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Neighbourhood is GANG INFESTED Review Microsoft Xbox360 XLIG

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  • Neighbourhood is GANG INFESTED Review Microsoft Xbox360 XLIG

    Your Neighbourhood is Gang Infested, to give it its full name, is a turn based board game available on the Xbox Live Indie Game marketplace that ostensibly takes the core mechanics of the famous Risk, namely an emphasis on linked territory control and a dice based combat model, and then throws in enough original ideas and concepts to create a game that, whilst might play similarly during the opening turns, soon transforms into a very different beast entirely. Players are presented with one of three different maps to conquer, with the number of enemy gangs increasing with map size. The smallest contains a mere twenty suburbs with only two rival factions and can be completed quite quickly posing little real challenge, but rack things up to the fifty zone conurbation and you'd better be prepared for forty to fifty minutes of back and forth warfare.
    Neighbourhood is GANG INFESTED screenshot.
    At the start of the game the various gangs are assigned a random distribution of neighbourhoods across the city map. Neighbourhoods are connected on all fronts but their shapes take a variety of forms meaning that some border more territories than others, and are therefore harder to retain. Each gang's starting crews are then allocated amongst these, there's no upper limit on the number of gang members you can have on any one grid space so it becomes possible to amass quite large squads over the course of the game. Reinforcements are provided by random allocation at the end of each gang's turn with the number of units provided based on the largest group of interconnected suburbs that player owns.
    Neighbourhood is GANG INFESTED screenshot.
    At the start of their turn each player is also awarded an action card which can take the form of anything from instant damage to an enemy's forces in a target area, to a defence boost the next time one of your territories is attacked or even a getaway plan to keep your forces alive should they lose a battle on their home turf. More are earned for taking over enemy controlled zones, with one available for the first conquered territory and then a single additional card rewarded for every three subsequent captures. There's no ability to manually move personnel between areas you control, the only movement possible is by wresting control of enemy areas, thereby moving all but one member of the attacking party to the new location.
    Neighbourhood is GANG INFESTED screenshot.
    The culmination of all these differences makes for a very different feel of game and one that arguably requires a good deal more thought than the title that presumably inspired the designer. There's still the same mad grab for land at the beginning of a match with the player desperately trying to claw together a sector of the map as their own in order to secure those all-important reinforcements, but because action cards are rewarded for aggressive play and conflicts involve all of the units at both the attacking and defending neighbourhoods, entailing an all or nothing result, the game ends up being far more dynamic in nature. In a single gang's turn it's possible for large parts of the map to switch ownership but, due to the random allocation of reinforcements in the end phase, overly ambitious players can easily see their forces spread too thin. The result is a game far less about slow, inevitable attrition and one where a bad assault can see your core forces wrecked, forcing the player to rapidly try and pull together some form of defensive line.
    Neighbourhood is GANG INFESTED box shot.
    As a result of this the game is at once both more exciting and provides a greater degree of depth than can be found in Hasbro's popular boardgame. The fact that the player has no control over the reinforcement phase and cannot move forces between friendly areas means that, even when in the dominant position, you have to think through your troop movements more carefully to ensure that you don't leave your best gangs landlocked and stranded. This leads nicely to the ability for players to make a comeback despite being on the backfoot, via careful manipulation of action cards and avoiding areas of high enemy density. The combination of the defence boost and loss leader cards can make a suburb with only one of your gang members occupying it a very hard proposition to crack, forcing the enemy to incur heavy losses should they wish to secure it, in turn leaving them wide open for a counter attack. It's this level of pre-planning, to ensure movement of your forces throughout the map that really separates the game from a lot of Risk-like clones out there.
    Neighbourhood is GANG INFESTED screenshot.
    Your Neighbourhood is certainly not a hardcore strategy game though, for all its improvements to the formula that it is based on, it is still quite a simple set of mechanics, just a more enjoyable implementation of them. It's a game that is easily approachable and can be played by most people, but won't provide fans of the genre with a huge amount of replayability as you can only push these concepts so far. The graphics and sound effects are simple and workmanlike but they do the job. Overall it doesn't come across as having overly amateurish production values and they certainly don't get in the way of the game's enjoyment.

    The one big problem however is a complete lack of any multiplayer, be it online or offline. With regards the feasibility of offline play, whilst it is possible to save action cards across turn boundaries, in reality most of the time you use all of them in the turn they are earned, as there's rarely any benefit in keeping them sitting in your hand doing nothing. The result is not a game based around deceit and surprise tactics so there's little reason not to have included a hot seat option for multiple players on one console, it would have involved minimal development effort and added a lot to the enjoyability of the game. That said, the AI, which you will spend the whole time playing against, does a pretty good job on the larger maps, although at times you will see it waste action cards on completely fruitless endeavours - it has a particular penchant for instance of targeting the largest enemy unit on the map with police tip offs, regardless of how far this may be from their frontlines.

    In summation, the developer has taken a simple, popular board game and improved upon its core rule set greatly whilst also providing a fitting context for some of the new rule changes. The lack of any multiplayer component is certainly a glaring omission though and one that really hurts the long term appeal, this kind of game is simply made for competition between friends as it lacks enough depth to entertain the solo player over long durations. It does, however, succeed in providing an enjoyable way to spend a few hours and has enough tricks to make playing on the tougher maps engaging enough to recommend to a lot of gamers, just don't go in expecting anything on the level of Catan or Carcassonne for your money.
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