Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Somewhere out there is an Omerta: City of Gangsters fan. He’s furiously whacking his F5 key with the butt of his Tommy gun, hoping that his favourite and only source for Omerta news, Craig “The Craig” Pearson, will fearlessly risk breaking the code and write something about it. Stop putting a beating on it, Jeff. Put the gun down and come out with your hands up… in triumph!

Omerta has just updated with a horse’s-head sized whack of free content. There’s Mafia* dollar there, and make no mistake. Can you refuse it?
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Kalypso Media describe a vampire as “the ultimate killer”. Maybe I’m being picky, but I’d say the ultimate killer is one who doesn’t die if he sees the sunshine. Or if a cocktail stick pricks his chest. Or if his head is cut off. I mean, those are some pretty severe weaknesses. I’d argue “the ultimate killer” would be one who can go outside whatever the weather. But, DARK (presumably it’s shouted?) insists otherwise, and tries to prove it will a new trailer showing off your skills.

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I really quite like Dark‘s premise, which basically amounts to vampires tossed in a scrumptious stew of stealth, role-playing, and gritty near-future conspiracy. On paper, that reads to me like Vampire: The Masquerade meets Deus Ex, which is something I’d expect to find in a box labeled “All of Nathan’s Hopes and Dreams.” There would also be a pony. But then I see footage, and my emotions do that thing where they flutter about like a confused swarm of those creatures that use sonar to see. You know, submarines. I mean, Dark doesn’t necessarily look bad. It’s just sort of confusing, is all.

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Omerta: City of Gangsters is out now and I’ve spent many an hour conquering Atlantic City, building an empire of bullets and booze. I’m not quite ready to tell you wot I think so I thought I’d use the posting of the launch trailer as an excuse to spill some secrets in your ear. I expressed my disappointment with the demo shortly after playing it, but I’m much less apathetic now. Omerta is an old-fashioned management game, with a simple but effective campaign structure and few frills, but its pin-striped heart beats steady. It doesn’t have the charm of Tropico, or that game’s simulated civilians, but it wears its theme well and performs turn-based combat in a clunky but effective fashion. Full thoughts later this week.

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Omerta’s demo is odd. I’ve been hoping that the game will deliver on its turn-based gangster shenanigans ever since it was announced, but I expected mild disappointment as none of the pre-release media had entirely convinced me. A demo seems like the perfect solution, providing a playable sample and helping my wayward mind to form some basic conclusions. That hasn’t happened. Instead, I’m still left with a strong interest in playing the game that Omerta might be, while at the same time half-convinced that Omerta isn’t going to be that game. You can download the demo for yourself or read on for more meandering opinions and details.

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Here’s some Prohibition news: I watched Lawless last year and even though it’s paced badly at times, I enjoyed it and marvelled at Shia TheBeef doing some proper acting. Keep the lad away from Spielberg and Bay and he might have a bright future in the business called ‘show’. Or at least a less obvious one. Omerta takes place in the big city rather than out in the sticks but, like Lawless, it’s about guns, gangsters and odd pacing, the latter due to its turn-based nature. Craig pointed out that the latest trailer is a Mac trailer and it also reuses lots of footage from the previous video, but it does show more of the strategic interface and has a toe-tapping tune.

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The first time I heard about Omerta: City of Gangsters, a fellow games journo described it to me as “prohibition era X-COM”. My brain went into overdrive and I trekked across several crowded convention halls, each larger and noisier than the last, in order to sip from this holiest of grails. Flappers, jazz maestros, nickel-a-drink barmen and sharply dressed gangsters combating an alien invasion with nothing more than an old-fashioned, a trumpet and a tommy gun? Sign me up! I had made a grave error. Omerta is X-COM in as much as there is a strategic, personnel and resource management mode paired up with turn-based combat. An updated Gangsters: Organized Crime then? Our first look wasn’t entirely encouraging but will this new combat trailer be more convincing?

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Kalpyso and Haemimont have released a footage-driven trailer for Omerta – City Of Gangsters. What is presumably an offshoot of their most recent Tropico engine is actually looking pretty good for the big outdoor city stuff, but perhaps a little less shiny when it comes to dealing with the nitty-gritty of combat and gangster-hobbling – although it will probably please most of your to learn that the combat stuff is going to be turn-based, while the city-level management stuff is in real-time. Still, that aspect of it will, one would hope, diminish next to the real task of trying to take over the city, battle with other bosses, and to deck out your gangster headquarters with baubles earned with your ill-gotten blood/booze money.

Also: nice jazz. Take a look, below. The game is out later this year, although no date has been confirmed.
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Legends of Pegasus is a turn-based space strategy game with realtime but pausable combat, colony management and a plot that falls out of a wormhole and comes across a bit Galactica-like. It’s out later today and I’ve managed to have a quick look, only really testing up to where it stops being a tutorial. With Gamescom and Weissbier taking up so much time next week, closer examination and eventual words about wot we think will be a little delayed so I thought I’d say, ‘hey, that game is out today’ and then add ‘I’m not sure I like the fact that combat, exploring, colonisation and management all take place on what is probably referred to as a ‘seamless’ galactic map.’

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