By John Walker on August 28th, 2010 at 5:11 pm.
Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond our control, we were not able to get Mafia II review code before the game was released. So I’ve not slept much in the last 24 hours to complete the game, in order that I can tell you my thoughts. It’s a game I’ve been hoping to play for eight years, and have followed extremely closely during development. The reviews so far have been confusingly mixed, even the Eurogamer Network giving both a 4 and a 10. Below I’m finally able to tell you Wot I Think.
One of the criticisms that’s been frequently levelled at Mafia II is the city. They are incorrect. The city is extraordinary. It’s a remarkable achievement, both in scale and detail. It in no way fails at being an open world. It was never intended to be an open world. Instead it was always intended to be a vivid backdrop to a narrative. It’s the narrative that fails, and it fails terribly.
Vito Scaletta, the son of Sicilian immigrants, is serving in World War 2. Caught stealing cars, he was drafted into the army fighting in Italy in 1943, which is where we first pick up his story. Essentially a tutorial level, a rather damp invasion of a building neither begins nor ends, and then Vito declares in narration, “A few years later the Nazis put a bullet in me.” Since the war ended in 1945, this seems a little confusing, especially as when Vito returns to America on leave, the war’s still going.
Vito’s father has died, leaving his mother and sister in $2000 of debt, with loan sharks circling. A reunion with his former crime buddy Joe Barbaro results in Joe making a call that sees Vito on permanent leave, and the two of them partnering up to pick up work from the Mob. And off we go.
For a drive. A very, very long drive. Mafia II is a collection of menial tasks strung together by driving, with the occasional respite of a shoot-out. And these menial tasks don’t only make up the beginning of the game, but last throughout. Midway through the game, when you’re scrubbing a third urinal, it dawns on you that you’re scrubbing urinals in a game. Slowly, tiresomely, watching your player character with his face in the porcelain, scrubbing. Sure, he’s in prison and it’s an act of humiliation, but it’s still the game you’re playing. It’s just anther chore in a long line of demeaning chores.
Early on you’re given a task to carry some crates onto the back of a lorry. Vito is horrified by this manual labour, and loudly complains about how boring it is. The game promptly tells you that you can leave when you like. Which makes it a strange choice to seemingly model more tasks on this. In the second half, when you’re on the back of a truck picking out the correct coloured cigarette boxes for a line of customers, the only narrative complaining comes from you. (I do wonder if this was intended as a meta-comment on the crate-shifting scene in Mafia I, but it’s one that woefully backfires if it is.)
You’re essentially a courier/chauffeur for the Family, and despite apparently rising in the ranks, your tasks never become any more significant. Even by the end of the game you’re still struggling to do the most tedious of jobs, which inevitably involve driving a very long way, then driving back.
Vito’s only in prison because of another tedious task, in which you’re forced to drive to every gas station in the city in fifteen minutes, selling stamps. That’s his big exciting crime: selling ration stamps. That’s the scale in which Mafia II’s story exists.
Before I really pull apart why Mafia II’s story fails quite so badly, it’s important to celebrate its shoot-outs. They work extremely well, and all too infrequently.
A smart and superb cover system lets you take satisfactory headshots as the many enemies swarm you. Your AI buddies rarely mess up, and I never lost a mission due to one of them dying. (A vast improvement upon the original game.) These inevitably take place in peculiarly long, thin buildings, but so did Mass Effect 2’s, and everyone sensibly got over that. Sadly enemy AI is nowhere near what was promised, and they still do that ridiculous thing of popping their heads back up exactly where they were before they hid. But these sequences are often a lot of fun, with many weapons, and potential for improvised fun. The crazy thing is, there’s only very few of them throughout, despite being the game’s strength.
Madly, far more common are the ghastly hand-to-hand fight scenes. They’re utterly awful, but seemingly no one was aware of this during development, forcing these Street Fighter For Dummies scenes on you over and over and over. Dodge, punch, dodge, punch, hard punch, punch. Again and again and again. The dodge is extremely dodgy, however, meaning it often just doesn’t happen, and the whole affair is a dull trial.
The destructible scenery, however, is a accolade-worthy achievement, and the game’s physics are mightily impressive. You can set things on fire, shoot through wood (sometimes), and most importantly, blow things up very satisfyingly. The engine, while physically similar to those in many open world games, is stunning.
There are three Families in Empire Bay, the Vinci, Falcone and Clemente gangs. Vito begins working for Clemente, but through the machinations of the plot, meanders between them in a way that has you completely unable to remember who works for who. But none carries any emotional significance.
When Mafia: Lost Heaven came out everyone unfairly compared it to GTA III, in a way uncannily similar to how Mafia II is being unfairly compared to GTA IV. Neither game intends to be a living city in which you can ignore the plot and go raise havoc. It’s not the purpose of a Mafia game, which are intended to be story-driven missions, the city a backdrop in which they take place. To measure Mafia II against GTA IV is to measure Half-Life against STALKER. Neither has the same intentions, and neither should have to hit the same targets. Mafia II is more meaningfully measured against Mafia I, and it’s here that it reveals how woefully empty it is.
The city is far more involved than the first game, as it happens. For all the errant complaints you may have read, there’s lots of activity, and plenty of opportunities for accidentally getting involved in a gang war. None is particularly compelling, and the ridiculous omnipresence of the police spoils any potential fun, but it is in there. And there’s food, clothes and gun shops to visit, mechanics to improve cars, gas stations to refill your tank…
But, here’s the thing: they’re all pointless. You can buy food to heal yourself, but you auto-heal and there’s always free food in your apartment. You can buy guns, but the game gives you more than you’ll ever be able to fire for nothing. You can upgrade your cars, but there’s no need to at all. And gas? I drove one car a great deal, and it never got low on petrol, and if it had I’d just steal another one. The only establishments that serves a purpose are the clothes stores, which will let you disguise your appearance and shake police who may have a description of you. By, er, buying exactly the same clothes you were wearing before.
So forget all that. It’s a beautiful background, and it serves that purpose wonderfully. Where Mafia II should be damned is for its banal story.
Mafia I told the tale of a man, Tommy Angelo, reluctantly drawn into the Mafia, who found it becoming his whole life until eventually his buried morals conflicted with his hubris, and he ratted to the feds. It’s a fantastic arc, a decade of a decent man’s life descending into callous murder and emotionless crime. A fallen Angel in a Lost Heaven. It was a smart game – yes, one that robbed ludicrously from everyone’s favourite mobster movies – but still smart. And crucially, it was an emotional tale.
