By way of the console I'm beta testing for an acquaintance and after many, many attempts, I have finally beaten this thread's namesake game. Syd, I know you hate this game, but even after all these years, I still found its setup fascinating. I went through the whole game without picking up any Super Punches or Tommy Guns because they weren't necessary, nor any First Aids because it was pretty much impossible to use them. The latter reason made for an interesting challenge, especially at the end, when I had to reach Big Boy (or his thug) with no less than a full star of health because he drops his gun in the time it takes bullet #4 to reach him. With the fight down to the wire, I beat the shit out of the bastard and had Big Boy join Numbers, Lips Manlis, Flattop and The Brow in prison.

Though I'm elated that I finally have this one under my belt, there's a few tweaks that could've been done to make the game perfect in my eyes:

1. Make the locations of Shoulders and Influence unknown in The Bogus Bucks and Torchsong Tale, respectively. The locations of the getaway drivers are unknown in the other cases.

2. Switch the locations of The Brow and Itchy in Torchsong Tale. The former's location would then tie into The Kidnap Caper like Flattop's in The Bogus Bucks does with A Bang-Up Job.

3. Put Steve The Tramp in some other unoccupied location in The Kidnap Caper. Can he really go nowhere but the 5th & B Flophouse?

4. Swap Shoulders in The Kidnap Caper for Breathless Mahoney in Banks Alot. Then the latter wouldn't be a suspect in the same case as The Blank.

5. Have Pruneface be the getaway driver in Banks Alot instead of Stooge Viller like in A Bang-Up Job. Afterwards, Big Boy's mug shot could take the latter's place.

Syd, while I don't personally agree with your assessment of the game, I'll happily read it aloud. In fact, I did before I started writing this.