S&S Review: Omerta: City of Gangsters

Title: Omerta: City of Gangsters
Format: PC
Release Date: January 31, 2013
Publisher: Kalypso Media
Developer: Haemimont Games
Price: $39.99
ESRB Rating: T

Omerta: City of Gangsters is a tactical, turn based strategy game that features a lifelike representation of 1920's Atlantic City.  It's a pretty good concept, but the poor execution keeps this game from being great.


Story, Presentation, and Core Gameplay:
The game quickly throws you into Atlantic City, during the 1920's.  If you are a fan of Boardwalk Empire, then you might have a good idea of the time period the game takes place in.  You play as a young Sicilian, who has just arrived in the big city.  The story features all your classic recipes from all the classic gangster tales, but with that said, that doesn't mean that the game's narrative is anything interesting.  In fact, it's pretty lackluster.  You get all your standard cliches and concepts, as your main character strives to gain power in a corrupted city.  The voiceovers are solid, but none of them stand out.  You won't be getting any Ray Liotta and Robert Deniro type of performances, but that's not too surprising.  The game has some good music, and it's probably one of the only bright spots I could find.  It features a heavy jazz score, and it sounds really impressive with a good pair of headphones.  Too bad the rest of the presentation isn't as superb as the music, the visuals look dated and rough.  Even on a good PC, they visuals just won't impress you in the slightest.  The city itself isn't all that detailed, and the inside environments are littered with muddled textures.  When you talk about the game's gameplay, there really isn't one genre you can put the game under.

There's a lot of city management, like Tropico.  But there's also a lot of turn based combat like XCOM: Enemy Unknown.  Then when you also incorporate the many RPG elements found in the game, when you put all the these together, it really seems like the developers may have bit off a little more than they could chew.  When you first start off, you're greeted with a series of questions.  Depending on how you answer them, the game will reward you with a boost in a certain stat field, like +1 Cunning or +1 Smarts.  These attribute bonuses sound like a cool idea, but the game never feels like any go that matters.  It doesn't directly affect anything.  Throughout the game, you'll consistently be rewarded with points, but you never feel like your choices and stats have any weight to them.  A big part of the game deals with managing your territory in the city.  Upgrading your hideouts will improve your production, while opening up other business, or "premises," can enable new production.  Opening up illegal speakeasies will help you rake in the cash. The lack of any potential threat to your businesses really takes a lot of way from your management though, making it feel really incomplete.  Money is never really an issue because of this, and this makes paying your henchmen and bribing policemen to stay off your back incredibly easy.  The combat itself it as a mess as well, its supposed to be a tactical experience.  But the lack of a grid like map will have you clicking away at spaces hoping your character can move to it.  When it works, your characters use cover efficiently and well.  It is pretty cool seeing your band of thugs raid a warehouse, its just the execution that continues to hold it back.  Like I said, the concept is perfect.  It just seems like the game could've benefited from another 6 months of development.  There is multiplayer, but it suffers from the same problems found in the single player. You can play a couple of missions in cooperative play, and its actually pretty fun.  There's also a sandbox mode that doesn't actually feel like one at all.  You're confined to a small part of the town, and there really isn't that much to do but watch the money pile up.

Final Thoughts:
Omerta: City of Gangsters tries to blend a lot of different elements into one game, but ends up making a title that doesn't feel complete.  The music just so happens to be the only bright spot in the presentation, and the gameplay is rife with bugs.  Hopefully the developers get some patches out their soon, I'm sure a few big patches can easily pick the game up.  If you're interested, I would actually suggest trying it out, especially if you're a big tactical turn based action fan, otherwise just skip it.

S&S Rating: 5.5/10

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