There you are. The smell of day-old garbage mixes with the choking stink of car exhaust above a sizzling sea of asphalt. Before you, down a long, inconspicuous alley, is a rival gangster's turf. The brightly colored gang sign challenging all comers. You take a drag of the cigarette; you crack your knuckles. There are a dozen waiting for you on the other side.
Slowly, and with great weight, you draw your meat cleaver from behind your back. "Time to go," you say, and charge down the alley.
So you fancy yourself a gangster? Well, if you want to survive Triad Wars, the new sandbox F2P title from United Front Games (currently in closed beta), you're going to need a little lesson in the streets.
First and foremost, don't call it a sequel. The game is set within the same crime ridden version of Hong Kong that UFG's 2012 hit Sleeping Dogs occurred, but the similarities stop there. The story this time around is what you make of it. Despite the Grand Theft Auto-esque gameplay and violence, Triad Wars has more in common with mobile titles like Clash of Clans and Boom Beach. You build up your base of operations, make money, conduct raids on other players whilst simultaneously defending your own.
Second: build up your gang. In Triad Wars, every time you level up you can put points towards your avatar and your gang. Because you spend the majority of your time running around punching people as your yakuza gangster, it's easy to just dump all your points into 'bigger, stronger, faster' stats. But consider this: you will not be playing this game more than you are playing this. Raids don't happen on your schedule, so don't forget to toss some points towards your men. They suffer enough when you're not around.
But, if the cops do ever get you down, don't worry. You wake up in the hospital or jail and you're as fine as anything, having only lost a little bit of Face, the game's rep system.
Getting to the top is never easy, but Triad Wars tries to pave the way for you as best it can. This isn't a deep or dramatic game like Grand Theft Auto; you do the same thing over and over, but when you're cleaving dude's heads in twain in slow motion, you hardly notice. Triad Wars is a constantly evolving empire builder and it just wants you take your piece.
Just be ready to defend it. As Shakespeare said, uneasy is the head that wears the crown.
