It condensed down to a small box which covered the faces of both characters, from both camera perspectives, meaning that instead of looking at the well-detailed characters and facial expressions, I was left with a menu box talking about liquor and managing it. Before entering the scene I opened up a menu and guess what, that menu never disappeared completely, even after I left it.
The first key bug I experienced happened at the very end of the tutorial, a pivotal point where you sit down with your first Mob Boss and choose how to approach the situation. The only problem is, I was never told how to travel between districts and couldn’t find out how to do so, before the mob boss got angry with me and then went out and started causing havoc for my empire, all because the game didn’t tell me something. You can also get summoned by a Mob Boss to go and sit down with them, at which point you have to get to their district and initiate the sit-down. Other events can happen, such as a fight breaking out in the street or seeing a mob boss while you explore Chicago. To start off with, you may have a “sit-down” with another Mob Boss, who will either offer you a compromise and strike a deal with your group or be hostile, at which point you can choose whether to give in or kill their leader and see the repercussions play out for yourself. This makes up the core of how you grow your empire, but as you do get bigger and bigger, extra activities and events will be introduced to diversify each run with a Mob Boss. And, this repeats over and over again, relentlessly as you defend buildings and take over new ones creating a slog of a game. The core loop of the game involves you engaging in combat briefly when entering a building in Chicago, taking it over, and building up your empire. When it comes to the management systems, I don’t know where to start. It is also far too easy and I never found much of a challenge when engaging in it.Ĭombat in Empire of Sin is ultimately underwhelming, with a lack of interesting mechanics and being too easy. It is simple, with only traditional moves. To start off with combat feels like a budget version of any tactical game you have played. The actual gameplay in Empire of Sin is a collection of management systems, alongside some simple and far too easy combat. So ultimately I left the tutorial of Empire of Sin not really knowing what anything did or how to interact and manage my crime empire, which is a huge problem for a game with as many menus and systems that interact with one another or disparately as Empire of Sin has. Or, you are given the option to change and alter the mechanic, but only briefly and not giving you enough time to acclimate to the system or learn how it works. They are either told through an arrow pointer or text on-screen (sometimes both) but you aren’t given the chance to mess with that system and change how it works. See, Empire of Sin has a lot of menus and a lot of systems at play that are told to you in one of two ways.
The one issue with this opening and the overall introduction to Empire of Sin is that the tutorials are far too short or don’t give you enough time to explore and learn them. At first, this was a little jarring, but I actually grew to like this approach.Įmpire of Sin lets you out into its world far too fast and doesn’t give you enough time to get acquainted with the game’s systems. However, I will say, the choice of these different mob bosses are valuable, with each having their own perks and bonuses and as a result a different starting situation and events in their opening hours.įrom there, you are greeted to the introduction of the game, taking you through all the management systems at play (of which there is a lot), from combat to deciding what liquor to sell at each of your rackets and bars and managing buildings.Īnd once that tutorial ends, which is about an hour, maybe a little bit more, the game lets you loose into its open-world to manage how you want. There isn’t much to the events that happen, and while the voice acting is of a good quality it didn’t leave a great first impression. This intro scene is told whilst you are in a cab, driving somewhere and are given some dialogue options to choose whether to go straight home or head to a job which has just popped up, these and the finer details depend on what Mob Boss you chose, but I ultimately found this intro to be bland and disappointing. Empire of Sin’s different mob bosses, characters, and gangsters all have a great look.