Review by: Keith Durocher
Published: July 22, 2004

You can go a long way with a smile. You can go a lot farther with a smile and a gun.
-Al Capone

The 1930s have been the subject of so much Hollywood re-interpretation that it seems as if the decade never truly existed, like the mob and Prohibition Era Chicago gangland wars were products of nothing more than a soundstage and a script writer’s overactive imagination. However, clichés becomes clichés for a reason: they work. Trench coats, fedoras and Tommy Guns are such a potent brew of macho “cool” that it was only a matter of time before the setting became fodder for PC gaming. The latest entry to this tiny segment of the market is Mob Enforcer, Touchdown Entertainment’s homage to lead-pipe cruelty.

Mob Enforcer is a 3D shooter in the classic sense of the word. Your perspective is first person, all you ever see of yourself is whatever weapon you have in your hand and the rest is the world around you. The setting is Chicago in the 1930s, a time of corrupt law enforcement; Puritan-inspired prohibition laws and liquor distilleries pumping out moonshine faster than the “man” can bring it down. Most of all, it was a time of stylish mobsters with a lilting slang that’s as distinctive today as it was then. Pin-striped zoot suits, classic Model T Fords and gin joints; it was a legendary time that has yet to truly be recaptured.

Mob Enforcer follows the trials of one Jimmy DeMora, a fresh-faced young recruit to the Capone organization. Our young protagonist has an ambitious drive to become the number one muscle for the biggest underworld boss in Chicago. No easy feat, but a towering sense of drive coupled with a ruthless willingness to use firearms in public make for potent allies in the quest to become the best of the worst. DeMora gets his orders from a higher-up in the family called Joe Tessio, a character who’s never seen in person, only heard as a sinister voice over the phone.

The story arc of Mob Enforcer follows DeMora as he proves himself to Tessio and the organization. Along the way, you’ll find yourself silencing rats with loose lips, busting up stores of shop keepers who are paying protection money to the wrong families, taking down illegal distilleries owned by rival gangs, busting out of jail, bribing corrupt police chiefs and ultimately coming to the defense of the besieged Capone himself. Every step of the way involves copious amounts of killing; the only language these mooks understand is spoken by the barrel of a gun. It will take an awful lot of explaining to get your point across.