From the Store description:
From Gundon to Crooklyn, gang rage between the most ruthless crews has erupted and all hell has broken loose! Criminals of all nations have been flocking to the coast, forming cartels, breaking bad and transforming every city into their very own gangster’s paradise! From collecting protection cash to sending your crew to raid a rival gang, play your hand right, forge the best alliances and one day you could be the ‘Crime King’. Use your Henchman’s skills and build a team of heavies who are ready to die for you… and who probably will. You and your friends can be partners in crime, team up to take on the big boyz! And in this game there’s even room for the snitches. Be careful who you trust as even your hommies could rat you out to make a bit of cheddar. Being bad has never felt so good.
- Detailed city building featuring everything from junkyards to mansions
- Choose from 1 of 8 unique bad-ass henchmen from various nations to make sure your gang succeeds
- Competitive multiplayer mafia mode
- Use your corrupt attorney. He’s great for breaking out cons to work for you
- Raid rival mafia kings’ towns and cities to steal their loot and protect your own city at all costs
- Rich and detailed sprite-based art style
- Unique vehicle system. Ride along on a raid or deploy a car bomb for total destruction
- Lighthearted comedy. Spot the jokes and movie references
- Innovative social gameplay features. Watch your friends’ backs or, if you have to, become a snitch!
You'll get a sense for the depth in this game from that prose, but also look at my headline above. From the way your isometric crime HQ is built up (to withstand raids) to the variety of and number of characters and attributes to the way resources and manpower battle in pseudo real time, there's a lot going on. And, thankfully, the freemium purchases make more sense than in most current 'free to play' games, with sensible amounts changing hands at each stage.
Just don't think you'll be 'done' with this title in an hour or two. You'll need good eyesight, good memory, a little IAP small change and a few tens of hours if you want to play through most of it. Here's a walkthrough:
By 'units' think of the board game Risk but on a smaller scale - here units can represent hoodlums or snipers, and so on. If they're in jail then bail (or break) them out, if they're in the night club then drag them out drunk - well, probably. SimCity this ain't...
A couple of screens here showing a selection of some of the characters, locations and objects, and their associated numbers that make up the crime 'simulation'....
And yes, there are the usual freemium touches, like bail outs (and buildings) taking real time to complete, with a suitable amount of in-game currency making things 'instant' - else you have to wait.... I don't like this tactic, but it's not too overdone here and hey, the developers do have to monetise...
Here's an initial jail break in progress. Send in the hoodlums with the semis....!
There's a multiplayer mode which I didn't try but it does indicate the scale and ambition of this multi-platform title. In single player mode you move from HQ to city (and back), building them up and raiding as needed.
You're led through the initial stages of building up your crime HQ with hints and prompts - once buildings are placed, roads magically adjust as needed, and the semi-autonomous characters wander around appropriately.
Fixed defense positions in your crime HQ complex are very 'tower defense' in their role - you place them, build them up and then they do their thing when tapped when anyone you don't like comes calling...
I'm really not sure we should be encouraging this behaviour - bands of hoodlums ambushing a police car and killing the cops within. Err.... better stop this review before GCHQ and the NSA get wind of what's going on!
You should know by now if Crime Coast sounds like your sort of game. Ethics(!) aside, there's a lot of 'sim' fun to be had, even if a lot of it does come down to numbers under the hood - these are easily hidden by the polish, the original artwork, the speed of the game and the sheer variety.
Happily, there's also a launch trailer for the game, which will give you an animated glimpse at how hectic Crime Coast can get!