The King of Chicago

Year 1987, Cinemaware. A game arrived on disk that looked like a film — and behaved like one too. The King of Chicago, I first ran on my dad's 286, watched the intro, and wondered whether I should even play it or just watch.

The story is set in 1931. Al Capone is done for, Chicago is without a boss, and you're a small-time gangster with big ambitions. The goal is simple: take over the underworld, hold it, and survive long enough for the victory to mean something. Cinemaware brought their signature style — an interactive film with cinematic shots, animated sequences, and an atmosphere that had no rival back then.

The gameplay, however, is different than it might seem. No shootout every five minutes. The King of Chicago is a strategic affair — you decide on attacks, alliances, extortion, who to buy off and who to have removed. Action sequences pop up now and then in the style of a card duel or snap decision, but the core of the game is power management and the consequences of your choices. The system feels more like Darren Gray's Hidden Agenda or Yes, Prime Minister than anything you'd look for under the word "action".

What the game brought was revolutionary at the time: a cinematic approach, scene cuts, film score, and the feeling that you're playing a gangster noir. On PC in 1987, it was a shock. It's aged, sure — the controls are clunky, the pacing uneven, and you'll sometimes wait wondering if the game is even waiting for your input. But the atmosphere holds. This game looks like a poster for a film that never got made, and that has its own value.

Today, it's for those who want to see where the interactive film came from — before DVD at the turn of the millennium killed it with an overflow of video sequences devoid of substance. The King of Chicago has substance. It has mood. And if you don't mind that tactical decision-making from 1987 is sometimes as opaque as a tax return, you'll get a rare piece of genre history that's easy not to forget.