Review: Gang Nations

I am not someone who falls in love with a game that easily. Especially if it revolves around the concept of my other favorite game. But Gang Nations, by Playdemic, doesn’t seem to follow this rule because I absolutely loved it! Some might argue that it is another clone of Clash of Clans but I wouldn’t agree. Playdemic has taken the concept to another level. Made so many subtle changes that it is hard to even put them in same basket while trying to compare.

This game has amazing graphics. The color selection is just perfect. It really catches your attention. The objective is to build a town of your own and protect it against attack from other gangs. As the name suggests, you are running a gang so people on your side are no saints either, they are thieves, convicts, etc.

The currencies used in the game are cash and juice. You need these to upgrade you defenses, unlock troops, etc. And you will have to keep updating your production facilities as well as storage facilities to make more room for the loot from raids.

You can unlock and upgrade your troops at the Juice bar. Don’t get confused between the two names. One is Juice bar and the other is Juice factory. And if you did, you aren’t the only one. So did I initially. Once you start establishing your town, you will have to upgrade your juice bar(like other buildings) in order to increase capacity (increase crew size) and hit points.

What’s slightly different is that Gang Nations incorporates tower defense style elements in terms of building up your defenses. You can redirect where enemies go, channeling them down areas that you have set up as particularly strong, through barricades and sniper towers. It’s a small touch but one that adds some level of strategy to proceedings.

Gang Nations new combat system means that players no longer wait around to recruit troops for each raid but instead can deploy their troops live in battle. Players are no longer restricted to a method of employing a ‘single load-out’ and finding a base to match but can instead respond to battles in real time placing the number and type of troops. You can even compete against your friend in the multiplayer, a feature which most of the other games of similar genre lack.

Gang Nation’s adjustable road system also enables players to rearrange the paths around their base along which the enemy must travel, giving them the ability to increase defenses and funnel invaders through corridors of death manned by artillery, snipers and machine gunners and adding more challenge and fun to the game.

Even though game has a wonderful tutorial which guides you initially how to play the game but once the tutorial was over I had problem conducting my first raid. I went to raid twice but whenever I clicked on the screen I could only see blue clouds being formed. It was only after the second attempt I realized that I needed energy juice (blue bottle) in order to deploy each troop. So if you are having hard luck like me attacking, please make sure you have enough juice. Each troop takes different amount of juice to be deployed. The amount is written underneath the troop image during the raid to assist you on that so you don’t have to remember.

I would highly recommend saving your gems and using them to unlock builders. Since it can take some time to upgrade buildings as you progress it would be nice to have extra builders to keep your game progress going in a smooth way.

The game also employs mechanism to check if you are inactive, in which case it will log you out. So you can’t leave your game in active for long. And hey would you want to? It is an awesome game! So if you haven’t tried it so far please do!

Heres is some action from the launch trailer: