I'm just browsing
A roundup of free, browser-based MMOs.
Chav Gangs
It's hard to know where to start with Chav Gangs. Depending on your perspective, the subject matter is either reliant on a comedy carcass long since picked clean, or just plain offensive.
What is inarguable from the moment you create your account, however, is that in order to accrue the necessary funds and points to get stuck into any meaningful gameplay, you will need to vote for the game across a number of MMORPG rating sites.
While a ploy like this certainly appeals to the more cynical and mischievous side of my nature, it's a chuckle that lasts only as long as it takes to begin playing the game proper.
Fresh on the streets of Lowestoft, your purpose in Chav Gangs is to accumulate funds and points through mugging grannies, shoplifting various low-end retail outlets, starting a benefit scam or stealing car stereos. As your funds increase you can look to invest your ill-gotten gains in the stock market where speculations can be made on the value of Mothercare, Lidl, PoundStretcher and the like.
The level of your Nerve stat is the deciding factor in how severe a crime you can carry out at any given time. A period of inactivity is required for it to restore or, if you have points available, these can be used to top up the meter immediately. Out of points and down to your last bar of Nerve? Fall back on the most basic crime of mugging a pensioner:
'You wait outside the Bingo hall waiting for an old biddy to come out. You didn't have to wait long, you punch the old cow in the face, rob her bag and run off like the little coward you are.'
This sort of thing.
Other diversions come in the form of mini-games such as Dave the Drug Dealer's interpretation of Deal or No Deal, where working through a selection of twenty suitcases leaves you with anything from £1 to £500,000 as a reward.
Whether you'll get much more out of the game than an initial, hollow laugh is not so much debatable as improbable. While everything seems fun – or at the very least silly – the first time around, that crucial motivation to bother logging in the next day just isn't there. Unless you have a particular fondness for the subject matter, stick to the far superior Mafia Returns for your text-driven cravings.
4/10