Rattling Tommy Guns and watching the numbers go up are both very enticing gameplay loops when it comes to video games. Many titles have attempted to put the player in the shoes of a Michael Corleone-type, with mixed success. In 2001, following on from their previous crime-based simulator, Hothouse Creations revamped the presentation layer and led the player on a campaign of vengeance in Gangsters 2: Vendetta.

You play as Joey Bane, whose dad was killed by his mob boss, Constantine, in the state of Temperance. Fueled by both ambition and vengeance, you embark on a 15-level campaign to bring Constantine’s empire to ashes and erect your version in its place. Taking over businesses, hiring the best, and dominating the neighbourhood with cash or force. How you approach each level is generally up to you, but the results are the same: open warfare in the streets and spilling a lot of blood in the process.

In your quest for vengeance, you have to balance the delicate art of managing your rackets and taking care of the other gangsters who oppose you. Your hiring is done in the newspaper, a valuable resource for classified ads and rumours to help you plan your next move. You hire specialists to run your joints and hoods to do the gunning and driving and so forth, each dictated by their special skills. Business and Goons can also have muscle to help protect them. You may think of these as red shirts, but they all have names, too, making their deaths ring out a little.

Gangsters 2 has a lot of charm, just like its Commando-based rival, Chicago 1930. That is represented in its presentation. Adding more maps over the first game, including this Isometric 3.D. version that makes managing your operation all the easier. Gangsters 2 also adopts this almost ultra-art deco art-style, which is more than pleasing to look at, as are the streets of simulated Temperance, as are the fashions of Banes et al. Making Gangsters 2 a far easier game to get your head around than its predecessor.

While the art of simulating the mob will always present itself as a viable challenge, Gangsters 2 does a lot to try to make that a reality. The sequel does its best to make the strategy component of its forbearer all the more approachable, while being open-ended enough to give you a full playground for the player’s criminal empire. Others will keep trying to crack the nut that is mafia racket simulation, and the cycle of rising and falling will continue. With vengeance on the menu, Gangsters 2 remembers that Vendettas are best served stylishly.

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