Comments on: RPS At E3: Mafia II’s Buzzsaw

By: nicolas

nicolas — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 07:29:40 +0000

Mafia was among the most incredible games i have played..
I am looking forward for this installment with great anticipation…

But as i LOVE the 30’s i hope they make a remake or another game based on that era….

By: Nick

Nick — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 20:21:39 +0000

To be fair, getting your nice pastel blue suit wet was enough to induce suicide anyway.

By: Rinox

Rinox — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 14:56:11 +0000

The Innocent said:

I remember those Vice City missions where you had to drive a little powerboat and shoot people, and I was terrified of them. Not because there were a ton of Haitians with guns, but because jumping into the boat at the start of the mission and jumping from the boat to the pier at the end were deadly, especially with how clunky jumping could be.

Hahaha, so true. Those were the days.

By: The Innocent

The Innocent — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 14:48:27 +0000

But then again, there was that Mafia race that I got stuck on for three weeks until I found out that there’s a way to beat it super easily by just going around to the start and then “resetting” your car. Yeah, that was clunky too.

By: Beastman

Beastman — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 14:20:40 +0000

I think Vice City was the first GTA you could swim in.

Nope, San Andreas was the first in which you could swim.

I remember that being built up as a big selling point at the time, which seemed pretty ridiculous at the time and just seems absolutely ridiculous looking back on it now.

By: Rinox

Rinox — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 13:49:14 +0000

The funniest thing re: immersion that I keep thinking about when talking about Mafia and the earlier GTA games, is that in all of them ending up in the water = instant death. This in cities that invariably featured a lot of water.

No matter how well you make the rest of the game and make a player believe he’s ‘in’ the gameworld, seeing the proverbial ‘GAME OVER’ letters every time your character fell into a puddle of water tended to crush that sense of immersion pretty effectively. :-D

I think Vice City was the first GTA you could swim in. All the more reason to love it…that and the pastel-colored outfits, eighties stations, Colombian drug lords and Miami Vice neon signs.

By: Bullwinkle

Bullwinkle — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 13:29:05 +0000

What I much preferred about Mafia was the sense of progression. You started out with unbelievably crappy cars (that were nonetheless fun to drive) but got better and better ones as you went along. Getting a new car was a joy, especially those hot rods from Lucas’s side missions. (Celeste Marque 500=pure awesome.) In GTA, you could get pretty much any car you wanted at any time. I found that far less immersive, and far less interesting.

By: Kieron Gillen

Kieron Gillen — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 12:51:51 +0000

Yeah, was 82%. Or maybe 83%. I think 82%.

By: EBass

EBass — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 12:47:14 +0000

I don’t think it was an absolutely terrible review, in most cases it was pretty fair. I must confess I can’t remember much of it, however one thing did stick in my memory, you said something along the lines of “Comparisons to GTA3 are as unfair as they are unjustified.”

Which was right on the money (well actually comparisons to GTA3 are quite appropriate as long as you remember to place them in the right context, same with most competing games of a similar genre with differing styles, say UT and Q3 just for arguments sake.), however I left the review thinking, well he may of said that, but he is kind of comparing it to GTA3 isn’t he?

And I think it was 82%. Too bad the review archive isn’t on the disc anymore.

Much likes Tim’s recent FC2 review. I didn’t necessarily disagree with the words of the review, rather the tone and the conclusions you drew.

With regard to Mafia’s “levels” again you’re right, but I don’t think you take into account the advantages that system brought.

The level based nature of the game allowed the plot to advance much better, particularly with the gradual passing of the years (I think the game started in 1931 and ended in 1940ish). Also, after every level save one or two you were given the freedom to drive around and explore the wonderful city before “ending” the mission and going on to the next bit, which isn’t really so different from GTA’s “Drive around until you decide you want to visit the next mission hub.”

As for Mafia not being all its reputation growing in to, I’d just like to say that its driving and shooting weren’t bettered by the GTA series until GTA4. I also felt Lost Heaven felt more real than Liberty City (though GTA3s wonderful radio stations blow it out the water in terms of a general sense of place.)

By: Kieron Gillen

Kieron Gillen — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 10:30:47 +0000

EBass: I did. 85% or something wasn’t it? Maybe a touch lower. Not my finest review in writing, I suspect, since I can’t remember any of it.

By: EBass

EBass — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 10:01:28 +0000

GTA3 was a better game than Mafia on its release. But Mafia has aged far far better, I’m with Kieron on this one that GTA is a far more important game series. However I hope Kieron didn’t write the PCG review of Mafia because I felt it kind of missed the point by a long shot.

By: Rinox

Rinox — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 09:53:22 +0000

@ Kieron: I think I understand what you mean. Mafia operated in a city that (for all its shiny graphics) was in essence merely a backdrop for the story it was trying to tell, while in GTA 3 and onwards the city itself was basically a/the game. Even though they are very similar games on paper, they do play very differently. Never really looked at it that way.

In the end it’s all about what you expect from a game, I guess. Maybe I just have an old-fashioned taste. That would explain why I keep dragging out Alpha Centauri on a yearly basis and break down into a month of sleepless addiction.