Mafia II is devoid of emotion. It’s hinted at near the start with Vito’s relationship with his mother and sister, but you quickly realise that despite the same author writing both games, there’s no longer the sophistication to manage a family dynamic. Vito is a sociopath, and not by cunning writing, but because he’s a hollow mannequin. His willingness to embrace the Mafia, and whichever grotesque tasks they demand of him, are met without conscience or consideration. Sure, why not fleece some innocent dockworkers? Who cares who you murder? When Vito finally does hesitate to do one illegal act toward the end, it’s of so little consequence when compared with the horrors he’s previously robotically performed, that you realise he was only ever a plastic pin stuck in an aimless plot.
The acting is fantastic throughout. Some of the best to have appeared in a game. The lines they’re delivering, however, are blabber. There’s a couple of jokes that work, but in two hours of cutscenes that’s really not enough. The rest is groups of people saying, “Fuck Marty, let’s kill fucking Tony.” (or whomever). It’s such a collection of cliché that you could use it as a museum. When someone asks, “Hey, how’d you get in here?” the demoralising reply comes, “We followed the fucking yellow brick road.” Imagine that dialogue endlessly repeated.
Being the types of gangsters they are, in the era they’re in, there’s a great deal of sexism and racism, as you might expect. But it really does seem to revel in the opportunity. Chinese people are called “Chinks” so many times that you begin to wonder if someone writing really has an issue. And women (or should I say “broads”), unlike in the first game, only serve one purpose here: fucking. Almost every NPC female character has the exact same pair of voluptuous breasts. None has an important role to play in the story, other than to be helpless or shagged. And on the receiving end of some delightful dialogue like, “Fuck you, you fucking cum-dumpster.”
And of course there’s the collectable Playboy pictures. Colour photographs (impressive for the time!) of nudey ladies, scattered around the city as a bonus item. It’s up to you whether you find this offensive, but it unquestionably sets the tone for women’s roles in this game.
However, the game does seem to have sourced a great deal of its content from the toilet. Quite literally. The story spends more time on topics of shit and vomit than anything else. One sequence in particular, involving disposing of a dead body, has drunken characters barfing everywhere, in what’s presumably supposed to be crazy frat-movie antics. Another has Vito covered in human shit for an entire mission, to the scatological hilarity/disgust of everyone involved. I lost count of how many times it was implied that Vito was raped in the prison showers, but it sure must be a funny idea!
“Two hours of cutscenes” is a dangerous boast. This can be a great thing when delivered well. And one that stood true. I timed how long I spent playing the game, and how long I spent playing the game. Of the 11 hours and 8 minutes it took me to reach the end, 8 hours and 46 minutes of them were spent being in control. This would, perhaps, have been fine if that two and a half hours of watching had occurred in sizeable chunks. But they’re scattered throughout, a minute here, a minute there, meaning you’re never able to relax into playing. Incessant interruptions steal the game away from you each time you settle into a scene.
The one time the game never wrestles the controls from you is when you’re literally at the driving wheel. The driving, while fine in most respects, is a dull affair interrupted by idiotic police. Go over 40, tap another car, nudge a pedestrian, and they come chasing after you. But evasion is ridiculously simple. The easiest trick is to brake to a halt, wait for the cops to get out of their car, then drive off. You’ll lose them in five seconds. And their responses are daft. A car t-boned me at a junction (as SO many do – the NPC driving AI is seemingly unaware of your presence at all times), and the police began a chase of me for my “hit and run”. Yet seconds later I rammed into another car at full speed, slamming it into a police car, and they did nothing at all. And they seem to ignore it when you drag an elderly man from his car in the middle of a street, but go crazy with fury when you pick a lock in their sight.
Checkpointing, despite plenty of warning from previewers (including me) is ghastly. It can only be an act of deliberate spite by the developers, seemingly in contempt of anyone who might die in their game. Get shot in the back of the head, or have an idiot NPC driver crash you into a tree, and you’ll have to not only repeat huge chunks of action, but also skip through cutscenes, get dressed, answer telephones, run down stairs, find cars… It’s inexplicable.
The ending is mystifying. Just… well, I couldn’t really think of a worse way for it to fizzle out. It’s like they just had to stop – maybe the phone rang. Huge set-ups from earlier in the game go completely unmentioned, and the meandering story, that really only gets going in the final third of the game, is of so little consequence that its expiration has no impact. Oh, some credits. I guess it’s done then.
It’s so maddening! This is an extraordinary game in many ways! An incredible city as wonderful decoration, with a really solid engine that’s been lovingly crafted and executed. Superb gun fighting, amazing acting, and occasionally even some decent direction. The radio stations are overly clichéd, but the news reports entertainingly report your actions, differently on all three stations. The animations are remarkable, the damage modelling on the cars like nothing I’ve seen before.
But then it’s let down by a nothing story, and the most peculiarly terrible ideas for missions. Why have such hateful checkpointing? What does it serve? Why make me pick out boxes of cigarettes (four times!) when I’m supposed to be playing a Mafia simulator? Why did they think those fisticuff fights were worth including once, let alone at least a dozen times? And why cast the player as a vacuous, uninteresting shop window dummy of crime?
What made Mafia: Lost Heaven special was Angelo, and his relationship with the world, the story, and the action. It was an enormously flawed game, with awful driving, overly-convoluted missions, and that race. But its heart was extraordinary. Mafia II has no heart at all. It’s an emotionally dead, frequently boring game, mostly spent slowly driving. The engine behind it desperately needs to be used for the excellent plot and thrilling action it deserved.
Arrrrgggh. Though I usually wait for reviews before making a purchase, I apparently went crazy this month and preordered both Mafia 2 and Elemental. How woefully, overwhelmingly depressing, especially when money is tight.
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We never learn :)
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Elemental seems to be on track to be patched into good health. Give it a month or two, and it’ll be a perfectly splendid game, I expect.
(And I’m in it! (Under another of my many names.))
Mafia II, on the other hand…
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Elemental will definitely be patched and improved over the next few months. No worries.
Mafia II… not.
It will get DLC (the kind you have to buy) and still be incomplete one year from now.
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Elemental’s problems aren’t bugs, though. It’s just crappy. Just flat out not fun: an awful slog of a game with no redeeming features about it. It’s tremendously ugly, feature-light, slow to play, hard to use, difficult to learn, and even once you get past all that, there’s still nothing in there to recommend it.
Until I see a patch note labeled “added fun,” I’m going to have to stay clear.
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Yup, just get Age of Wonders Shadow Magic and the 1.4 fan patch and you’ll have a great deal more (or, indeed, have some) fun. Or MoM with its shitty AI, which is still a thousand times better than Elemental. I haven’t bought this bad a game since Force Commander (thanks John! =P)
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The game’s fine. I’m not too sure what Johns particular issue with it is. Dragon Age: Origins is full of menial tasks to complete (most of which require you to traipse backwards and forwards across Ferelden repeatedly), yet that he labelled ‘RPG of the decade’. Marked down for a lack of elves and unicorns I guess.
