This is an ongoing list where I attempt to play, complete, and then rank every video game in the known universe to determine whether it is the greatest game of all time.
It may not come up a lot during these write-ups (at least not yet) but the tactical turn based genre, quickly became my favorite genre as I aged in gaming. I used this analogy before, but it combines my love of playing board games and video games. I like being able to see where all my pieces are on the board, what they are doing, what they can do, and then planning each move to get the best result possible. So, it doesn't take much to get me excited about playing a game in this genre as long as it looks remotely competent.
Empire of Sin has a laundry list of things that I, personally, look for in this genre. We will touch on most of these in the following, but as a checklist this ticks a lot of boxes for me.
- Named characters w/ permadeath
- Different stats and abilities to make the loss of a character potentially meaningful
- Equipment and weapon differences
- Robust out of combat content
- Potential re-playability (in this case of different main characters)
Just looking at the checklist I was sold that this was going to be an awesome experience, so lets jump in.
For those unaware, Empire of Sin is a hybrid game. It is part gang management sim, and then for combat it is tactically turn based combat similar to Xcom. You play as any number of gangsters (some real/some fake) that is attempting to take over the city of Chicago in the 20s. However, it just so happens that there are other gangs all vying for the top spot. In order to succeed you will not only have to defeat your rival gangs, but also deal with the police, internal politics, and an ever changing Chicago.
Empire of Sin is a systems heavy game, and there is a lot going on here. You are in the era of speakeasys and bathtub booze, so not only do you have to setup those rackets, but spend time working with them to get them just right. You can own 5 different types of rackets, and they all play off each other in some fun ways. Breweries supply booze to other business, bringing in more money based on the quality of booze being made. In addition you can create speakeasies, brothels, casinos, and hotels that each come with their own set of perks. Each brings in a variety of different pros and cons to your empire and managing them all is a big part of the game. Individual locations (not just the type) can all be upgraded in multiple different categories that make that business everything from more profitable, to better protected, to even better at hiding from the cops, and when you first start of, you will get to know personally as you are figuring out the game. You see, these locations are not only places that your rivals could attack if they so choose, but if you make enemies with the cops, or draw too much attention to yourself could get raided by the cops as well. When money is tight it can be a real push and pull about which you value more and what you are willing to let slide.
On top of managing your business you will have to manage your cronies as well. You posses a black book of named gangsters that you can hire at any time assuming you meet their demands. Some gangsters want you to be a certain level of famous (points given for playing the game), others just want piles of cash, and others need you to fulfill other mission centric stuff, but once a gangster is hired you can either have them pal around with you as a raiding party, or dropped off at locations for defensive support, or even placed in charge of a neighborhood where they give passive bonuses based on the character. Each gangster is a certain type of character, that specializes in different weapons, has different stats/abilities and has people they hate and love to work with that all factor into their life. Seems like a lot? well we aren't done. Leave a named gangster at a bar for too long, and they are more likely to become an alcoholic, at a brothel and they might pick up an STD, each comes with negative traits that you wont want to deal with for combat. On top of that, gangsters not in your party could become moles for other gangs and try to sabotage you. There is so much to constantly take in that it might feel like it is a game about spinning plates, but I promise you all of this stuff is just at the start of the game.
Eventually when you are good and ready, you can start to take over other rackets from other gangs or from no-name thugs and try to build your empire. This is when you then transition to the turn based combat. Each character is given a turn order and then you take turns until every character has acted and a new round starts. Similar to games of the genre, you basically get two actions, and can either move a far distance, move and shoot, or sometimes shoot and shoot. There is full and half-cover, bonuses for flanking enemies, and percentages to hit that, again, are pretty known in this genre. All things told, Empire of Sin doesn't really bring anything new to the table in terms of the combat. Sure there are unique abilities you haven't played with before, but if you were a pro at x-com then you can very quickly fit in here. Its a double-edged sword, because the combat plays pretty well, and something I found myself wanting to partake in more and more, but since Empire of Sin doesn't change up the formula it doesn't stand out from games that overall do it better. The one big thing to note here, is that battles either take place on the street of Chicago or in the buildings you are taking over/defending. There are not a lot of different maps here and they get cycled through a lot, this can be a huge slog when you are looking to wrap up this game and have to fight in the same building 3 times in a row. The game also loads into combat that you come in the front door when attacking, so depending on the map you could start all bunched up without cover while the enemies get turns before you. This can lead to a lot of starts of fights that are more harrowing then they should be, because of bad starting placement. Also, Grenades suck! Always try to kill any demolition soldier you find over any other, grenades due big damage and can be thrown from almost across the map.
