Crime Coast is a recently released Windows Phone game that joins the ranks of a crowded gaming genre. It is a city builder that challenges you to build up a criminal empire, raid neighboring towns and become a mafia king.
The game taps into all of the familiar elements of a city builder with plenty of buildings to construct, defenses to keep the cops out and thugs to recruit. Available for low-memory Windows Phones, Crime Coast's approach to city building is unique enough to make the game stand out from similar games. Graphics is nice, game play challenging and overall Crime Coast isn't a bad Windows Phone game to invest a little time with.
As you will find with other games of this type, Crime Coast launches with a series of tutorials that cover the basics of game play. You start by building a law office that give you the ability to bail criminals out of jail. These thugs will serve as your soldiers to travel along the coast, destroying your rival mafia kings.
You will also need to build up your city's defenses with machine guns, sniper towers, land mines and other dangers. These defensive units will protect you from police raids, as well as attacks from your neighboring crime syndicates.
The game centers around a map of your town with various gaming controls and stats running along the sides and top of the map view. Along the top of the screen, you will find your mafia stats, cash balance and gold balance (both earned during game play). On the left side of the screen are buttons to access your gaming rewards, view any news items from the developer and to access your raid map.
On the right side of the map view are buttons to access the game settings, view the game's Hall of Fame and access the construction menu. Settings are rather detailed with your standard options for sound, music and language settings. You also have options to change your gamer tag, Like or Follow the game on Twitter or Facebook, choose the graphics quality and link a device. Linking a device is a handy feature and allows you to transfer your gaming account to another device or play on two or more devices.
The goal of Crime Coast is to build up your city with shops, banks, houses, etc. to create a healthy economy and support system for your criminal ventures. As with most city builders, there is a time element involved in recruiting new goons or tackling any construction project. You can speed things up by spending your gold or just wait it out.
You can hire henchmen as you overtake neighboring cities. The henchmen will then lead your army of thugs as they battle enemy bosses. Along with raiding nearby cities, you also have a multiplayer mode where you can attack other player's cities.
Raiding is done in simple fashion. Once you have chosen a city to raid, you can put your goons into play by choosing the appropriate icon (lower left corner of the raid map) and tap on the screen where you want them to hit the ground running from. From there these little bad guys will try to wreak havoc on the town, destroying everything in sight. Combat is timed and total destruction is the ultimate goal.
Game play isn't overly difficult, but it will require a little strategy on your part. As you gain experience and power, your convict recruitment choices will expand. You will have access to more powerful and specialized recruits who will help you crush the competition.
I will have to commend the developer for giving you a respectable amount of gold to speed up construction and upgrades. It comes in handy to quickly build up things and give you a fighting chance at success.
Overall Impression
Crime Coast is a nice installment to the city building genre. The game has seen a fair amount of success over on iOS and Android and should do well here as well. While you are building a criminal empire, game play takes a more lighthearted approach to living the life of a mafia boss. For some reason, the old Leisure Suit Larry games came to mind as I played Crime Coast.
Graphics and animations are well done and game play can be challenging. Patience also comes into play as you wait for your henchmen to bail out, buildings to be constructed and upgrades to be completed.
I do like the multiplayer game, but you may want to take your time with this game mode. Build up your city and gang of thugs before venturing out to take on other players. Some of you guys have wickedly tough cities to raid.
If you are looking for a change of pace with your city builders, Crime Coast is worth looking into. The game is free and I cannot say I saw the first ad pop-up. You do have a few in-app purchase opportunities but nothing mandatory.
If you try Crime Coast, let us know what you think of the Windows Phone game in the comments below.
Download Crime Coast for Windows Phone (Free)
