The turn-based strategy genre has a lot to thank XCOM for. Prior to Firaxis’ brilliant release last year, many gamers were calling time on the tradition of moving a customisable squad of cronies around a giant map, with only the unpredictable justice of dice rolls determining whether your team is bathed in victory or crushed in defeat.
XCOM didn’t do anything different to other entries in this genre, but Firaxis did present information regarding character traits, attack skills and the perils of risk-taking in a way that any gamer, regardless of genre preference, could understand. It’s a lesson more developers should take on, and thankfully the team behind Omerta: City of Gangsters have. Haemimont Games, makers of the quirky Tropico series, has employed a bit more of a serious tone in their latest work, taking players to a theme which is strangely glossed over by games: organised crime. Cast as the boss of several selectable and customisable gangsters,
players can attempt to take over a historically accurate recreation of 1930’s Atlantic City with illegal activity running rampant during America’s prohibition era.
Split effectively into two components – one part of Omerta takes place in the over-world with players looking over the city managing which of their cronies goes where, dishing out equipment, levelling up specific
character traits, negotiating prices for goods and clicking on icons poised above key buildings to initiative mission activity.
Every action will preoccupy your cronies for a while, so if you need to pick up some illegal booze to keep
your speakeasy supplied, that’ll take some time. Want to collect some protection money from the surrounding businesses? That’ll keep one of your cronies busy too. Thankfully you’ll soon accrue dozens of devilish little helpers, all with their brand of moxy and voice-acting. Where it gets really interesting though, is the combat.
Whenever one of these missions involves combat, be it due to player aggression or just a routine activity gone awry, Omerta’s second component springs into action: the turn-based tactical portion. Here the over-world gives way to a zoomed-in perspective, with players no longer orchestrating their underworld army en masse, instead just whichever unfortunate souls find themselves in trouble.
Objectives vary from killing all enemies to securing goods safely, but like XCOM you’re never in any doubt of what your units are capable off, what skills they have at their disposal and how many action points or AP they have left. Combat is a delicate balancing act betweenmoving your units into positions where they can easily chip away at an enemy unit’s health, while at the same time not endangering their own too much. There are also player-initiated abilities, like shots which extend the range and scope of a weapon, increase the percentage of a shot hitting or better yet instantly recover a portion of a character’s health.
Each character has their own special abilities, so it pays to play to an individual’s strengths. For the sake of accessibility, there isn’t any permadeath in Omerta, but if a character loses all HP during a mission his or her stats will take a permanent hit, forcing the injured party to recuperate at the local hospital before returning to crime.
Aside from the tactical strategy side of things, another element that Haemimont has absolutely nailed with Omerta is the atmosphere and tone of the 1930s. Bolstered with tunes from the time, polished cut-scenes and some great voice work, the story which accompanies the branching campaign is really quite something. Sure it doesn’t take too many risks with the ‘Sicilian gone bad’ formula, but action never gets too seedy or serious to impact the enjoyment of the source material. Like Tropico 4, Omerta is an enjoyable experience as even when things get decidedly tough, you’ll still find yourself tapping your foot to the soundtrack.
XCOM saved the tactical strategy genre when it was released last year, but Omerta builds on that revival in some exciting and entertaining ways, including a separate Skirmish mode and multiplayer turn-based tactical
combat – something Firaxis never attempted in their reboot. Expect Omerta to turn quite a few heads when it’s released this February on Xbox 360 and PC.
PUBLISHER: KALYPSO MEDIA
DEV: HAEMIMONT GAMES
PLATFORMS: PC, XBOX 360
ETA: FEBRUARY 1ST
