Social gaming has become all the rage, especially with the popularity of games like Mob Wars on Facebook. iMafia, by PlayMesh seeks to join in the fray by allowing you to grow a criminal network and share it with your friends. While there are some nice touches to iMafia, it is still a bit unpolished and buggy to be fully recommended.

In fact the biggest weakness of iMafia was less the gameplay and more having to deal with network connection. For example, most of the commands require the game to connect to the network, which can result in some rather annoying wait times. It leads to a slowdown in game play that can become quite frustrating.

The premise of iMafia is that you are trying to build up a criminal mob. To do so requires a combination of pulling off a series of heists, staying healthy, appeasing the Godfather and growing the size of your criminal empire. The options are spread across two screens. To access each requires a simple swipe of the finger.

There is a tutorial offered at the beginning of iMafia — in a four-point font! — that gives a series of tasks to become familiar with the game play. It does well at giving you an overview of how to play. There was a kink — in order to finish the tutorial you have to be healed at the hospital. Well if you weren’t injured, you could not finish the step. So be sure to pick another fight or two to make sure your health is down.

To improve your mob you must make sure you have sufficient arms, manpower, and energy to take on missions. As time goes you will have more money and influence to commit larger crimes and fight other gangsters.

The social aspect of iMafia allows you to share your accomplishments with others and encourage them to join the game. Of course, that is if all your friends and connections on Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks want to get spammed with an invite. Probably better to keep your mafia a private quest.

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category: Games, Strategy