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@Kadayi What? He just spent an entire article explaining in depth what his “specific” problem with it was and I don’t remember a single instance of having to clean a toilet in Dragon Age. Maybe you don’t know what menial means?
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@Masked Dave
I’m talking about the game as whole. Also that task merely sets the scene.
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I think the difference here is that you don’t have to do most of the “menial” tasks in Dragon Age; that’s what sub-quests are for. If you find them boring and pointless, you just don’t do them. Mafia II seems to force you to do them as part of its modus operandi.
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@Fergus
You know one of the big criticisms of the Godfather film is the fact that although there’s a lot of actual killing in it, very little organised criminal activity really takes place in it. The film is pretty much all about political power play between the various Mafia families in New York, but little if any of it actually deals with the the day to day of what the Mafia do, whether it be the running of protection rackets, prostitution, gambling, fencing stolen goods etc, etc. From such a lofty perch it’s all very easy to be poetic and sanctimonious in your storytelling, but it’s removed from the base realities of what the Mafia are namely, a hierarchical criminal business enterprise.
As a game Mafia 2 is very much dealing with that. Vito is not a big player. He’s an entry level button man dealing with the day to day of making ends meet and hoping for better things. If that involves him having to carry out mundane tasks occasionally, that’s an honest reflection of the job. Personally I don’t see what’s so objectionable about that.
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@Beanbee: Speak for yourself; not everyone is an impatient pre-orderer.
Since the demo revealed to me that I hate the cover system and driving, combined with this review, I think I can now get all of the value from Mafia by just looking at the pretty screenshots for free.
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Wow the demo made me want to buy this game because that mission was pretty good with its gun play and what not. But this review has made me a bit wary now. God this game has made me go a bit topsy turvy first not liking the look of it in previews, then liking the demo, then not liking it through reviews.
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I feel the same. I had no interest in it until I played the demo and enjoyed it enough to consider a purchase. From what I’ve read, however, the story and missions (the reasons I became interested) are the elements where it fails the most. Oh well, glad I didnt take a gamble.
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While the gameplay is not bad, its not worth it to buy a game just for 10hours of it. Since its only Single-player and even the posters and pinups wont drive you to beat it again. All in all decent.
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So it’s only the narrative and game design that let it down? No biggy, look at da grafix and da boooobies!
*sigh*
:(
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@Curvespace: Just the one boooob actually, mirrored and copypasta’d onto every female NPC, going by John’s picture above…
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2 bewbs then surely?
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@Dozer: The collectibles in the game are uncensored vintage Playboy pinups. So in 2d, at least, there are boobs-a-plenty.
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There not vintage unless they really had photoshop back in them days…and colour cameras.
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Playboy was in color starting with the very first issue, and pre-photoshop they used to have this fun technique called airbrushing.
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Yes, and somewhat awkwardly for the game, founded in 1953.
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@Xercies
The photos are period. This came up in the ‘preview’ comments and was clarified then. They’ve had a little bit of shop carried out on them, but just colour fixes and general clean up.
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Yeah I found it a little odd that Derek’s assistant was reading Playboy in the mid 40′s, but whatever. I find the collectible centerfolds to be fairly tasteful, in any case, probably more tasteful than what I’d expect a real wiseguy to have hanging on his wall.
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This pretty much puts this into the no buy zone for me. I never quite got into the first Mafia. “This is a decent story and a great setting” thought I, “but the shootouts are iffy and some of the missions somewhat dull.”
keeping the great setting and improving the shooting definitely doesn’t compensate for keeping the missions dull and even worse they’ve lost the good story. Shame.
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Bummer, wish I’d read this before spending €70 euro on this. Hmm.
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right on. m1 had impact, m2 is just passing along like nice scenery in an overly long drive. I hate and love the game but it’s story/characters are too bad to redeem itself.
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So basically it’s sort of like GTA 4 (lots of profanities, no story and so on) in the 50s. What were they thinking? So it’s a no-buy since I’m looking for a Mafia game.
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I like GTA 4′s story line =/
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Fail at appreciating good videogame writing. Return to Go, do not collect £200.
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And I was so hoping it would be a worthy successor to the original. Looks like one to put in the “If its less than £5 on a steam sale” pile.
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Oh and just as an addition. I wanted to say how refreshing it is that a website obviously supported by this game’s release (massive adverts everywhere) is still obviously editorially free to go and give their honest opinion about it.
A more important question thought what score would you give it? how many coconuts?
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What’s important is that we’re not beholden to giving scores, but rather can express it all by the magic of words : )
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What is this ‘score’ you speak of Rich?
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Damn shifty Words. Never trust a Word! ;)
But really, great review John. Here’s to hoping the next game you play is less saddening.
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who cares about notes, the review is explicit by itself
It goes in my steam sale pile too
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I’m in agreement with Rich. Steam sale buy. Oh but how I loved the original….
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Steam pile? I’m filing this one under “steaming pile”.
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Mafia II was so bloody annoying. Sure, I enjoyed the well done gunfights (except that the shotgun is about the only fun weapon, all Thompsons and the like are like reskins of a single weapon) and few missions, but come on. The ending was so abrupt and made no sense!
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I don’t know what the ending is (and maybe won’t find soon after this review), but if it is abrupt and makes no sense maybe (in a good Mafia I tradition) they borrowed it from the Sopranos? ;)
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touche!
probably the best review aobut mafia 2 I`ve read.
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I’m playing this right now and I completely agree with everything you said.
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Bummer. I think you are completely right about about comparing it to Mafia I instead of GTA IV. That’s a high watermark already. And the demo really made it look like they pulled it off! Fantastic tech, but that’s ultimately worthless, as long as there isn’t anything interesting they accomplish with it.
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Well, I disagree with this a lot. First some factual things:
1) You hold block during fist-fights and it never fails… maybe you were pressing it? I don’t know. I held it and never got hit.
2) There are way more than a “few” gun-fights… the last half of the game has a lengthy one pretty much every mission. I could list them, but that would be spoiler-a-hoy.
3) You only auto-heal up to a point, you do take permanent damage. Thus food is needed. You don’t heal between missions either, only chapters.
4) I ran out of fuel twice, once in a mission, so it does matter and it does happen, and if you don’t want to risk cops then a gas station is easiest.
Okay, now to opinion…
The women thing seems like an unfair point because the stated goal of the writer was to show that women were always objects to these men, even the sister and mother. If they had a smart woman character who defied that then it would have ruined the message. The racist stuff… personally I thought they played it a bit safe, like never using the n-word… it certainly wasn’t too much.
