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Review
I was provided a review copy of this game.
This is one of the longest Hosted games, around a million words. It's packed full of characters, scenes, and equipment, with a lot of romances and little vignettes and a lot of visits to bootleg McDonalds.
You are a criminal in this game. You're inducted into a vigilante gang called the Archangels where everyone is assigned a codename themed around angels; you are a Raphael (one of several).
Gameplay is in a cycle where you plan a criminal event, then buy supplies, train, or hang out with friends and ROs, then enact the criminal event. Planning includes choosing people for a team, time of day of attacks, how risky to be, etc. Supplies include a long list of specific guns and ammunition, body armor, vehicles, first aid kits, etc. Training includes numerous skills like tactics, intelligence, accuracy, persuasion, and others. You get a huge number of opportunities to train skills. Hanging out gives you different vignettes with people; picking the same person repeatedly gets you a well-developed story.
The tone varies a lot. On one hand, your group is brutal. They will regularly shoot enemies in the face, including cops, security guards, rival gang members, and even restrained individuals. You can participate in multiple torture scenes.
On the other hand, the story often zooms into comical or farcical nature. Everyone bakes or makes tacos or goes to 'Mike Donalds' to have a 'Big Mike' (you can order from a huge menu; this happens a lot). You can choose not to kill a lot of people (your friends will still kill). People get shot over and over and get healed by a first aid kit. The most ludicrous was (Spoiler - click to show)someone being shot repeatedly point blank, then pinned down, their armor stripped off, then shot in the chest point blank over and over until there was a bloody hole, and they survived. This story has a planned sequel, so there may be an explanation (it is called out as unusual in the game). The zigzag tone was probably the one thing that I didn't like as much in the game, though it did make the violence more palatable.
Overall, the long length makes for a compelling story. Some complained that the 'main 3' characters of the gang (your supervisors) kind of steal the show from you in the latter half; while that's true, you still retain a great deal of individual freedom. It's clear why the game is so big and why the sequel has taken so long to make. I think there's a lot of replay value in the side stories here.
