Company of Crime

TLDR; an okey xcom-like game where you lead a small gang in 1960's UK, that falls short in gameplay Pros: + Pretty original, not much games like these out (combining crime mechanics + empire building + combat) + The combat is OK + Managing your own small-crime imperium seems like a really cool idea! + The style game is going for is fun, not too serious and not too jokey. Think about a dark comedy, with brawling but not too much violence Cons: - The gameplay loop seems to get a bit tedious and boring after a while (not enought things to do and cannot really do any micro managing for the crime empire) - The UI has some problems. Not the most intuitive, took a while to figure out where everything is. - The combat is just "ok" - Too much repetation in the missions. Different kinds of missions don't really feel any different. - No real story (There is a small story that plays behind the scenes - doesn't really catch attention) My overall feeling while playing this is that I'm almost having good fun, but not quite. Just falls short for me.

Company of Crime has a couple of really fun elements that you've not seen in any other games. These things give it something fresh and novel that sets it apart from games such as Omerta or Gangsters: Organised Crime that follow a similar theme. The focus on melee combat is quite fun, especially when your crew levels up and gets their diverse skills. The first time you see a character bash someone's head onto a surface, or kick someone in the nuts, you go "Oooohhh. ouch! *shudder*". These moves give it a lot of flavour, as does the overal presentation. What the game lacks in visual fidelity, it makes up in spades by sheer character. The campaign and its map feel decidedly boardgame and help drive you forward as you go from mission to mission. You generally return to locations a few times but where I feared that might make the maps go stale, I actually found it helped me strategize. Never once did I feel I visited a place too often. As you gain various levels of control, bonuses and new mission types unlock, adding to your arsenal of things that help you take over London's crime scene. There are a few small bugs but none that break the game or the immersion. There were a few moments where I wasn't sure what the game was requiring me to do. Fortunately the devs have been present in the forums today answering questions. Overall, a fresh take on a fun genre in a setting that has been under-served recently.

The latest patches have improved so many aspects of the game that many of the reviews here touch upon. The setting and atmosphere in this game is spot on. I am almost done with the criminal campaign and I have definitely enjoyed the game. The focus on melee combat can seem a bit dull at first, but the idea kind of grows on you after a while and it gets more diverse when leveling up the different characters and facing new enemies. There will be different locations, surprise events and story missions that keep the game interesting. Dealing with civilians does get easy and safe/boring, but it's a nice change between the more dangerous assignments. Managing the heat is the real enemy at the start of the game. I once lost to a heat emergency situation, but loading up the game I was able to just save myself in the given timeframe. I personally like to take my time in these kinds of games and not worry about a forced time constraints or catastrophic events etc. (XCOM, Mechanicus for example). Once I've got the hang of the heat system I was able to take my time with taking control of one district at a time, and especially later in the game even take risks and be a bit more reckless if I wanted to. After reading most reviews after launch I was not sure what to expect, but the game really grasped me. It's not perfect, but the developers have clearly improved some key areas based on player feedback. If you are interested in at least the setting, turn-based combat or both I would definitely recommend giving it a try.

Sometimes at the end of the day, when you need to talk about a game you'd recommend to someone, there are situations where you won't say it's a "good" game, or that it's a particular pleasure to play, but you recommend the game because, for all its flaws and shortcomings, it has a spark. It has something that among the rest, makes it unique and enjoyable. Such is the case for Company of Crime. A game set in London of the 60s, with a focus of gang wars and a strong influence from modern X-COMs, and to some extend Phantom Doctrine, has something to seduce. And indeed, the ambiance is there. The music, the clothes, the environnement. It's all there. Yet, the game is, well, it's janky. There is no hiding it, there are a bunch of bugs, some of with I had the dubious honor of helping to fix, but when you consider only 2 persons did all the QA, and the game was made by a very small team, you need to understand where you're going. It is very much a game to get in the 15 euros or less, as that's overall the value of such a game. It's not big budget game, and what it delivers, I'm afraid to say, can't possibly compete with a juggernaut like Firaxis backed by the greedy bastards at 2K("2K, you love it, we ruin it!"). The core loop is repetitive fast, the enemies not varied, and while the heavy melee focused combat feels fresh and in some aspect reminds a bit of Into the Breach by some aspect(positioning and use of your skills to control the battlefield are key, and can lead to nice combos), at the end of the day, it won't be something able to keep you hooked for too long, which is a bit of a shame. Yet there is fun to be found, the simple pleasure of throwing opponents over tables, hitting them with bottles and ashtrays, holding them while an other of your character goes to town on their head with a hammer while a Shaft-like music is playing... In that I feel like the experience is pretty unique for a turn by turn game. I want to give a special mention to the developers behind the game too. Since release, they were very present. Asking all people leaving negative reviews to tell them where they failed, and how to make the game better. Answering to question and bug reports, fixing said bugs. A year after release, they are still there, and they are pretty approachable. I appreciate that a lot, the courage to face people being very harsh with their game, and the will to constantly improve, and the effort to give themselves time to really stay in contact with the players via the Steam forums, while others companies will either ignore you, or try the predatory system to force you to come to their forum/discord server/website, in the hope to control their "communities" for future profits, and to also control their voices and opinions I'm recommending this game the same way I recommended The Bureau, despite the fact they have shortcomings, they are games with soul, which contain the embers of greatness and what could have been.