The story… I liked it. I LOVED the ending. I don’t view him being a petty thug as an issue, the story is different from the tragic fall of an honorable man in the first game, it’s about a thug whose careless behavior ruins everyone around him. [Giant spoilers removed - Ed] The ending was the ultimate result of his behavior, the final loss that comes from what he did. It’s about him not being the one who suffers, but about how others pay for his follies.
I thought it was a great message, and I thought the dialogue was great throughout. You seemed to concentrate on only the vulgar sections, of which you listed them all really, and ignored the rest. I don’t think that’s fair, and on the whole the game is far less juvenile than The Sopranos and similar entertainment.
Glad you defended the city though, that complaint in other reviews drives me up the wall. Still, I am disappointed by your review, I don’t think it gave the story a fair shake and focused on small parts to try and paint it as having larger flaws.
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1) If that’s the case then the fighting’s worse than I thought.
2) They are sporadic, and there are too few of them across the fifteen chapters.
3) Yes – I chose not to go into the injury stuff, since it rarely has any meaningful effect and you usually auto-heal to more than plenty of health. And indeed, as I said, there’s free food in your apartment for healing between missions.
4) Unfortunately, in my experience playing, I did not. And as I said, stealing a car is quick and easy – certainly less fuss than finding a gas station.
And I absolutely didn’t comment on all the grotesque stuff! Mostly because of spoilers.
It’s great that you took that from the story. But for me Vito had no personality at all – he was a nothing-human, and the consequences of his actions, as arbitrary as they all were, had no impact on him, since he had no personality to be impacted. I think you’ve done a lot of hard work to get anything from that story, but I’m pleased you were able to.
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@StingingVelvet:
The way it is described by John (I didn’t play the game yet), not only do the characters treat women like objects, the writers do as well. A good story would be able to portray the role of women in a 50s gangster milieu by actually introducing interesting female characters.
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@ John Walker
I agree Vito kind of lacked personality… he was no Niko, that’s for sure. I am not saying the story was flawless by any means, I just got more from it than you did. I really look at it as a simple tale of a man who goes out and takes what he wants and how that devastates everyone around him. Even at the end he sort of gets upset about what was just taken from him, but then he kind of relaxes and accepts it. He is really an empty vessel, and that’s interesting I thought.
@ Ricc
The game is supposed to immerse you in that life and that mindset though, it’s a point of view tale. The box lifting, the errand-running… it’s designed to make you feel like you’re living the life of a thug in the 50′s mob. If there were women that challenged Vito’s perspective of them it would change the focus of the game through a perspective shift.
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@StingingVelvet
I think you give a good counter argument and I agree that it’s disappointing that John has made a mountains out of mole hills regarding what he sees as flaws in the game, to the extent that people are talking about passing on buying/playing it (which would be a mistake in my view as it’s one of the better titles to come out in a lean year). Perhaps a couple more Wot I thinks on Mafia 2 from the rest of the Hivemind might redress the balance, because I don’t think a singular voice really does it any justice.
Personally like you, I like the fact that Vito is an empty vessel. It puts you as the player firmly in the driving seat without a sense of obligation. One of the things I actively disliked about GTA IV is the fact that Nikko as a character is constantly going on about how he wants to do the right thing, and escape his criminal past, but his actions are never ever directed in that way, and in fact he just turns into a money obsessed sociopath about halfway through the game. It was like hanging around a chain smoker whose constantly saying ‘I really need to quit’ every time they light up.
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@ Kadayi
Yeah, Assassin’s Creed does the same thing… it has a story about how you’re actually a crusading and honorable hero who fights the Templars that manipulate the world, yet you slaughter a ton of innocents to get to treasure and other loot, especially in the second one.
It’s refreshing that Mafia 2 just has you play a complete asshole. Vito mocks his friends, treats his sister and women as property, kills without hesitance or remorse and even at the end is only doing what he needs to in order to survive, no matter how many die because of it. There seem to be people who think of this instantly as bad storytelling… I have read the same kind of dismissals about Kane & Lynch or movies like Pulp Fiction, but it’s a way to tell a story and a compelling one for me and a lot of other people.
And I do think, no personal offense intended, that his desire to feel above the rare instances of vulgarity and sex colored his review in a poor way. Same thing in the Eurogamer UK review.
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@StingingVelvet
Agreed about Assassins Creed 1 & 2 as well. I kind of hated that it makes you out to be the noble avenger (which is a great role to play) and then force feeds you endless missions where you just end up killing City Guards whose only crime is that of being in the wrong location and being a guard. If they were the minions/instruments of an oppressive force it would of made a lot more sense. I wish they’d actually introduced much more of a stealth mechanic to those titles, to the extent that you could really pick and choose who you kill rather than having to slaughter every fool who crosses your path/poses an obstacle. There is a dishonesty to games that operate in that manner.
I actually quite enjoyed K&L2 (short as it is). I think it needed a bit more variety to it in terms of the activities (having the heist go a head would of helped in a lot of ways), but I liked the raw feel of it and it actually looked fantastic (I played with all the effects on as I enjoyed the intensity), and I wouldn’t be adverse to seeing more titles adopt that approach (It made me think a lot of Children of Men). It seems to have received short shift from many reviewers, which is a pity as I think it’s definitely a title to be experienced just as Mafia 2 is.
Yes this increasing trend to colour reviews due to personal issues with the portrayal of the period or characterisation (K&L) is kind of depressing. I think the game reviews industry could learn some lessons from film critics with how to handle such things.
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@John: Does the players character have to be materially/emotionally affected by the consequences of their actions for the player themselves to be materially/emotionally affected by the consequences of their characters actions? I do not say this critically, but it seems like you conflate the character you portray with your real being. While I am not convinced that Mafia II does this, it seems possible to play a game in which you portray a sociopath who cares naught about the consequences of his actions but that this is entirely besides the point, because the concrete YOU is supposed to care.
I’m reminded of Molleindustria’s Oiligarchy post-mortem:
This applies to a bunch of stuff, ranging from why Red Faction’s insurrection is so inutterably boring and unmoving, to (*possibly*) Mafia II. Primarily I want to propose that the subject/objective of the game may not be entirely contained by the narrative and may include the real physical you, as distinct from the in-game form you take.
For others reading this, I’d like to take a moment to point out that this actually underscores the critique of the portrayal of women in this game. If the game was trying to affect us as real people then these women would be presented with more depth. It’s not that I’m expecting a game to not have sexism, or have that sexism impact/influence/whatever an anti-hero. I’m expecting the game to give enough depth to the women involved for that sexism to be meaningful both to them and the me in the modern world.
I’m disappointed by the people who backlash against the sexist critiques because the obvious counterargument is “We’re never expected to care about the private/emotional lives of all the soldiers we mindlessly gun down, pointing to a generalised dehumanisation that permeates the entire field of gaming.”
