Gangs of London

Written by Matt Swider  on March 14, 2007

Review: The leader of Kane looks like Martin Scorsese, but this is no Martin Scorsese story.

Tweet

Comments

Gangs of London isn't a direct follow-up to The Getaway or its sequel Black Monday, but those two PS2 titles have a lot in common with this PlayStation Portable game. It's developed by the same studio, boasts the same impressive London environments, features the same London underworld theme and, unfortunately, contains the same type of uninspiring and unoriginal gameplay. The repetitiveness of its missions cause the remarkably recreated 25-square miles of London streets' story mode to pale in comparison to the light-on-presentation, heavy-on-fun pub mini-games included by Team SOHO. These quick diversions are the highlight, but not the reason people buy a game like this and not reason enough to spend $40 even if they do like them.



Story mode features five separate gangs that control neighboring London boroughs. There are the respected cockney criminals of Kane, the lethal Jamaican crew of EC2, the Pakistani brothers of Talwar, the insidious Russians comrades of Zakharov and the powerful Chinese mobsters of Water Dragon. Each playable gangster group has a weak story told in stylized comic book form before each mission. The presentation of these plot sequences is great with detailed still drawings and accent-filled dialogue. The problem is that like the missions, the script often repeats and is uneventful.

The 60-plus missions in each campaign begin as soon as these dull story scenes end. They mostly take the form of on-foot shooting, driving or stealth gameplay, which go toward the ultimate goal of knocking heads off of rival gangs and expanding territory. With so many levels and so few ways of play, the story mode seems shallow after a dozen missions in. To make matters worse, each lasts just three to five minutes on average. That's a positive for portable gamers on the go, but only serves to make them realize that the entire game quickly repeats itself many, many times over.

It seems as if better thought was put into the game's extras rather than its story mode. While the main game touts an impressive London landscape, the graphically inferior Gang Battle and the Pub Games are the real sights to see in this London recreation. Gang Battle acts as a strategy game in which players take control of one of the five gang territories and attempt to amass enough men to invade and occupy the entire map. Essentially, this is the same objective as the story mode, but it doesn't feature a dull storyline, repetitive missions or faulty controls. The multi-colored map overview isn't as pretty as the 3D engine that depicts real London streets, but at least this low-tech presentation has pretty enjoyable turn-based gameplay.

The Pub is a collection of parlor mini-games: darts, skittles, UK 8-ball, US 8-ball and an arcade Snakes spin-off. Skittles, for those who are questioning why the developer included a bite size candy mini-game, is really the nine-pin predecessor to bowling. Except for Gangs of London's take on Snakes, all of pub games take place in dank, lowlight environments in which you compete against a shady cast of characters. The 32-level Snakes clone is displayed in black-and-white and uses the D-Pad, the face buttons or both to control one or more snakes in maze-like levels. I found it to be the most addictive, which goes to show you that gameplay doesn't have to have elaborate settings as long as it's entertaining level after level.

The emerging theory that Gangs of London's gameplay is less fun if its graphics are more impressive is backed up by the game's free-roaming mode. Here, the mission stories are stripped and a seven of city-wide mini-games take its place. There's the sandbox exploration mode of fee drive, landmark photo taking opportunity of tourist, drive or die scenario of speed trap, Bobby-on-British night stick abuse of riot control, zombie rekilling action of Four Weeks Later and hackney cab test of The Knowledge. These seven free-roaming games provide moderate fun in short bursts, but do not necessarily add to the reason you should own Gangs of London.