There are currently around a million hex-based tactics games created by independent studios. Fortunately, [b][i]Company of Crime[/i][/b] is the rare tactical game of distinction, proving that there are still new ideas in this crowded genre. In [b][i]Company of Crime[/i][/b] you play as a couple of British lowlives in the mid 60s. The music is groovy. The atmosphere is filthy. You send your gangsters out on missions across a map of London and watch the timer tick, while managing resources like money and respect. But then a mission begins and you zoom in on the tactical map. What your characters can actually do in a tactical combat game is pretty tricky. Even though XCOM is the game that defines this genre today, you actually have a pretty wide range of things you can do in combat. Depending on the character, you might be able to wrestle, throw, subdue, or emotionally manipulate your targets. Not only can you change the positioning of the enemy, but yours is also very important. Because depending on where you are, you may also have access to improvised weapons like chairs, bottles or even walls. Unfortunately, the strategic layer leaves quite a bit to be desired. It's functional, but less inspired than combat. You assign your guys to different places on the London map, then you… wait. It would be nice if there were some exciting strategic decisions. We should also be talking about the other feature in the game, which is that you play not only as thieves, but also as police. It didn't drastically change the gameplay, but functionally looks like a second campaign. Overall, this is an original twist on the XCOM-style of strategy that lets you experience both sides of the 60’s London crime scene. [b]THE GOOD[/b] - Groovy 60s style - Great tactical fights - Melee-focused combat is fun - Different classes [b]THE BAD[/b] - Tedious strategic gameplay - Graphics are a bit blurry - Combat is too repetitive [h1]7/10[/h1] DISASTER | BAD | MEDIOCRE | OKAY | [b][u]GOOD[/u][/b] | GREAT | AMAZING | MASTERPIECE [quote] If you like this review, then please consider giving it a thumbs up. I've also reviewed other games that you might find interesting. If so please follow [u][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/27418263/] Top of the Chart.[/url][/u] Reviewed on: Win10 Home 64-bit, Intel i5-11600K, GeForce RTX 3060 Ti 8GB TUF, 32GB DDR4-3600 RAM, 2 x Kingston NV1 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD, Internet Broadband 300/50 Mbit[/quote]

Played it on release. It was terrible, not fun and poorly optimized. I've waited several months to see if anything was fixed and it doesnt look like there have been any significant updates.

Criminals playthrough... and all I can say is... this game is annoying. [strike] A major bug is currently in the game as of release where arrested crew members disappear after they are released from jail. They are not added back to your crew. [/strike] EDIT: ^ This has been pointed out as intended. See @platypus developer response. Also, they way the police are implemented as the criminals is frustrating. There is no end to police once they start rushing your encounter and more spawn practically every other turn. In theory that means you have to finish your task and escape while the cops are chasing you.... in practice it means if you don't complete the mission in 4 turns you're screwed. Not fun. I also don't like how opportunity attacks are 'per adjacent square' instead of once per player. This means if you have a character walk through the 'Fog of War' and there was an enemy an another side of a door... it has 3 chances to hit you with opportunity attacks. It's also not self-evident which actions are free actions and which actions cost 2 action points. Until you learn which is which, you may find yourself wasting opportunities or wondering why your turn is over. My short summary thoughts: The concept is good but it feels very rough around the edges.

Overall good game mechanics and i love the idea...but it already became boring after the 5th more or less identical battle. After 2 hours gameplay i had the impression that i just did the same battle over and over again with little variations and for some reason, i dont expect much more variations.

