Chaos Overlords is a great strategy game, which offers many unique features. It is based upon futuristic gang warfare, and the job of the player is to manipulate, hire and equip many gangs which the game has to offer. You start the game by choosing your name, and the type of game - this can be a single player "kill-em-all" game, or many other types of play, or you can also choose a multiplayer hot-seat game. When the game begins, every player in the round starts off with one sector, or "square" of land and a gang called the "right hands".
These are the base gangs, and are described as the gang most dedicated for your cause. In your sector, you will have three buildings, which can be "influenced" (heh-heh) to join your cause. This building, when fully influenced (the little red bar should go green below the building picture), will then produce gold, support for your gangs, and various other bonuses. On your turns, you have the choice of hiring a gang from three possible gangs, shown in the lower-left hand corner. You can only hire one at a time, and each gang has different base stats - combat, influence, control and upkeep being the main ones. Then, you can choose to research new weapons, armor or items which can then be bought and equipped onto
a chosen gang.
Different gangs have very different uses - for example, the "Sunshine Cult" is pretty much useless, being a peace-loving sect in the middle of a gang war, and have next to no practical use. However, the "Metal Burns" are very adept at combat and using guns (BURN, BABY, BURN!!!) and can be used to wipe the floor with a lesser enemy when equipped well.
The equipment used is a very important part of the game. A weaker, but better equipped, gang can easily defeat a worse-equipped stronger gang - this is applicable even to the "Sunshine Cult". Some of the research is very pointless, though, and allows you to step into the very powerful weapons, without having to bypass the worse ones, such as the combat pistol. You can skip straight to the soft-metal accelerator instantly if you were lucky enough to start on a research lab - which gives a bonus of 7 research points.
All in all, this is a good game, but the AI can be extremely challenging if you are a beginner. Even the weakest "goon" mode is pretty tough. It is a good strategy game and should be given a try.