Lets talk about some problems. First of all, the game received a fair bit of criticism for its launch which was pretty buggy and notably so. I played the game roughly 3-4 months later, and while most of the game played fine for me, there were still quite a few bugs. Some which did little to impact my game, but towards the late game I had the game freeze multiple times going into a battle because one of my characters fell through the floor. The only way out of that was to re-load an old save. I understand that a game with so many systems and stuff operating behind the scenes is going to have some hiccups now and again, but if you can't play a game because of bugs, I get it.
The second biggest issue I had was in terms of how this game is balanced. I played this game on normal with 10 other gangs all vying for Chicago, but at no point did I ever feel threatened by the other gangs. See the problem appears to be that every gang starts on equal footing, as opposed to you trying to take out an established kingpin, and the computer just seems to be either too slow, or too focused on the wrong areas of this game. By what I would consider the midpoint of the game, I had about 30 rackets, was making $1000 a week and producing about 100 barrels of alcohol. The second place gang, had 10ish rackets, was making about $200 a week and producing 10-20 barrels of alcohol. This wasn't because I was putting the squeeze on them either, as I was off in my own world trying to not anger other gangs, this was their own doing from either fighting each other, or from their own incompetence. It got to a point where they were trying to bribe me, or make trades with me with amounts so low it would make me laugh. "Hey thanks for the offer of 10 booze a week, to protect you for 6 months, but I am making 10 times that without your help." However, I feel that the game wants you to be at their level for the whole time, because once I knew I was that far ahead, I just decided to try and wrap up the game. In addition to just difficulty balancing, the game has a money issue, there are gangsters that ask for upwards of 50K in order to hire them, but even when I was one of the last two gangs left, I never had more than 10K in my coffers. You get money so slowly that to save up and then waste that money for one character tells me that someone made a typo on their price. I could have saved up to get that person, but it would have been to drag the game out just for shits and giggles. I was already primed to win the game, I had an army waiting to take the final base, and buying the most expensive character wouldn't have done anything differently. Since money is earned weekly, I would have just had to sit there idle while the game plays in the background until I had enough to spend on him. Besides running from location to location, there isn't much to do outside of the menu when the timer is actually running, so you find yourself waiting a lot, just for the next payday.
I also feel like this game is missing its heart. One of the great things about X-com is that while the plot is the same, every time you play it you have individual stories that you can tell. You tell the story of how your sniper that you maxed out died because of a bad break, or how someone else saved the day. It was the reason to replay the game, was to create new moments or tell a new story. Despite how its built, I don't know if Empire of Sin has much re-playability. I created some stories from the characters I picked, but if I started over with a new mob boss, not much would change. The gangsters you can hire are always the same price, which means you probably will always start by buying from one of the first 3-4 since they are the cheapest. You might fight different gangs, but you will always build up in roughly the same way, because it is how you start to make money, and when you reach the apex and decide to win, you will have to slog through 10 more boss fights until everyone is dead in front of you. Sure you can pump up the difficulty and maybe this time you get different missions (something I forgot to mention, you also get little random missions throughout the game), but the payoff is always the same. I would like to believe that there should be a non-aggressive way to win the map, like a Civ game. At one point I had the Vice Kings down to one speakeasy and their base, they had nowhere to go and just wait to be crushed, I should be allowed to offer them X amount of dollars to come work for me. I take all their business, Dave Vice King (not his real name) becomes one of my lieutenants and he gets to live and maybe run all of the south loop for me. Instead the option was either to kill them, or call off the war to allow them an attempt to rebuild, only to fight them later. If the game is going to have such a large aspect of it focused on management, then let me get a management victory.
I don't want to sound negative, I enjoyed this game and gobbled it up, by playing roughly 30 hours of it in 3 weeks (which is a lot for me). I did enjoy most of the game and would be the first to say I want to see a sequel where maybe they learn from some of the missteps and make this a tighter experience. However, I was upset at the end of the game when it just turned into me walking my group from one boss hangout to the next in order to win the game. Perhaps I would have been challenged more at a higher difficulty, but at 20-30 hours for a single playthrough, its a big time investment to find out. I still think the game is worthwhile for those who like this genre, and there is a special feeling, when you have all the systems humming in your favor early on in the game. I think if this game had a different victory condition option, a randomizer for character costs/etc, and a shorter game option I could see myself firing it up more often, but alas it doesn't so it won't get the re-play it is after.
Is this game the Greatest game of all time: No
Where does it rank: My review might sound negative, but honestly I could have penned an even longer write-up because of all the things this game attempts to do, but overall I enjoyed the experience, I just wanted it to be so much more. I have this ranked as #13 out of 39 other games. It is below Psychonauts and above NBA 2k20.
Up Next: I've talked a lot about it, so lets just get the review of X-Com 2 out of the way
Anyone looking for it: here is the link to the list and more if you are interested in following along with me (this is not a self promotion). Here
Thanks for listening.
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