This game should appeal to fans of the history of London-based criminal gangs in the Sixties, and act as a voyage of violent discovery for those who aren't. Regardless, it's the creation of a Finnish design studio and published by a Russian company and as such proves to be immense fun and both a parody and a mirror of those times. If you are uncertain as to the veracity of this game, I suggest you watch the film "Legend" with Tom Hardy playing BOTH Kray twins. If that doesn't put you in the mood to buy and play, then it's probably not for you. Here's a quote to get you going; "A paranoid schizophrenic walks into a bar...".

I played 20+ hours, just to give it a fair chance of review: If you are 50/50 on whether to purchase this, you might want to read this. What hooked me to buy this game was - Nice Art Style / Concept / Music - I love XCOM-like turn based game - Catharsis of being able beat up random people (GTA-like feeling) However the reality was - No game-play balance. Level progression and difficulty is non-existent. (basically nothing in the game ties in together) - Extremely repetitive. I really gave myself a chance to like this game, but it's really not very fun :( . How do you call this fun??? Not worth my money at all. I wish I can refund this.

It's definitely not great. It's repetitive, it's clearly underdeveloped (for example, all your recruits of the same class have exactly the same stats). But I still give it thumbs up for novel gameplay concepts. 1) Usually, you just kill your enemies. Here, you can do that, it's quicker and easier than beating them up. But when someone ends up in a morgue, it draws a lot more attention from the police than when some shmuck gets his teeth kicked in. So you have to keep that balance and take out your gun only when you really need to. 2) You have to choose between buying out businesses and racketeering them. Racketeering gives more money, especially if you beat up the owner once in a while, but owned businesses give various bonuses, like more crew members on a mission 3) In melee combat, you don't just exchange punches, you throw opponents over tables, slam them into walls, throw bottles at them, etc. It's fun. Overall, it's not a game I'd play to completion, but it's definitely worth its low price.

I've played four hours so far and enjoyed them. The graphics are great, music is cool and I love the theme and idea of the game. I've only unlocked the second area in the game so far and therefore have not progressed a huge amount. The game works fine as far as I can tell although there are is an annoying feature/bug/thing that needs to be altered or removed in my opinion. For example, I perfectly completed a mission and all my units were going towards the exit zone with no more objectives to complete. Guaranteed 100% perfect success. Suddenly a "we have left something behind" objective appeared and now we had to collect it. Well I am sorry but...we didn't actually leave anything behind, and now every single copper in the UK is somehow outside the building. Meaning we now have to slog all the way through it, up a flight of stairs and into a cupboard for this..."thing" we left behind without being arrested which is literally impossible because every single cop in the world is now surrounding us. So all your guys get arrested and it's game over basically for no reason...The other thing I hate is how ALL employees of businesses behave. You work at the dry cleaners with your boss and 2 other people...suddenly 4 men armed with guns and hammers charge in and demand your boss pays them protection money each week. What do you do? Say yes and they'll leave immediately OR valiantly charge into battle for your boss with your fists against people with guns and die? Other than that and the odd other personally irritating thing it's a fun game. Would be even more awesome with a few more features like a sandbox mode or character customization, even if it is just the ability to change characters nicknames etc.

Actually game has interesting styles mixture like crime empire building and xcom-like combat. But somehow things are just don't work for me. Heat mechanics are frustrating, combat is somehow unpredictable, story not engaging. Choosing between "yes" and "no" I would pick "meh" option.

I mean. It's interesting. I had this on my list for a while, but sadly it just really doesn't jive with me I guess. It was fun for the short time I played, but ... nothing near 30$ for in my own personal opinion? I really wish steam had a -Maybe- or -Undecided- option, cause that's really where I lie. Either way, final verdict is to pick it up when it's around 10$.

It's refreshing to play as the bad guys in a strategy game and the atmosphere of 60's London is great. It's fun to see your crime empire grow and your lvl1 crooks becoming bad-ass mobster bosses, that's how Mafia works.

The game is exceedingly dull. Like, incredibly dull. Typical gameplay loop: "Case" an area, if it doesn't auto succeed you go in and beat up some guys/shoot some guys. That's pretty much it. Oh there's a strategy layer, but it boils down to "make money so you dont go negative" or buy stuff from the black market. Once you've played the first 2 or 3 missions you understand the entirety of the game. It lacks all depth. It has some good things going for it, like a unique visual style, decent animations and a genuinely expansive combat system (think xcom's skill picking), but at the end of the day it just wasn't very fun. Everything feels incredibly slow, the missions are tedious, the 'plot' is blasé, and the writing is extraordinarily generic. The game feels like a mobile game ported to pc with a greedy price tag slapped on. Truthfully, I only tried it because I'm still waiting on Empire of Sin. I would have to give this one hard pass unless the game goes to 9.99 USD.

