Gangsters for Windows

Okay, so you didn't listen to that Special Someone and decided to put up that lightning rod you saw on the Shopping Network yourself. The storm hit, you got struck off the roof by God for being stupid, and you fall off and land on your head. What do you do for the next ninety days? My suggestion: pick up a game of Gangsters. Or at least send Missy to go get a copy for you, it goes for about ten bucks in the crappy games section.

Why's that? Well, you'll have to see for yourself. Maybe it's too hard to teach an old dog new tricks, but I couldn't get past 'go' on this baby. I handed it over to my cousin the tinkerer (joeko41) and he came back scratching his head. The instructions are what you might call user-hostile, and I'm one of those kinda guys who ended up learning MS Word with total disdain for the 'Help' prompt. Whoever made this game needs to sit down and think over what they did, because a new improved version would bring this to a better fate.

I drove back across town to get this from Office Max when I first saw it. The opening graphics, though rankling after the umpteenth time you load it up, are way kewl. The screens are just as kewl, showing you a stylized cartoon bird's eye view of the city streets. You can zoom in on a number of business establishments and decide where you want to start your operations. You have a wad of cash for starters, and a profile of goons ranging from hit men to loan sharks to crooked lawyers available for hire. You can also buy weapons for your crew as the need arises. On each turn you can put your men on the street as you see fit, make your moves against rival operations, and see how you're progressing on the road to becoming Boss of Bosses or whatever.

Isn't this fantastic! Problem is, that's how it goes on the instruction screen. Getting these guys to move a muscle has been the most daunting task involved in this thing. You can set the game so you can play against it, and as of this writing it's still waiting for my men to make their first hit. Too bad fantasy hasn't become reality in this case; I would've been the FBI's most beloved Godfather of all time, leader of the Gang Who Couldn't Cut the Cheese.