Mafia Wars by Zynga (Facebook) - Part I

Finally I have managed to complete the writing, in spite of frequent power failures. After I messed up with my previous blog, I started playing this game on Facebook, and very soon I got addicted to it. So I was thinking of writing this post for quite a few days, even though this one will be a bit off-topic. This is a small review of the game Mafia Wars by Zynga, on Facebook. I have been playing that game for almost some months now, and the following are my views about the game.

To start with, all Zynga games are very popular, be it the poker, or the farmville, fishville, cafeworld etc. And so, Mafia Wars, aka MW, is no exception. 

I don't know why, but I had the feeling that Farmville requires a lot of work, specially after crossing level 30, I mean ploughing and harvesting requires a lot of clicking....on the other hand, MW is more about strategy and less about clicking. Yes, even though its only "click-click", it requires a lot of strategy in MW. 

To begin with, you have to choose your type, ie, Maniac( regenerate energy faster),  Mogul (regenerate money faster), and Fearless (regenerate stamina faster). Now what are these energy, stamina etc? These are the attributes that each player has.There are 5 attributes in total -- (a) Attack skill (b) Defense skill (c) Health (d) Energy - required to do jobs (e) Stamina - required to fight and rob.

There are 4 regions in the game (more to come in the future), namely New York, Bangkok, Cuba and Moscow. In the beginning, only NY and Bangkok will be unlocked. Cuba will unlock at level 35 while Moscow at 70. 

You will have to do some very simple jobs in the beginning. Other tabs like "Fight" and "Properties" will be locked now. The jobs are divided into different tiers. Each tier has got about 7 to 8 jobs, and each job has 3 mastery levels (4 for Bangkok). You will get experience points by doing jobs, which in turn will help you to level up. Given the number of experience points required  to level up at the beginning, it is easy to reach  level 20 on the very first day.

The most important thing about MW is your mafia strength, which means, the total number of other FB users who are your friends and also in your mafia. The maximum strength allowed is 501, but it is better to have much more than that. This is required in fights. Items will be used in fights. There are 3 categories of items, namely, weapons, armors and vehicles. Each member of your mafia will use 1 weapon, 1 armor and 1 vehicle. So its better to be a full strength (501) as soon as possible. 

Apart from fighting, Zynga has brought back robbing. You will need to rob the properties of other people. 

In the properties tab (NY) and Business tab (other 3 regions). you will need to collect money from them.

The inventory is the place where you can buy items required for doing the jobs, to store the items you have looted from jobs and fights and also to check your collections. To talk about collections, each regions has got different collection sets each of 7 items. you need to collect all the 7 items in order to vault the set and receive a bonus. No worries if you don't get any item...you can always ask your mafia to help you out with this. And that's what the wishlist is made for. 

Okay...so enough for now, I will continue this in my next post. Till then, I would like to know if anyone here plays MW? Your views and comments would be nice. Have a great time blogging. And a reply to the question in my previous post would be very much appreciated.

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