I've played this game for a while and I'm just getting into it. I love the music and atmosphere and the concept. The level design is pleasing. It is a game which makes me want more. More fighting styles, more character classes, more weapons and consumables with interesting effects. This is a good thing. Wanting more means that what we have is good :) I haven't even got into playing as the cops yet. I think I will be playing this game for a long time, not every day, but going back to it every few months. More please :)

Pick this game up on sale, 66%off just few month after release; I guess there is probably a reason... or few. 1) UI: Can't find inventory manual; no idea what weapons and items my gang have, no idea who has what until mission crew selection (even that, you can only see them one by one, instead of a list of crew and their equipment, stats, etc.) 2) AI&Strategy: For a strategy game, there is no strategy to your play; no need to pick which door to bust through, just go together, rush toward the nearest enemy, then move on the next. AI enemy will just rush at you straight forward, no strategy whatsoever. Started a game on the hardest setting, almost own two towns (owning businesses, not just extorted them), haven't lost a fight once. Also, see comment (5). 3) Bugs: For examples, Police raid my place. The policeman in the front is just fine, but then... two floating head rushed out from kitchen to attack me. Floating Heads! Sometime in mission crew selection page, your crews' hair & eyeglasses will be behind their heads. I'm not sure to laugh or feel sad that this is a released "complete" game. 4) Extremely Repetitive, absolutely no variation: Every mission is the same, go there, beat up everyone, then leave; Every one of them. Further, sometime you leave automatically after you beat up everyone, sometime you don't, even though police is not here yet. 5) Crew classes: the only difference is few skills and minor stats; it doesn't matter in game play, just move in group towards an isolated enemy, tie him/her up with one crew, then the rest go to town smashing him/her up. Repeat and rinse, see comment (2). Not Recommended.

Edited : Enjoying the melee loop, is very cool ...try not to kill anyone just "gently incapacitate" them is fresh and done well, crews of hip 60's-70's fashion nightmares is pleasing ...getting called a c**t the UK way is hilarious ....music loop is goovy, needs more tunes, haven't come to a grind yet and not even half way done ....oh, and art and UI aesthetics ...worth the price ....be nice if they flesh it out a bit more ...certainly worth a extra art music and mission dlc ....arguably best mafia 4x tactical game currently bug wise and stability and content complete wise, if it blows chunks at some point I will edit the edit .....