I am now wildly off my original topic :/
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@medwards
Your mistake is to assume that the games writers included the sexism because they wanted to make a commentary on it, not that it is merely a reflection of the social attitudes of the games characters and the world in which they operate (not necessarily of society as a whole at the time). That oppression is demonstrated within a period piece does not necessarily beget that there is any intention within its presence to be more than accurate as to the state of things at the time no?
I think we seem to have reached a bit of an impasse here in that the games detractors such as yourself are focussed on running it down for an apparent lack of social commentary counter balance to the sexism displayed within the game (the strong female role who defies simple objectification). Where as people like myself and Stinging don’t feel that it’s a necessary pre-requisite, and that it’s inclusion would merely be a concession to political correctness.
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I uninstalled demo after 5 minutes of boredom and chekpoint-replaying.
So, no surprises here.
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After reading the EG review I was a bit torn but after reading this I know that I should stay clear of Mafia II.
Well written and interesting review John.
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Sigh, the only thing this review makes me wanna do is reinstall Mafia 1.
BRB installing.
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Wow, what a shame. I’m actually having a rethink about buying this now, at least at full price. Story was always something I thought they’d get right without much trouble.
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I like it. I’m having as much fun with it as I did with GTA 4. What is a bit annoying is that they release the game 27th august and the first DLC comes out 31th august. Which would be more ok if the original game was 30-40 hours long, but when it is as short as it is, it stinks of a money grab and is offensive to me as a customer. But this is the brave new world of PC gaming and the end of me pre-ordering. I think I’ll more and more wait for the inevitable price drop (and patching) before buying in the future. I don’t like that those of us who actually pay for games have a bullseye painted on our foreheads by publishers.
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And I agree there is way too much driving and fisticuffs in relation to how much shooting there is. Shooting is well done and fun. Fighting/driving is decidedly average.
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Just realized that the first DLC is PS3 exclusive. Good decisions all over the place, 2K.
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I am confused. Do you want the DLC or not?
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The DLC is given free to PS3 owners who bought the game. I assumed it would come to PC the 31th (when it is released for PS3) since I have Steam achievements for it. And since I didn’t get a code to redeem with my PC purchase I assumed I would have to pay for it. Charging money for a DLC four days after a release would rub me the wrong way.
Not bothering to give PC (or Xbox owners) a free DLC when you give PS3 owners one is just weird but I don’t really raise my eyebrows over that crap anymore. Especially when the game is as empty as it is.
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I’m very sad to hear that. What mostly kept me going through Mafia I, and what I love it for, were the great (and hard) action missions and the amazing story arc and ending. If they’ve cut down on the action for chores missions and the oft interrupting cut-scene and the story is BLAND then what do I have left to look forward to?
I don’t know what to think. Maybe they’re saving some more material for DLC? That would be also so wrong.
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Still, your whole website design is a big Mafia 2 ad.
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You’ve seen websites before, right?
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Indeed.
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You people and your lack of adblock.
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You evil, evil person bleeters.
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I’m not too annoyed about the giant ads. At least they aren’t giant links to the thing being advertised. *shudder*
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bleeters – we work really, really hard on RPS, and when you block the ads you choose for us to not get paid. Which is sort of sucky of you.
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Oh, really? I didn’t realise. Fair enough then!
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Yeah if your gonna ad-block this site, which is epic, unlike most, then at least sub :D
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I pay the RPS Abo and block the ads, fair enough. uh?
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As others have said, if you want to adblock (and I don’t blame you in the slightest if you want to, I certainly do) it’s best to subscribe to make up for the loss of revenue. They’ll make more off of a subscription than they would off of ad imprints anyway, so it all works out.
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A big ad that doesn’t even line up right in Opera. But frankly it’s a hell of a lot better than all the animated Starcraft noise and CPU-burning Flash.
And it hardly seems to have influenced John.
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Yep, same here – $2 a month to support my favourite site and allow myself to morally remove the ads? Bargain.
Anyone who reads and enjoys this site regularly should do the same – it’s about the price of a cup of coffee on the way to work. Spread over the month you’re paying about 4 pennies a day, it’s ridiculous.
*sad guilt trip music with pictures of John swatting flies off his face*
Your contributions to the RPS Cruelty Prevention Society can help us to feed and cloth these poor innocent creatures, as well as giving them access to clean fresh rum and Writer’s Elbow cream. So please, give as little as 2 American pounds a month to adopt a games writer today… If you don’t, you’re as bad as a seal-clubbing Nazi.
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maybe they can port the story from the first mafia to the engine and mechanics of this game. that’d be a first dlc worth buying…
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Excellent review, pretty much sums up wot I think (I as in me not you John).
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This however doesn’t change the fact that the 4/10 review on Eurogamer was a travesty. It suffered from the exact opposite bias of some indie games: being judged not objectively on its worth but in relation to its budget/production value. Yes, Mafia 2 may not be what we hoped/expected and yes it has its flaws, but 4/10? That’s just not right.
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Agreed.
There are real criticisms of the game and no one should deny that, but a 4 out of 10 and bashing it for not being GTA is ridiculous. Eurogamer should be ashamed of that review, and several others recently.
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That reviewer also hated the combat (he had issues with the cover system, if I’m remembering correctly?), so there really wasn’t much of anything in the game for him to like.
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I think he just considered the combat mundane, which it sort of is… it’s basically Mass Effect 2 or Gears of War combat, there isn’t much unique to it. I’m fine with considering the combat not amazing but not bad, sort of a non-issue.
Still, the story, whatever faults it may have, is still so far above the norm in video games that it deserves mentioning, and the presentation, atmosphere and attention to detail along is worth more than a 4.
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It’s like Mass Effect without the Krogan charge, unfortunately. Enemies either fire from fixed positions or they fall back, they never rush you. You’re always safe if you have decent cover.
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Are you annoyed by the score or the actual article, though? John could’ve put a completely arbitrary number on the end of that article but it wouldn’t change the feelings he’d expressed in the actual review. If he’d given it a 3/10 would that have made this review worse than eurogamer’s? Sure, it’s understandable if you have a problem with what has been written, but reading the comments on that review people seem to be more worked up about the score than the opinions in the review.
I’d bet if that review had a 6/10 on the bottom of the exact same text, people wouldn’t be bitching as much. Going below the average mark on review scores seems to be sacrilege these days.
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I don’t entirely agree with the EG reviewer or John, as I enjoy the game quite a bit. But if they want to give a game a bad score because they didn’t enjoy it, that’s just fine. But 4/10 like the EG guy is just stupid. It’s better than that. It definitely isn’t worse than 60% of all games that come out, can we agree on that? When looking at EG’s overall scoring it’s supposedly one of the worst games in some time…which just plain isn’t true.
