The King of Chicago
| Developer: Master Designer | Graphics: |
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| Publisher: Cinemaware | Sound: |
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| Year: 1987 | Difficulty: |
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| Genre: Adventure-arcade | Lastability: |
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| Number of players: 1 | Rating: |
7/10 | |
Chicago, 1931. Al Capone is behind bars. It’s the perfect opportunity for ambitious young gangsters like you to rise through the ranks!
You play as Pinky Callahan, a member of a small-time gang from the North Side. His dream? To oust his ageing boss and take over the entire city…
The creators of Defender of the Crown bring us one of their earliest interactive films—a genre that would make them famous—set against the backdrop of gang warfare at the tail end of Prohibition.
Character control is extremely limited: you use the mouse to select dialogue options during certain exchanges, and the action scenes revolve around incredibly basic mini-games. These usually involve moving your revolver’s barrel or aiming reticule over a target in a very short timeframe.
The game’s appeal lies mostly in its atmosphere, featuring a cast of characters straight out of classic gangster films: the sleazy (and gold-digging) moll, the dim-witted enforcer, the nosy street kid, the pious old mama…
Your choices boil down to deciding how best to grow your business empire and eliminate your enemies. Making money is a free-for-all: speakeasies, extortion, gambling—you name it. But the overheads are just as steep: keeping your floozy happy, keeping your men in line, and bribing the cops and politicians. Oh, and don’t forget the assassination attempts—they pop up unexpectedly (often right after a loading screen when you’ve nipped off to make a coffee…) and usually boil down to a simple kill-or-be-killed scenario in a matter of seconds.
One might assume the story’s progression is dictated by some grand strategy. That’s somewhat true, though luck plays a significant part as well. Exploring different decisions reveals new scenes with each playthrough, but the core storyline remains unchanged, and the novelty wears thin quickly.
This is one of those games that thrives on emulation: load times are drastically reduced, and the ability to save at any moment makes the arcade segments far more bearable. Back in the day, having to start over after every mistake was particularly demoralising.
I’ve heard that The King of Chicago was re-released for mobile phones, but ergonomic issues made the mini-games maddeningly unreliable.
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