Gangs of London (video game)

Gangs of London (video game)
Gangs of London is an action-adventure open world video game released in 2006 for Sony's PlayStation Portable console. The third installment in the The Getaway franchise following The Getaway (2002) and Black Monday (2004), it was developed by London Studio and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. The player has the choice to play as five different gangs in London, with different ethnicities and outfits.
Gareth Evans and Matt Flannery created a television adaptation of the game starring Joe Cole, Sope Dirisu, and an ensemble cast, which debuted on Sky Atlantic and AMC in April 2020, from which a spin-off graphic novel, Ghosts, was released in December 2022, written by Corin Hardy and Rowan Athale and illustrated by Ferenc Nothof.
Gameplay
During the course of story mode, the player is given a wide variety of objectives. One objective may require entering a nightclub armed with a jackhammer, while another may involve trying to run the enemy off the road, or them trying to run the player off the road. There are also kidnapping missions, stealth missions, and race missions. Once the story mode is complete, a cliffhanger ending ensues. Outside of missions, the player can free roam the game's environment and complete minigames such as taking photos of London landmarks or running over pedestrians. The game also has "bar" style mini-games, accessed from a pub. The four pub games are darts, skittles, pool, and an arcade game, which is similar to Snake.
Premise
At his country estate, Morris Kane, a veteran cockney gangster and leader of his own firm, breeds pigeons in preparation for an upcoming competition. The next morning, he is horrified to find out that all the pigeons have been slaughtered. Kane soon vows to take over the city.
In Westminster, Russian crime lord Vladislav Zakharov is planning to purchase a Fabergé egg to add to his collection. Returning home, Zakharov finds that his mansion is torched. Enraged by the loss of his paintings and silver, he vows to make London suffer.
Mason Grant, leader of the Jamaican yardie gang EC2 Crew, is out on a date with his girlfriend Chantel. She is later assassinated by an unseen sniper while at a cafe with Grant. He vows revenge in response to her death.
Inside a gambling den, two Water Dragon Triads are intimidated by another who will do whatever it takes to win a game of Mahjong. During the game, a bomb goes off; killing the Triads. Triad leader San Chu Yang declares war on the other gangs.
Indian-British gangster Asif Rashid, who leads the Talwar Brothers, learns that his brother has been set up and arrested by armed police (SCO19). Determined to bail his brother, Rashid assembles his gang to take over London.
The Gangs
The player can choose any one out of five playable gangs -
Morris Kane Firm
EC2 Crew
Talwar Brothers
Zakharov Organisation
Water Dragon Triad
Apart from these gangs there are other unplayable gangs which form some parts of the game's storyline:
Steele Associates: A white-collar criminal group run by a criminal businessman named Andy Steele. The gang plays a major part in the storyline. Its territory is located in central London
The North London Albanian Gang
The Globe Road Gang – a gang made up of prostitutes
Rahman's Gang – an Indian-origin gang
The Yakuza gang – it is run by a Japanese gangster named Kanesaka
The Italian Naples Mafia
Reception
The game received "mixed" reviews according to video game review aggregator Metacritic.
Adaptations
Television series
Gareth Evans and Matt Flannery created a television adaptation of the game starring Joe Cole, Sope Dirisu, and an ensemble cast, which debuted on Sky Atlantic and AMC in April 2020, with Dirisu portraying Elliot Carter / Finch, a character loosely based on Frank Carter, and Colm Meaney portraying Finn Wallace, a character loosely based on Andy Steele.
In an interview with Sky News in April 2020, Evans stated that while initially hired to "make a film franchise" of Gangs of London, he had felt like if we were going to do a film franchise, we would have two-thirds of our running time focused purely on our central characters, and then only a third left to explore the side characters that populate that world", and so on deciding that "we wouldn't do justice to the myriad of different diverse cultures and ethnicities that make up the city [I then] pitched it back saying this should be a TV show because you can afford to go off and detour for 10 to 15 minutes and spend time with other characters, and learn about them in more detail."
Graphic novel
In December 2022, a Gangs of London graphic novel, set between the first and second series of the television adaptation and titled A Gangs of London Story: Ghosts, written by Corin Hardy and Rowan Athale and illustrated by Ferenc Nothof, was released digitally to the news aggregator Den of Geek, ahead of a physical release.
References
External links
The Getaway (franchise)
2006 video games
Action-adventure games
London Studio games
Open-world video games
Organized crime video games
PlayStation Portable games
PlayStation Portable-only games
Single-player video games
Sony Interactive Entertainment games
Triad (organized crime)
Video games developed in the United Kingdom
Video games set in London