Gangster City Review – part 3 -

The game’s main hub is also pretty slick as it shows you all of the properties you’ve owned so far and where you can get your next mission. Compare that to Mafia War’s property menu:

 

When shown side by side, Mafia Wars looks really outdated now compared to Gangster City. The level of quality is simply amazing, and it just oozes out in almost every aspect of the game.

Another interesting concept of Gangster City is that you can “upgrade” your family members accordingly depending on what their position is. This way, you can easily manage your members according to their strengths and weaknesses. It’s also useful when sending out your family members to do jobs for you. Pretty cool mechanic indeed.

Another interesting mechanic in this game that was previously in Mafia Wars but was removed, is the ability to rob other mafias in the hood.

This kind of interaction also adds more fun to the game as well. Just a tip; make sure you’re well equipped and heavily armed before even going on a robbing spree.

Gangster City Review – part 2 -

But the level of polish and quality doesn’t just end there. It also extends even to the game itself, and not just in the cinematics. Here’s their “Jobs” menu screen:

Compare that to Mafia War’s job/missions menu:

It’s clear which one of the 2 is far more stylized and more better. As for the gameplay itself, Gangster City plays just like Mafia Wars, but with a few tweaks here and there for a much better gaming experience. Just like in Mafia Wars, players go on missions, obtain property, and so on until you run out of energy to spend. However, unlike Mafia Wars, Gangster Wars is far more forgiving and generous with energy that its relatively easier to level up in this game than in Mafia Wars.

Another cool addition to the gameplay, is that you can clearly see exactly what your mafioso is doing while he’s doing a task, using animated cutscenes to convey what’s happening.

It’s these little details that truly impresses me the most. They didn’t just slap in some static graphic and call it a day, they put alot of effort and attention to detail that makes the game itself feel alive.

Gangster City Review – part 1 -

Playfish; known for its cutesy games like Pet Society, Restaurant City, Country Story among others, has finally decided to “grow up” and ditch its cutesy look for its newest game; the dark and very noir looking “Gangster City”.

Seems like Playfish is now being more versatile as it now gives a “mature” game for the “hardcore” gamers in Facebook. You could say that this is playfish’ attempt in challenging to Zynga’s hit game “Mafia Wars”. Did they succeed? Let’s find out.

As the game begins, you are greeted with an animated cutscene that’s reminiscent of Grand Theft Auto games (namely GTA: Chinatown Wars), that introduces you to the game’s story… yes you read that right, this game HAS A STORY unlike Mafia Wars.

 

These intro cinematics themselves are pretty slick, and gives a sense of atmosphere to the whole game, truly immersing you to the world. It’s also animated, and complete with voice acting… yes you read that right; THIS GAME HAS VOICE ACTING.

And the voice acting doesn’t just appear in the cinematics though, they are in almost every part of the game, truly making the experience much more better. It’s these little details that truly sets it apart from existing “mafia wars clones” that’s been around in Facebook. This game TRULY feels like a game, and not just “another Mafia Wars” game, and successfully immerses you in the life of an underground mafioso.

Wordtrotters Review – part 3 -

The game itself is a mixed bag. It starts off with giving you a hint as to what the word is you’re trying to form. Then you’re given a few minutes to try to spell out what the word is, and collect them by clicking on them as your wordtrotter will try to chase them all over the screen.

The world starts off with dull grey colors, as random letters just run around the place. All you need to do is to try to get the letters in order by clicking on them.

Each time you get a letter, those letters will follow you & the world itself gets more colorful, which is a neat idea in itself, but the stages themselves lack the vibrant and lush details found in the image earlier. Here’s the image again for reference.

The game itself is simple, but if it’s your first time in the game you may get confused as to what the hell is this game all about. A simple tutorial stage would have been great, and not just a lousy “How to play” in the menu.

The game itself can also get boring and the challenge really isn’t in the stages itself, but on just how good you are in figuring out what the word is. Additional clues would have been great, specially for those who aren’t really knowledgeable with words.

CONCLUSION

All in all, Wordtrotters is a decent game. It has original ideas thrown in, but the execution itself is kinda flawed. But still, not bad for a first filipino-made Facebook game. But this is really far from being “The World’s Coolest Word Game”… I’ve seen more better ones out there. Just check out Popcap’s lineup and you’ll see other games even more better lookin and cooler than this one.

Wordtrotters Review – part 2 -

Well for the most part, the game doesn’t look cool. Not one bit.

Let’s start with the main menu.

The main menu itself looks pretty bland. My biggest gripe is the way the menu itself was designed. Why couldn’t the developers simply placed the “Start, How to Play, & Credits” in the middle of the screen is beyond me. They just wasted like 3/4 of the screen with nothing. Add the fact that the menu buttons themselves aren’t even designed well to stand-out or “pop” out of the background so that players can easily see them. Definitely not cool.

Next is the characters themselves. I was really disappointed in seeing how they are designed. It feels and looks like a sloppy flash work. I would have really loved it if they looked more like this:

Now THAT definitely looks way more better. It’s just sad and disappointing that they couldn’t have done a better job with the game’s presentation, considering that they are touting the game as "the World’s Coolest Word Game”. Those are big words really, and from what I see here, it’s not even half as cool as the other word games I’ve seen on facebook. Not to mention word games on PCs. 

Wordtrotters Review – part 1 -

Welcome to my first game review for the year. And for my first game review, I decided to review a game developed here in the Philippines. So let’s see just how they fared.

The premise of the game is that you’re one of the 3 caterpillars/bugs that’s cursed by the evil witch Grimmar (yeah a play on the word “grammar), which split their bodies. So your objective is to find your body parts (which comprises letters to form a word) to win the game.

The developers mentioned that the game itself is similar to “Pacman”, but instead of eating pellets aimlessly, you have to carefully look and collect for letters in the correct order to spell a given word. Sounds easy enough right?

The developers of the game dubs it as “The World’s Coolest Word Game”, (as seen on the logo above) let’s see just how “cool” it really is.

I HAZ GAMER KITTY!!

Yep, that’s my cat “Tigger” there. And yes he’s playing with both my Nintendo Wii & my PS3… Yep, my cat is now a hardcore gamer confirmed…