I am generally trying to get at least 1 hour of interesting gameplay out of every 1 dollar / euro I spend on a game. And recently I realized that this rule should also apply to my Game Pass for PC subscription, which I hadn't used much this year. In other words, I should check if I can get 120 hours of gameplay out of the selection of games offered with that subscription this year, as it costs me $120 per year. After a very short failed attempt at Astroneer, I am now 13 hours into Empire of Sin, although I probably will just play this for a few more hours. It isn't a great game, but for a limited time it is enjoyable.

Empire of Sin is a mix of several different genres. There are role-playing elements, with quests, voice-over dialogues, lots of equipment, and talent trees. There is a management sim, in which you produce illegal booze in Chicago and then sell it in you speakeasies and other illegal establishments. And behind it all there is a tactical turn-based combat game where your squad of gangsters shoots other gangsters. So the variety and width of Empire of Sin is good. Where it fails is in the lack of depth, and failure to get the different parts of the game to work together well.

The lack of synergy is pretty obvious in the user interface. The turn-based combat part of the game works reasonably well, but the real-time part that underlies both the management part and the role-playing part isn't. You can pause, but if you unpause there is only one possible speed. And whatever you are concentrating on, everything else happens simultaneously, and either gets in the way, or you end up missing it. Events flash up very shortly in a corner, and there is no system of auto-pauses, so if you were waiting for example for your brewery to upgrade its production, you would need to be very lucky to actually see that event displayed. When you do a bunch of management decision while the game is paused, as soon as you unpause a long stream of these events happens, because you for example building a new brewery affects your relations will all other gangs. If you come out of a fight that you did for a quest, it isn't necessarily the quest resolution that pops up, but could be something completely unrelated, like a minor gang wanting to buy some booze from you. It is very hard to concentrate on anything.

While combat is entertaining for a while, it quickly gets repetitive, as there are not so many different enemies and environments. It also suffers from not being balanced. Empire of Sin is the only game I know where you wouldn't want to bring a gun to a knife fight: Melee weapons, unlike guns, have a 100% hit chance, and a sledgehammer deals more damage than a shotgun. Only at long range some guns are better, although curiously rifles typically do better than sniper rifles, and are usable at a much wider range of distances, and cost less action points. Machine guns are often a bit underwhelming.

In theory there is a whole "black book" full of different gangsters to play with. But while a gangster is in your employ, his loyalty goes up, his cost goes down, he learns new talents in real time, and gets better with his weapon as a function of kills he does with them. So while you could later in the game hire somebody whose base stats are better, the new gangster would be far too costly and not so great due to lack of talents and weapon skills. Thus you tend to stick with the gangsters you get early in the game, and the whole relationship system between them never really kicks in.

The crime empire management system is simplistic. Without DLC, there are only 4 different types of criminal enterprises, and the only relation between them is the breweries producing booze for the other 3 types. Every racket has a limited number of stats, which you can upgrade from 1 star to 5 stars, and that's it. There is a lack of management tools, like for example statistical tools, so other than "more stars is better" it isn't really obvious which building or upgrade would have a better return on investment than another. And for example if you produce too much booze, you can sell it in various events or to other crime bosses, so optimization doesn't appear to be crucial.

A medium sized city map of Chicago has about 10 neighborhoods. Each of these neighborhoods has around 8 precincts. And each precinct has around 5 rackets. You can get some of the rackets by buying out a faction, but that usually only works on minor faction. So for the majority of the 400 rackets you will have to go in guns blazing and take them. Plus a bunch of further battles, for examples those against thugs where you are collecting loot crates, or those against guards on the street. That is a lot of very similar fights, all against very similar other gangsters. I don't think I will actually finish a game of Empire of Sin, because that is already way too much, and way too repetitive. Getting the game "for free" as part of a subscription service and playing it for 10 to 20 hours is okay. But on Steam Empire of Sin is $40, and only half of user reviews are positive, so I wouldn't recommend it.

- posted by Tobold @ 4:19 PM Permanent Link