When trying to catch a break in the highly competitive games journalist industry you gotta pay your dues. This includes writing about either free android/ios games, old games or games that can only be loosely described as dreadfull. If you’re really lucky you’ll have one that meets all three criteria. This one definitely fits the first, doesn’t fit the second and may or may not fit the third, depending on your tastes. The powers that be, at Z1G towers, thought that my being half-Colombian would make me the ideal candidate to review a game based solely on the purchase and resale of various narcotics. Kids, don’t do drugs!

The premise is very simple. You start off as a low level drug dealer and have to use your limited funds to purchase some product and sell it on for profit. You start off shifting some, copyright infringement free, pills called Niagra. Low cost, small profit. Next up is a Sizzurp inspired beverage called Purple Drank. Costs a bit more for a little more profit. After levelling up a little you get a new supplier who endows you with Weed (can’t imagine what that’s supposed to be) and so on and so fourth. Seriously I’m not making this up.

You only have two runners, to begin with, who will pick up and drop off the goods. The time they spend doing this (anywhere from under a minute to half an hour) is dictated by the location of the supplier/customer. This is where one of the game’s cooler elements comes into play. The game itself is played out on a Google maps inspired, err, map that is based on your current real-time location. This means that you will be dealing with fellow drug lords in the vicinity. You could even deal to your own neighbours, if they have a copy of the game. Told you it was cool.

As your money and rank increases you can start splashing out on all types of stuff, that will benefit you in one way or another. New safehouses will allow you to store, and therefore buy, larger quantities of dope while other items can be used to get you better deals or reduce the heat associated with your recent activity. Every time you buy or sell drugs you will attract a certain level of attention from the DEA. The harder the drugs and the larger the quantities the more likely you are to get busted. Get caught and you either lose your cash/package or have to fork out gold, as a bribe, to compete the deal. As is customary with a free app, gold can be purchased for real world money or gradually earnt when reaching certain milestones.

Although I do like the extra strategy/RPG elements involved in upgrading your operation this does bring to light one of Underworld’s biggest flaws. While the game’s low budget Saul Goodman does a decent job of explaining the basics it’s not long before you’re left to figure the rest out on your own. For me, this involved a little bit of trial and error. For example, purchasing a vehicle will (believe it or not) save you time when buying and selling your stuff. So I bought the first one thinking “Yeah baby! This is gonna save me nuff time homie” (you’ve gotta speak the lingo) “Those 6 points on my delivery speed stat are the shizzle for rizzle”. Not so. My new wheels have now turned a half an hour job into a 29 minute and 42 seconds job. For the less mathematically inclined that’s a saving of 18 whole seconds. “You what?!?! That’s $1,500 I can’t get back dawg! That’s wack yo!!!”. Also, when it comes to setting the price of my merch (I assume this is to allow my fellow dealers to buy and sell from/to me when I’m not playing) it’s not clear whether the buying price relates to what they will pay to buy my stock or what I would automatically pay if some gear becomes available, at that price, during my absence. This means I could be paying over the odds, for gear I don’t want, instead of snatching a bargain while I’m snoozing. Try as I might, my good friend Google could not find me an answer.

What with this being a free app and a game that simply boils down to buy low, sell high I have to admit that my expectations were set to the same low level as the drugs I’m after. Nevertheless, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by this one. It’s the kind of game that you can pick up every half hr and play for a couple mins before putting it down again. The fact that you have to wait for deals to be made and for the heat to die down pretty much forces you to play at this pace. This isn’t something I’d pay for. To be Frank White (bonus points if you get the reference) I probably wouldn’t have bothered getting this for free if I spotted it in the Play store. But that’s why guys like us have to pay our dues; so you people can find out about those fun little diversions that you may have otherwise missed out on. So, give it a shot. See what you think. And if you’re in the Peterborough area come see me – I’ve got the best Niagra in town!

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