‘Ere, me old china, can I get a quick word in your shell-like? There’s this new game in town: Company of Crime. I’ve given it a bit of a butcher’s, so let’s get out yer drum and head dahn the cruiser, and I’ll fill you in. Right, that’s enough of that. I was going to write this entire thing in both dialect and Cockney rhyming slang, but looking out of the corners of my minces, I can already see the copy editors sharpening their knives. Company of Crime has given me enough virtual brutality that I don’t need to experience any in the real world. At least this time I have an excuse to use proper British spellings, although I’m sure they’ll edit those out too. Pillocks. So let’s quickly move onto the game itself. Company of Crime is a turn-based tactical combat-’em-up set in the swinging London of the 1960s. Guy Ritchie’s anachronistic XCOM, if you like, where instead of soldiers, cities, and aliens, we have gangsters, nightclubs, and coppers. It’s up to you whether you want to take the reins of a rising criminal empire or stamp out crime as an officer assigned to the Flying Squad. Wild thing Barring the style, which definitely deserves a lot of words, the most interesting part is the way it handles tactical combat. See, while this resembles XCOM in so many ways – the perspective, the interface, the fact that each unit has two action points per turn that you can use to move or attack – it differs from it hugely in one major respect. Gun combat isn’t a good idea. Which makes an awful lot of sense. If you’re playing as the rozzers, you want to arrest people so you can get evidence and information about other criminal hangouts. And if you’re a gangster, then using guns is a really good way to very quickly attract a very heavy and very angry police presence. Guns are, barring a few missions and events, a last resort. So melee combat is the order of the day. And to Company of Crime‘s credit, it handles this pretty well both in terms of aesthetics and mechanics. You don’t just “punch” people. You can grapple them, kick them in the bollocks, or poke them in the eyes. You can fling beer bottles at them, smash a chair over their head, or hurl them over a table. You can even hurl insults or threats to inflict different status effects. Units have a zone of control; enemies entering or leaving that trigger an attack of opportunity. But position matters a lot, so deciding whether to risk getting clobbered just to flank a foe is theoretically an interesting tactical decision. In the company of crime All of this culminates in some truly beautiful chaos. There’s a real sense of a ridiculous bar fight in most of these brawls, with bottles sailing through the air and people being flung left and right. Just, uh, in what’s almost stop-motion, considering the turn-based nature of the thing. This delightful visual spectacle extends even as far as the world map. Company of Crime has a strategy layer, too, where you pore over a map of London and plot out robberies, extortions, and takeover bids. One of my favourite little things about the game is the way this animates as time passes. Cups of tea appear, are drained, and then vanish. Ashtrays fill up with cigarette butts and are then emptied and replaced, all while a slightly tinny radio bangs out music with interruptions from a very 60s-ish DJ. It’s a tiny thing, but it evokes the period incredibly well. And… this is pretty much where I run out of good things to say about Company of Crime. The melee combat? Actually has some good, clever design elements. The style? Smashing and evocative. The gameplay? Er. Well. Um. It’s not bad, but it’s hard to call it anything more than mediocre. I can’t get no satisfaction The first and arguably biggest problem is the AI. It is, to put it mildly, unbelievably thick. In tactical combat, it will routinely make incredibly poor decisions that give you an advantage that you simply should not have. The AI won’t think twice about spending one action running through your zone of control (taking four hits in the process) and then its next action running back to where it was, taking twice as much damage. It’ll grapple — which does no damage and just disables a unit — when it’s the only unit around, and adjacent to three of yours that can retaliate. When it’s in a defensive position where only one of your units can reach it, it’ll Bull Rush into the center of the fray, opening itself up to immediate destruction. Putting it bluntly, Company of Crime‘s AI makes a lot of questionable decisions. There’s no real feeling of outsmarting a cunning opponent. Half the time, it’s more like extending your arm and waiting for the game to merrily charge into your fist. Worse, this means most of those abilities your units have are pointless. While a well-timed gouge or nut kick can be useful, it’ll almost never make or break a fight because you’re just not in that much danger. Abilities that reposition or lock down a foe can be helpful, but for the most part, you can happily hit “melee attack” over and over again until you win. Frankly criminal The strategy layer of Company of Crime doesn’t fare much better. You’re following a reasonably strict campaign with more regions of London opening up as you complete story missions, while taking over and extorting businesses along the way. Interestingly, every business also has a unique tactical map: no randomization here. If you pop into the Tiger pub to cause a bit of a ruckus, then it’ll have the same building layout as when you’re defending it from a police raid or performing an all-out robbery. It’s a neat idea and one that doesn’t work in practice because of the amount of repetition involved. See, you have Fear and Respect in each region, and you need these to take control of businesses and raise your profile. To get Fear and Respect, you do missions like robberies. Often three times in a row. On the same map. And then if you want to remove enemy control from that property, you do a Menace mission on that map. And then a Coerce Ownership mission to take it for yourself before someone else does. Resource management of money, influence, and police Heat play a role in the early game (extorting a place gets more resources, but ownership gets other bonuses) but by the middle of the campaign, you’re swimming in resources and can safely ignore any of these decisions. Bad moon rising And that’s without going into the bugs. One map has squares that seem to have invisible walls on them. There are maps (and some unit bugs) that impact mission weirdly and occasionally make them impossible to finish. There are ability interactions that don’t actually appear to work as intended. The police campaign avoids some of these issues and has its own neat mechanics in the overworld. You assign sergeants to patrol areas and raise safety, and to keep an eye out for criminal activity, which leads to tactical missions. It’s a more reactionary campaign that has less resource management, but it also feels like a bit of an afterthought and definitely not the focus of the game. Location descriptions are identical, even when it doesn’t make much sense. For instance, one pub is described as being disliked by Allie in both campaigns, even though Allie is one of the criminal campaign protagonists and barely appears in the police campaign. All of this makes Company of Crime feel like less than the sum of its parts. It’s not bad, despite what the last nine paragraphs might indicate. It’s just a game where — after a little while — you can mostly ignore the resources and mash Melee Attack to win. Company of Crime has some genuinely clever ideas and does some genuinely decent things, but they’re overshadowed by AI problems and massive amounts of repetition. If you love the setting or the idea of it, I daresay you’ll get a fair few hours of fun out of it. Just don’t expect the next great turn-based tactical strategy game.