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The impression I got from the EG review was that there was something about the game that completely ruined it from the reviewer, but he didn’t quite have the insight to pin it down. The result is a merciless review which suggests that the reviewer really disliked the game, but also that this was an emotional rather than critical response.
I could be totally misreading it, but I’ve not seen that degree of savageness in a review for a while.
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@ Matt W
Well the Eurogamer UK review certainly launched into a scathing attack on the so-called vulgar and sexist segments of the game, similar to Mr. Walker’s review above.
Some people seem really sensitive to such things, even if they are a very natural part of mob stories and 50′s stories both. It’s not even that common in the game honestly, the cat house mission is pretty much the only one with a lot of that stuff in it, the vomit jokes and so on. Still, I think the two reviewers mentioned had some kind of personal beef with those segments, either from their socio-political viewpoint or otherwise.
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I give it a hotdog and twelve ceramic jugs out of Kelsey Graham bullriding a giant 2 liter of root beer.
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What a Goddamn fucking shame, Tony.
Seriously, great review. I can see that we’re coming from the same place in loving the first game despite its quirks, and I appreciate that you bemoan the second one not being good. It was a guaranteed buy for me, but at this point I think I’ll probably just wait. I hope the tremendous mod community comes out of the woodwork for this game again. Mikmouse’s mod added countless hours of fun to the free ride gameplay. There is a free ride mode in this game, right?
Shame shame. I can only hope that the developers use the same engine to quickly turn out a sequel/expandalone with a better story.
Also, as to Mafia 1, I think much of its charm was in the emotion, but even more was in the set pieces. I’ll never forget the battle at the docks or fighting in the parking garage after Bill Gates gets wasted in a whiskey deal gone wrong. Shame shame shame on them for leaving behind the things that made the first game such an icon.
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Sadly there isn’t a Free Ride mode in this one, as far as I’m aware..
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Strange. The original game was one of the best I’ve ever played, and I honestly think this game is everything I wanted from a Mafia sequel. Except of course for the extremely inconclusive ending, but I suppose that DLC will take care of that.
I liked the story!
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Ouch, that’s a shame. I did enjoy the demo, also found criticism of the city baffling. I didn’t have such a problem with the fist fights in the demo, I quite liked the mechanics of them. The Playboy stuff doesn’t bother me as I’m a bit of a Playboy fan, especially their older style, but the other stuff mentioned sounds ghastly. Just because of how it was back then doesn’t mean a game can jsut throw it in and not deal with it. Certainly it would be irresponsible to gloss over 50s attitudes to race, but to not confront it is a bad sign. I’m not entirely sure that every man was a raging sex pest back then either.
I was going to ask for this for my birthday but don’t think I’ll bother now. I’ll just go to a Frankie and Benny’s restaurant and watch Once Upon a Time in America and The Unotuchables when I get home instead. I do hope the engine gets used for a more deserving game soon.
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Sounds like a mess of a game, not even worth buying when it’s on sale. This was a fantastic review, and it confirmed to me my greatest worry about Mafia II: that it’s fucking dull. I also have a deep hatred for badly handled checkpointing in games, as well. But what really gets me is how insipid the characters and narrative seem to be, from what you’ve described, and then trying to get around that with the most immature, crass attitude towards women, minorities and bodily excretions. Because, of course, political incorrect dialogue and poop jokes equals edgy and hilarious, right?
I feel like the original game, which I’m sure was a lot more intelligent and more tasteful than this, is having its memory desecrated by its association with this sequel.
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What a depressingly tiresome way to respond to a review. Why not play the game yourself, instead of proclaiming that another person’s opinion somehow validates your bizarre preconceived notions about it?
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Bah, read this literally 10 minutes after caving in and purchasing the game, having waited since release in the hope of a more nuanced view from RPS after the rather ridiculous Eurogamer et al reviews.
Ah well. I actually quite like games that do mundane things, so maybe it’ll still work for me….. :)
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Nice and fair review.
Playing Mafia II made me feel (hyperbolically, of course) depressed. The sheer boringness of the missions, the dullness of the driving and shooting (disagree with John as to that being owt) but most grindingly soul-destroying of all, playing as this thoughtless, emotionless automaton who unquestioningly carries out whatever grubby little task he’s told to… all conspired to quite genuinely make me feel like shit.
So many mistakes made. The most important, overarching one though, for me, was any sense of irony or self-awareness as to the nature of what was going on. It’s an utterly stupid game, mechanically, structurally and narratively.
So I installed Saints Row 2. Superficially dumber, substantially infinitely smarter (I’m not drawing a comparison between the two, beyond that). Now I’m having crazy-fun.
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Well Saints Row understands it’s a McDonald’s game and so screams at you “HAVE A HOTDOG HAT!” rather than try to be nuanced.
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I just wanna say I think it’s brilliant that I’m scrolling past huge Mafia II ads to read an honest appraisal of the game’s flaws (and features too).
Kudos.
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@Keep Exactly one of the reasons I love RPS.
What a shame.
Disappointing about this as I was really hoping for something special. I’ve yet to play it but will lesser my expectations and go in with an open mind.
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This game will give you what you give it. I really like it a lot. If you are a connoisseur of ‘atmosphere,’ this game has it.
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Nooooo!
I pre-ordered this pretty much on the strength of the trailers. I’d never played the first Mafia, but I’d heard good things, and Mafia II looked impressive enough that I was willing to risk the game being a dud.
Of course, when I pre-ordered on Steam I got a copy of the first game for free, so I’ve been playing that all week (wanted to finish the first game before starting the new one). In many ways it’s complete rubbish, with some awful bugs and design issues, but three quarters through it I’m beginning to see what everyone’s talking about.
If wot John thinks is accurate, I think I should probably give Mafia II a miss entirely. Everything that makes the Mafai I so memorable seems to have been lost, while all of the mediocre stuff has been retained. Besides, I’ve already got my money’s worth with the first one.
Oh well. That’s one of my ‘highly anticipated games of 2010′ down in flames. Let’s see how Amnesia goes next, eh?
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OMG! Why are you trying to destroy this game RPS??
*ahem*
Sorry.
Seriously though, I tried the demo, and was ever so slightly tempted to possibly pick this up. Maybe. I think this review (and possibly last weeks STALKER sale on STEAM) has put an end to that. What it has encouraged me to possibly pick up is the original though, so that’s something positive at least.
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I’m about 2/3 of the way through the game (maybe closer to 3/4, I dunno), and I don’t know if I can finish it. All other pros and cons aside, it’s the stupid checkpointing.
