Flash back to the 1930’s. Your name is Ian Murphy, and gangsters are tearing apart your city. There is no one you can turn to for help. You decide to take justice into your own hands, in the version of a thompson (tommy) submachine gun, and start out on a mission to take back your town.
Fresh from Verto Studios LLC, Driveby Gangster is the first game produced from Verto, a one-man independent software studio based in California. Verto advertises its very own brand of 3D software and tools used to produce and develop games. This unique one of a kind formatting is not the only feature that sets Driveby Gangster apart from competition.
The game can be played on a laptop with a trackpad, but it is suggested that a mouse be used for optimal playing. Sitting in the backseat of a car, this first-person shooter game demands precision and quick reactions in order to eliminate targets while the car is in motion. You are able to control the speed of the car by using the command keys left (slow down) and right (speed up). Hitting the shift key aims your tommy gun, and left clicking fires the gun. The game settings allow you to control the sensitivity of the mouse, which I highly suggest modifying to low sensitivity. Using the mouse moves the nozzle of the gun in different directions, while the shift key further aims the gun. Sounds pretty simple, right? The basic layout of the controls is appealing to those looking for a simple shooting game.
The graphics of the game are very simple, as in old school block image graphics. The targets are gangsters, and are easily identified as the red men in suits and fedora hats. Any guy in a suit that is not red is considered an innocent bystander.
Despite the simple graphics and plot, the difficulty of the game increases with every day. Each day is a newer, more difficult level. The number of targets is given before the game, as well as how many innocent bystanders there will be. Innocent bystanders will walk into your line of shot and crowd around the target, making the drive-by mission difficult. Bystanders are not the only challenging aspect of the game, as each level brings about a new environmental challenge from rain, to night, to foggy days, making the targets and bystanders impossible to tell apart. Once you reach a certain level, the gangsters will start shooting at you. Just like in real life, if you get shot too many times, you die and fail the game. Also like in real life, shooting down the innocent bystanders has its consequences. The number of casualties is kept as a tally, and I won’t give away spoilers, but something bad does happen if you reach a certain number.
The game design is very simplistic, yet the overall game is challenging and somewhat addicting. I made it to week three before the gangsters shut me down. How far can you get in your quest to purge your city of gangsters?
If you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, definitely don’t judge a game by its graphics. Get Driveby Gangster on Steam today for $2.39