Pros : - Love the gameplay. - Fun for play. - Management systems. Cons : - Some times still buggy. - There's no character customizations/creation. Score : 7.5/10

At firts glance it looks interesting, but it leaves me wondering if the game has a slow start.. where is the fun in doing the same stupid beat them up missions on repeat. No good story and no interesting cut screens to get me hooked. This is seemingly an organized crime managing game, but an hour in this is just a stupid repeat feast of random leveled tactical turnbased beat them ups. Game is shallow, uninteresting and dull. Don't think this is annything like Omerta or other games in the genre. I have absolutely no joy in this aspect of the game, and since this is the only aspect I encounter during my "in refund time". I want a refund! An absolute NO from me.

Enjoyed every minuet of game play. It is well worth the price. Add it to your collection you won't be sorry.

I really, really wanted to like this game, but it has some major balance and interface issues. I like the style, music, vibe, and overall idea - and I was hoping for something that would hold me over until a certain "Sin" based game comes out. However, this game has a couple problems. Firstly, in regards to interface, it's very easy to accidentally take the wrong action in combat because the interface tries to "autosuggest" where your character should be moving - often resulting in a character moving into someone's zone of control and giving them "attacks of opportunity" that can throw the fight and aren't needed. Even if you're incredibly careful, that will happen at least once. Secondly, some balance issues need to be fixed. Firstly, if any of your characters are arrested in the opening act, you're screwed. You can't get them out of jail yet, but you've got to continually pay their monthly wages. Next, there's problems with the constant police raids on your businesses. If you want to directly own an area, expect your businesses to be raided by police "all the freakin' time." These raids are particularly frustrating because you get 2 characters versus 6 cops - so it can be extremely difficult not to get them arrested. Lastly, mission objectives are not even at all clear. In the second act, you're supposed to beat up members of a rival gang. But it doesn't track your progress or tell you how many times you need to do it. So I was just left aimlessly attacking them, hoping that it would eventually lead to the next act and goal. However, that never happened, and I gave up before I got there. So, in essence, I feel like this game has a great concept behind it, but was released too soon. If they fix some of the many, many issues, then I think this could gradually become a better (and more playable) game.

I have almost 20 hours in this game and I am really enjoying it overall I prefer the police story as I have the most hours in that but I was enjoying the Criminal side I just find the dealing with police raids quite hard but overall this game is really fun and worth the buy if you like tactic games like xcom but with the mix of 1960s London and Sweeney vibes

Its great, a bit clunky and has a few graphical issues but the gameplay is very solid. I've enjoyed it greatly. I also really appreciate how "Knocked-out" characters are clearly still conscious and breathing, but are just in too much pain to get up. That is a fantastic attention to detail, as real life knock outs are rare and ussually fatal, while somebody having enough of a beating and going down and staying down is far more realistic.

I got this on a deep discount ($4.95 or so?) and so far it's been definitely worth it :) The best way I can describe it is Omerta with an English accent--and at this price it's well worth checking out :)

There's a lot I love about this game, and I think other people will like, if they like attention to detail. There is attention to a lot of things that really set the feel for the time period, so the game feels like a period piece. The music and the homage paid to 60s London is REALLY cool and I'm not aware of anyone doing something like that. The artwork is really beautiful too. The gameplay speaks for itself if you are a fan of games like xCom, I would call this the evolution of that genre. Highly recommended!

Expanding your criminal territory in London is a lot of fun. Hand-to-hand combat - nice change of pace for a while, later you can also use some firepower if you so desire, but watch your heat meter! Gotta try police campaign after first one, as well.

Dont buy this game. It has no depth, it has no variablility. It has poor graphics, poor writing, poor... well basically everything. I've played the same map on 4 different missions, with the same character models, and same positioning, and, well same everything. I'm pretty sure there are only 4 maps total for the entire game. There no uniqueness to the characters you choose. No uniqueness to your HQ. There's nothing that made this game stand out. I wish I had just stopped at 2 hours and requested a refund, but I wanted to give the game a chance. It was a mistake. I gave them my 30$, and now this game is going into the "Not going to play again " folder Wait for Empire of Sin. This is in NO way up to their ability that they showed with Fell Seal.

