similar to GTA only very nearly horrible.

I’ve been waiting for this game a while, and I was happy to finally grab a copy. The game is based around five London gangs looking to control the underworld, and who are happy to bloody their hands to take it. London is recreated in game, so it’s possible to drive to Big Ben and the Royal Palace, with large open environments, restricted by short missions and an unsatisfying free-roam system.

Stand out features from the outset (before I start ripping into GoL with my teeth and nails):

· Awesome cartoons, complete with fairly decent voice-overs (if slightly amusing), introduce and summarize missions and provide an amusing insight into the actions of each of the gangs.
· The music is wicked, with well-produced, original funky, club style soundtrack backing the game, which is awesome through headphones and provides a great feel.
· Mini-games are featured in abundance, with a version of ten-pin bowling called “Skittles”, darts, UK and US 8-ball and an arcade machine. These games are awesome fun, and could have been sold as Pub Games for PSP and still been successful!

Many elements of GoL feel icky and unpolished. The buildings in the free-roaming environment are flat, gray and uninteresting and citizens lack detail. Though some areas, such as car yards, appear to have extensive detail and look fresh, most of the landscape feels like a Hollywood cardboard studio, without the SFX.

Maneuvering is easy, shooting is easy, driving is easy – and all are boring. Shooting involves locking onto an enemy, then blasting away. Weapons fit into melee, shotgun, pistol, rifle and grenade categories and whilst there are a large variety of weapons, there may as well be a standard weapon for each category. Different pistols, rifles etc don’t feel unique and may as well be the same weapon. Grenades are especially clumsy.

Gang tactics are limited to sending your men to rush in and attack, hold off or follow. It’s possible to swap between different members, which only serves to switch weapons rather than characters.

Progression through GoL is made by completing missions in order, which are selected from the mission screen. Most missions are the same across the variety of different gangs, with only the opening voice-overs changed in the cartoon, there are some unique missions per gang, but nothing stands out. In many cases, you’ll be feeling de ja vu as you complete a mission you’ve already completed with a different gang, or essentially the same mission in a different building or down a different street. Missions are restricted to specific areas as well, so that running free in the streets doesn’t feel as satisfying, and on completion of the mission you’re pulled straight back into the stats and mission screen. Whilst this suits the portable medium, it still feels stunted and unfulfilling.

A huge number of game modes exist, including free-roam which is broken down into different sections, such as sightseeing, zombie-killing, riot control etc. These add a variety of different novelties to the game, which still feels restrictive as you can only carry one weapon at a time, for the entire free-roam session. Completing these mini-games also doesn’t provide a satisfactory reward and aren’t that enjoyable, often only clumsy or difficult.

The best features of Gangs of London are the game at the pub. Play two-player wireless darts, skittles (bowling), pool or arcade. The pool table physics and graphics are pretty decent, with fairly detailed controls allowing you to apply spin to the ball and make tricky shots. Darts and skittles are played using a swaying power-meter type control scheme, which still plays addictively well and lengthens the games lifespan substantially. The arcade game also provides a really challenging set of little games, requiring awkward coordination skills to control a snake, like that on a mobile phone, only with different objectives per level. It is the Pub that I’ve spent the most time in so far!

One of the coolest things about GoL, besides the mini-games, is the voice-over. Brutal cockney accents, poor Chinese and Indian mimics, reminiscent of the old Monkey series, even some Russian spits are thrown in. They’re all awesome! Good and bad, they provide many entertaining moments.

I really wanted to enjoy every bit of this game, but it’s hard when it feels so unpolished, restrictive and clumsy. If you want to waste away a few hours playing addictive little mini-games this is awesome, if you’ve run out of things to do in GTA: Liberty City then consider trying. Really though, Gangs of London simply falls short of hype, bites the curb and needs new denchers.