Gangs of London (PSP)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 2.5 stars OK
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 5.5 (2.5 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Alex Navarro
• Reviewed on: 10/03/2006
• Released on: 10/03/2006
• Originally published on GameSpot: Gangs of London (PSP) Review

It certainly isn't a lack of content that ends up sinking Gangs of London, nor is it a lack of atmosphere. Ultimately, what turns SCEE London Studio's criminal-themed action game for the PSP from potentially cool to mediocre is its mundane and periodically broken gameplay. If this scenario sounds familiar, it's because this same sort of problem has plagued London Studio's previous forays into the London underworld in the Getaway games. But never has this issue been as unbalanced as it is in Gangs of London. Between the game's dozens of story missions, comic-book-styled story presentation, free-roaming bonus missions, parlor games, and turn-based strategy mode, you'd think that at least one of the things would turn out OK. Sadly, no single aspect of Gangs of London plays well, and there's just not much fun to be had with it.

The bulk of the game is found in the story mode. In this mode, you take control of one of the five ruling gangs of England's most famous city. These gangs run the gamut from old-school English hooligans, run by a crusty old man from the oldest of the old schools, to a crew of Russians that use a military-like ruling structure, to the oft-used Chinese triad. There's not much story, save for brief introductions of each gang at the start of a story, as well as the teensy bits of intro and outro for each mission you take on. The progression of the story mode itself is disjointed. The overall point is to try to take over the territories of the rival gangs, and you do that by performing a series of missions. The trouble is that none of the missions seem connected. One minute you're kidnapping the leader of a female gang, and the next you're helping some character you've never heard of rob someone to pay off his gambling debts. After you complete all the available missions in a given area of the map, you take on the leader of that area's gang, and ultimately take his territory.

You might be able to forgive the scattered nature of the story mode if the missions themselves were worth doing--but unfortunately, they're not. What you get with Gangs of London's missions are pieces of other, better missions from other games of this type. Sometimes you're driving a car, chasing another driver while trying to destroy his car. Sometimes you're driving a car, running away from a driver while he's trying to destroy your car. Sometimes you run around a linear environment, shooting every dim-witted bad guy you come into contact with. Sometimes the game inexplicably gives you the same mission, but without the benefit of a gun, which forces you to use lame stealth mechanics while you pray that there isn't a bad guy around the next corner holding a submachine gun, since there's no indicator as to where an enemy is on the map or which way he's facing. The stealth missions in particular are abysmal--enemies will sometimes randomly turn around on you, even while you're crouched and quiet, and trying to fight an enemy with a knife while he's holding a shotgun is a good way to make you throw your PSP across a room.

All of these missions, save for some of the boss fights, take one to three minutes to complete. You'll be shocked how many times you hop into a car and drive into another car until it catches on fire, and 60 seconds later you're done. Mission objectives repeat constantly, as well, not just over the course of all five gang storylines, but also within each storyline. The number of times you do the same basic driving and shooting missions, with only a marginally different end objective, is ludicrous. By the time you've defeated your first gang, you've essentially seen every mission type the game has to offer.

It also doesn't help that the missions aren't the least bit fun. The shooting and driving mechanics pretty much rob the game of enjoyment right off the bat. When on foot, you're forced to hold down the left trigger to side-strafe, which is a clunky process when you're trying to avoid getting shot from several different angles. When shooting, you can autotarget using the right trigger, but the autotargeting does a lousy job of finding the best possible target. Often you'll find yourself aiming at a car or trying to shoot an enemy that's blocked by one of your own gang members. Though the game purports to include tactical, squad-based gameplay, there's nothing tactical about it. In missions where you have other gang members around, you can try to command them to move forward, stay put, and the like, but most times they don't quite do what you ask. Telling them to join up with you often results in one of them running backward while the others slowly amble toward you at snail-like speeds. You're better off just making sure they take the brunt of the bullets.

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Where to buy

Gangs of London (PSP): $3.25 - $29.99

store	price	in stock?	rating
	$14.99	Yes
	$29.99	Yes
	$3.25	No

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