I hate checkpoint save game design anyway, but this is the worst design of that type I’ve seen. The only thing I can imagine, is that the in-house testers were so familiar with the game — they could anticipate the tricky intersections in “beat the clock” type driving missions, they knew how the gun battles were scripted, etc.. — that they never had to reload from a save, and couldn’t see how awful the checkpoints were. Don’t buy this game if you have a low tolerance for the checkpoint save concept in games, and spending long periods of time repeating things you’ve done before, just to get to the reload point you *really* wanted to be at when you died or got arrested, to pick up the action.
Agreed about the fights, except, as Walker says above, they’re even worse than he thought due to the blocking system. You’re invincible as long as you hold the block key down, and just learn to recognize the openings to throw a punch. On the other hand, I’m not that great at this sort of thing in a game, so it doesn’t bother me as much as it might others, who want a deeper fighting game.
Another immersion-breaker is the way there are cops everywhere. Not so much the guys walking a beat, but all those cop cars. I’d love to know how the taxpayers can afford this level of protection. The scripting of cop action is also very noticeable. They’re on hair-trigger alertness when the plot requires it, and they ignore you the rest of the time. That said, the times when I screwed up a car chase and ended up in a dead-end alley or park, with a half-dozen cop cars rushing up and surrounding me, sirens blazing, cops running out and arresting me… that felt pretty realistic.
The only reason I *might* fight through to the end of the game through the stupid save systems, is that the feel of the environment is so fantastic. I love the look and feel of the city. There are some great lighting and weather effects, which help make the long driving sequences more enjoyable. I walk whenever I can, instead of running. Walking slowly, at street level, you can really appreciate all the little details. I don’t care that I can’t interact with it all that much, outside the plot. It’s just amazing to walk into a 40′s diner and order a burger with the snow falling outside, and have it look and sound so great.
On the “empty” main character…. I didn’t play the first Mafia game, so maybe I’m not missing the big character arc as much as I would otherwise. Vito is a bland, opportunistic goon without much of a moral compass, yeah. But I see him as the classic WWII vet with a touch of PTSD, not that comfortable re-integrating into society. He’s a blank slate with some military combat skills, that the local mob took advantage of. But then I haven’t seen the ending yet (and may never see it, at this point), so I guess I don’t have the complete picture yet.
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John Walker uncomfortable with game featuring ladies bits!! More at 10, now here’s the weather with Susan…
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I have no objection to ladies’ bits, thankyouverymuch. I do have an objection to ladies being quite so lazily objectified and stupefied.
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Unfortunately John it seems to me that you objection has coloured your ‘review’ in it’s entirety. Albeit you might not like it, the game is for better or worst attempting to reflect a particular period (to make it distinct from the GTAs of this world), in the same way that Man Men is trying to reflect the 1960s. You need to understand that the past is not the present with different clothes and quaint cars, but it is also a cultural mindset. To criticise a game set during the 40s and 50s because it doesn’t cater to you ideas of societal balance is kind of petty in my view.
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Kadayi
That’s a cheap shot. Most of the review is taken up with criticising the story, the fist fights, the checkpointing and the menial tasks. There are two paragraphs dealing with sexism and racism. They’re not even long paragraphs. He also mentions the things the game does well, shooting, the city, and the engine, so I see no evidence to back up your assertion. While your devotion to defending the games no one else loves is touching you would do it more effectively by making a case for what the game does well rather than baseless personal attacks.
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@Chris D
Cheap shot? That’s rich coming from you. The guy is bemoaning a lack of political correctness in a period notably devoid of it.
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Kadayi
Even if I were to agree with you it is stil unfair to imply the whole review is tainted by one area of disagreement.
However, even though the game is set in an earlier time period it is still the product of this one. It is fine for the characters to have an attitude that reflects that period but the game as a whole should not. Or if it does then it is legitimate to criticise it for that.
If the game were to portray the male characters as treating women as objects but portray the women themselves as rounded characters that would be fair comment. Albeit patronising towards men as even in that period I’m sure not all men held that attitude. For the game itself to portray women merely as objects is sloppy and sexist and is a legitimate grounds for criticism.
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@ Kadayi
This time, it’s not about political correctness or RPS’s apparent fixation with boobs. For the record, I disagreed with Mr. Meer in his The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings preview, about the “acceptable sex appeal” for a female character if she’s about to get raped.
But here, I agree with John. Mafia II doesn’t insult me as a female, it insults me as a player, assuming that I’m going to be interested in such puerile features and enjoy this cardboard portayal of women. It’s like playing porn music during a rape scene. It makes a guess about the player. It says “you’re a moron who thinks this is a meaningful statement about the period’s sexism, and this deep political insight you just witnessed will also allow you to furiously masturbate if you wish to do so, because breasts are involved”.
In this case, I’m afraid RPS’s sex police is right: these boobs are just cheap onanistic fodder. I’d like to love the game as you obviously do, since I’m a big fan of the first one, but after playing the Xbox360 version of it, I’m inclined to agree with Mr. Walker on his review.
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I have absolutely no idea why my last paragraph is a link. Please ignore thtat, my HTML tags have failed me yet again.
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@Chris
“If the game were to portray the male characters as treating women as objects but portray the women themselves as rounded characters that would be fair comment. Albeit patronising towards men as even in that period I’m sure not all men held that attitude. For the game itself to portray women merely as objects is sloppy and sexist and is a legitimate grounds for criticism.”
So your argument is that all games must have social commentary? That as long as they say something is repressive that it’s ok to be repressive? Just as long as they tell you, it’s all good. Because after all the 18+ player base is clearly incapable of knowing that already yes?
@ Carolina
I don’t think that they are trying to make a statement at all. I just think they are trying to accurately reflect the period from the view point of the protagonist and the kind of circles he moves in. That they leave the judgements up to the player I think is frankly refreshing (not an oversight). No end of games it seems want to tell you that you’ve been a good girl or a bad boy half the time. What’s more patronising than that?
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Kadayi, nobody is demanding ‘social commentary’, unless the portrayal of women as human beings is a form of social commentary. The point isn’t that sexist attitudes should be signposted as wrong, it’s that the characters’ treatment of women and the game’s portrayal of women are distinct, and if the latter is negative then that’s cause for concern.
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@MD
Actually that does seem to be what is being demanded. I’m not too sure why you think otherwise.
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There’s a difference between displaying a Sexist or Racist period, and making a Sexist or Racist game. A very clear, defined difference. Basically, in this time period, Men thought Women were idiots. That does not mean the women were idiots. It’s not a tricky concept.
I haven’t played Mafia 2, so I can’t say where it falls.
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@ Kadayi
Hmm. It’s quite clear that from your posts that you love the game. I respect that; I think that we all loved some faulty games at one point or another. Even bad ones sometimes. There’s nothing wrong with that. I used to like Vietcong way more than I should, for example.