I dissapoint to this game. I like the concept, but the execution really really dissapoint me. There are no uniqueness on every job and every character, just 3 or 4 job with randomize visual. Still has bug on every planning mode. I get bored easily playing it just for 3 hours. If i can refund it, i will but my playtime has pass the policy. For me to play gangster strategy game maybe i can share you 2 game ( for me it's good) Omerta and Empire Of Sin. Even these 2 still has minus, i'd say it much better to play these 2 than this, really

Not great. Super repetitive missions. Some of the levels are super bottlenecked, ran into one where I had to knockout 19 cops to get to the exit, ended up jumping me from heat level 1 to heat level 5, shortly followed by emergency heat level. Bribing journalists can either give you influence or reduce heat but you can't choose which, would have been nice to choose what you're bribing the guy to do. The auto-resolve is also weird. It just seems to pop up sometimes instead of letting you manually do the mission. I will say that I enjoyed the music, though that's about it.

Edit (9/15/20): This is a revision from my original review. The Dev response may feel out of place now, as I've drastically altered the review. At release, I had originally given this game a not recommend, in large part due to its originally very rough nature at launch. The Devs have since gone through and fixed multiple things and appear to be having even more coming down the pipeline. I've updated my review to reflect my new stances. =The Good= * Super fun concept. Using an XCOM style system to run a criminal enterprise is great. The fact that there is a police campaign is cool too. * Enjoyable artistic design - The graphics suit the game and look pretty good for the price point. The music also matches the theme of the game well. * The story, while a bit sparse so far, is enjoyable from what I've seen. Little touches like the various rival gangs sending messages when you intrude on their turf all add a bit to the atmosphere. * The Police Campaign - Despite seeming to be a "secondary" campaign, the police campaign is actually a much tighter overall experience. Nearly all of your skills are useful at some point or another. There is a use to both melee and ranged attacks because weapon use isn't overly punished. The mission goals, while usually fairly similar, vary enough to change things up from time to time. It appears to be in much better overall condition than the criminal campaign. * The AI has seen much better improvements since the launch and are now semi-competent. They will and do use the full suite of skills available to them, although they still are a bit punch heavy. This has gone some of the way towards making debuffs more useful as well as making the arrival of the cops, while still a concern, no longer the mission ender it frequently once was. * Introduction of random loot from various missions gives you more of a chance to experiment with stuff and introduces a fun element of decision making in how greedy you want to attempt to be on a mission. It feels pretty good when you find a nice non-lethal weapon to help kit you crew out and give them a little more oomph than just fist fighting without having to resort to guns. * Finally, and in fact one of the things that most changed my mind is that the Devs are active both in communicating with the playerbase and are making good on their word that they're going to continue to polish the game. These updates have introduced a fair amount of good polish already, especially considering the speed they've gotten them out, and their descriptions of what else is coming down the pipeline gives me a lot more reason to believe the game will end in a good state. =The "Wait and See"= * There are are a decent number of UI hiccups. Tooltips that are wrong, item descriptions that are missing bits of text. None of these are gamebreakers, but it definitely needs a pass. For example, the heat reduction from buildings currently says its per month, but according to devs, it actually triggers per day. That's a pretty major difference in payout. * Formerly in my bad column, the Devs have commented that they now have a number of tweaks to the heat system incoming in updates. I'm waiting to see where that goes. * Movement UI. This is not something I personally have had a problem with, but a lot of people have commented that they've had issues with misclicks and the like. The devs have also commented they're touching up on this in a new patch. * Another issue I had brought up was the problem of the deadliness of weapons in combination with the "Do Not Kill" requirements negating the use of a lot of weapons as well as them overwriting the ability to use your punches for non-deadly finishing attacks. They've also promised a fix for this. =The Bad= * Influence still feels largely like a sort of pointless currency, but with the upcoming heat changes and the ability to pick what journalists do, it may yet come out balanced since you won't be getting forcefed lots of influence you don't have plans for yet. This is a very minor point though and may or may not be made irrelevant with the heat system changes. * Civilians still strike me as either just an annoyance or having some sort of mechanic to them that isn't well explained. I still feel like players should either be given more reason to care about them or for them to be removed. You only need to have your ability to leave a building blocked by a dumb civilian once or twice for it to just feel incredibly annoying, especially considering the already tight maps in many cases. * The UI is still a bit clunky in places or missing ease of information for certain things in game. For example, the ability to see what resources you have available to you now with the implementation of random loot would be nice, but there is no dedicated inventory screen. It can only be checked when equipping a crew. This hasn't become a dealbreaker for me yet in my time in the game, but I could see how it might depending on just how much equipment you end up gathering. All said and done, I'm actually incredibly impressed with how quickly they managed to turn around a game that had a lot of major flaws and change it into a pretty decent one and I'm looking forward to the implementation of the fixes they say they're working on now which should resolve most of my major concerns with the core gameplay loop.

Managing your own criminal campaign in London is awesome. Would enjoy guns as well though one wouldn't expect to see OP guns in the 60s UK. Winchester rifles or S&W revolvers might be cool to see. The concept is fantastic and fills a significant gap in the market. Additional and alternative features would be very nice like character customisation, training or maybe some casual stuff—just something to break up the repetitive fist fighting. But to be fair, it doesn't make the game incomplete or sketchy and it is somehow counterbalanced with the two rival campaigns. it's also interesting to see the same characters as their very own antagonists on opposing sides—another nice touch. The art style and music perfectly complement the vintage and kick ass vibes too (:

Awesome game. If you wanted a bit more from games like Cartel Tycoon or Omerta then this is the game. Wonderful flavor and enticing tutorial. Can't wait to see what else is in store now that my districts are expanding!

*the last update has sorted out the heat issue within the game much happier now thanks :) Loved this game the setting and characters are great. few reviews on slow start and that is true but it is just trying to let you get a grip of the basic mechanics, HEAT is a game killer for me have opened the 3rd and 4th regions now but cannot lower heat enough to even do any missions. The police raids all add to heat and there is no real way of lowering it without paying 100 to a journalist who may not even help actually lower it! There needs to be a way to use influence to i dunno blackmail a policeman into lowering your heat rating. Tbh ive read that they will be looking into giving a proper heat rating level and stuff in a coming patch so i hope this is addressed in that. IF the police raid fails i feel like this should lower your heat too (maybe even just a little?) as the press or higher up in the force wont want to come after you straight away again after failing so miserably. Considering this game has lots of drop into location beat up people leave levels... it baffles me that you cant do this to say a policemans house. Espionage seems to do nothing for me atm whether this is because i havent got anyone in prison i dont know but seems like you should be able to do this mission and say it leads you to blackmailing a policeman for less heat. BASICALLY THERE NEEDS TO ANOTHER WAY TO LOWER HEAT. and i get that this may be designed to slow/stop your progress but it seems like there is no real way to actually affect it other then journo and this has no real effect when your raided every five minutes even when not actually doing any other missions! Other then that i would recommend this game as i have thoroughly enjoyed the time ive spent on my criminal empire but feel like ive hit a brick wall. Will try the police campaign and see how that goes. All the best

Very linear and repetitive, no strategic depth at all. This is a game with a ton of potential, but sadly it still feels incredibly raw in its current state.

Definitely not to recommend. Idea of the Game is amazing, but the Game play is horrible. Everything in the Game feels a kind of random.

This is the first game ever I'll be asking for a refund before playing it. These clowns set the resolution at 2194x1234 which I've never seen before. And because of this resolution I cannot access the link to change the resolution in settings, therefore I can't access the whole screen. Update: Resolution problem's been fixed and the developer gifted me a key. To me it doesn't have the micromanagement that xcom has, what it does have is a wider variety of tactical choices, and it makes me laugh with the dialogue and sound effects (which is a big plus). What it also has (and most games of it's genre has) is that fickle hit/miss system. I had two operatives collar a civilian from behind and they both missed twice. Bloody frustrating. Once I did get to play it though, I found it's one of the better turn-based tactical games.

After about three hours you've seen everything the game has to offer. Not a lot of content, gets super repetitive.

Very linear and repetitive, no strategic depth at all. Interesting narrative settings though.

It's an okay game, but by no means can I recommend it getting it at full price. At an -85% discount for 3€? Absolutely.

Cool game so far, really good flavour to it and I can see myself pouring in a hell of a lot of time into it.

After ~2hrs of testing out the beginning parts of the game i really enjoy it so far! +Cool board game'ish map mechanics +Theme of the game (sooo many al capone US mafia games out there) +Voice acting +Knocking people out! Enjoyed the combat -UI was bit confusing at times but after some getting used to it was fine.

Played for 3 hours...I'd say it'd be worth it if I had paid about 5 dollars.

Really enjoying the tactical melee combat. I would play this over XCOM 2 any time.

Extremely short - no mission variety - repetitive

A buggy mess.

Horrible UI and gameplay, No flow and just BS AI

i was drinking beer when I bought it. bad mistake.