That said, I honestly can’t see how you rationalize this feature as “accurately reflecting the period”; it’s clearly just shameless masturbation fodder. Now, I’m not saying that the game is bad because of that. I absolutely loved The Witcher even though it made the same mistakes. And to be honest, I don’t think John Walker based his review on those facts either. He just criticized the writer’s immature approach to women and moved on to other things. He didn’t like the game, but not because it featured boobs; he disliked it because it’s bad.
Oh, and about Vito being an “empty vessel” as a good thing: I have to disagree on that too. I believe you’re trying too hard to rationalize Mafia II’s lazy writing. Vito isn’t an empty vessel for the player to navigate the story, he is just devoid of any content. Having a superfluous character isn’t refreshing, it’s inept writing. There are good games out there with placeholders as main characters: James Sunderland was an everyman in Silent Hill 2, in order to let the average player sympathize with him; Fallout‘s Vault Dweller was an empty vessel, so you could make the decisions, forging a personality along the way. In fact, you don’t even need likable characters to make a compelling story: movies like Downfall or Pierrepoint —althought I did like Timothy Spall’s character, I’m sure others didn’t—, featured perhaps unlikable but interesting main characters.
Vito, on the other hand, is simply an unidimensional, vacuous, moronic character without any sort of depth. He isn’t interesting at all, and you can’t make it interesting. You can’t also sympathize with him, unless you’re a badly written character that somehow is playing a videogame. And you’re saying that’s a good thing? Really?
It seems to me that you are really passionate about this game, and while that isn’t a bad thing in itself, you shouldn’t expect others to share your enthusiasm. The game is underwhelming to most people, and it does have its shortcomings in the writing department. It’s fine if you like it despite all that, but you shouldn’t charge at everyone who point out its obvious flaws. It doesn’t have to be perfect for you to love it.
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Kadayi
“So your argument is that all games must have social commentary? That as long as they say something is repressive that it’s ok to be repressive? Just as long as they tell you, it’s all good. Because after all the 18+ player base is clearly incapable of knowing that already yes? ”
Um…No, not my argument at all. The others were right.
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@ Carolina
It’s kind of pretentious to state the game is bad and we like it anyway when a ton of reviews have given it a high scrore you know. RPS, as good a site as it is, does not decide whether games are good or bad. Mafia 2 has had review scores ranging from a 4 all the way to a perfect 10 and everything in between in equal measure, it’s not like there are only 1 or 2 good reviews that serve as outliers.
Anyway…
It is perfectly normal for a story to present things from a certain point of view. Mafia 2 is a game set in the 40′s and 50′s where women were looked at much differently than they are today. Not only that, but from the perspective of thugs at the bottom end of the mob, who treated women even worse. The game presents all of this through the experiences of Vito, who only involves himself with whores and women he can classify as something to used or owned… he does not and would not associate with women who would challenge that notion. The game tries very hard to show you life from Vito’s point of view, so it would make no sense to challenge that view in the game, it goes against everything the game set out to do. The game tries hard NOT to shatter Vito’s world view.
Insisting the game have that moment where Vito meets a woman who shows him all women are not dumb whores comes off as saying every story about a man with that point of view must eventually challenge him and show him that isn’t true and have some revelation to teach the viewer a lesson. I don’t agree with that, and what would movies like Heat or Pulp Fiction be like if they had to at some point have the crooks realize they’re bad people? It ruins the goal of the story, and not every story needs a moral lesson.
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@Caroline
“Hmm. It’s quite clear that from your posts that you love the game. I respect that; I think that we all loved some faulty games at one point or another. Even bad ones sometimes. There’s nothing wrong with that. I used to like Vietcong way more than I should, for example.”
I ‘love’ the game? Please, that I might disagree with you on an issue I’m afraid does not automatically make me an unrepentant fan boy (and therefore some one to be casually dismissed).
In your response to my comment about ‘accurately reflecting the period’ you seem to have missed of the rest of what I said. Let’s have a look again, with some emphasis on the part that’s missing: -
“I just think they are trying to accurately reflect the period from the view point of the protagonist and the kind of (social) circles he moves in.”
No one man (or woman for that matter) can be said to accurately reflect the attitudes of their time, because society is far to complex for one person to encompass it all.
Plain truth of the matter is Vito’s operating at the very low end of the social scale, and so do his associates. These are not people who read books, or have long term ambitions beyond the most mundane and materialistic (get rich/get married/have kids/buy a bigger car/buy a bigger house). They exist very much within the moment, and their actions tend to reflect this, and as unpalatable a truth as it might be for you (and others it seems with terribly middle class sensibilities) to handle, this is as equally true for the women as much for the men.
To repeat what I said elsewhere, the past is not the present in period clothing. In this day and age of instant communication and global awareness it’s very easy to loose sight of the fact that in the past people operated very much within a fixed space, both physically, socially and culturally with very little cross over if any. To portray the past as anything other than that would be dishonest. Personally I’d rather have honest ugly games, than ones that are simply fancy dress parties.
Mafia 1 was a game that was channelling the grandioseness of The Godfather with all it’s trimmings. Mafia 2 is a game about a lowly button man making ends meet. Certainly mechanistically the game has flaws, but in terms of being a Mafia simulator I’d say it’s a lot more honest in many ways. There is nothing noble about mafiosi, they are criminals (in exactly the same way Kane & Lynch are). If you’re uncomfortable with taking the role of being a criminal and all that entails, you shouldn’t really of bought the game at the end of the day.
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@ StingingVelvet
I agree. I’m not saying that Mafia II is bad because John Walker says so. I’m saying that John Walker disliked the game because he thinks it’s bad, not because it featured boobs, like Kadayi suggested.
Alright. Straw man number one: I’m not demanding nor expecting a social commentary. In fact, my point is that you are giving too much credit to a cheap titillating T&A material for the teens out there. It’s not an “effort to accurately portray Vito’s frame of mind”. It’s just gratuitous boobs. You’re the one seeing social commentary or effective storytelling in a porn movie: “well, the male actors think that all women are whores, and this porn movie is set on the 50′s: clearly this constant fucking and shallow dialog is purposely made by cunning writers to accurately reflect the period”. Well, I have to disagree: bad writing is just bad writing. It doesn’t offend me, I’m just calling it bad.
And speaking of that, let’s move on to other straw men.
@ Kadayi
I never said or implied that you’re an “unrepentant fan boy”. I just said that you appear to love the game to the point of overlooking its flaws, rationalizing its bad writing as a good storytelling mechanic, and generally being paranoid about its critics’ motivations.
Yes, that’s what StingingVelvet said. See my response above: I don’t believe is accurate portrayal of anything, I call it lazy writing and gratuitous titillating material for the male audiences, pretty much agreeing with John Walker on this. And you apparently can’t stand this idea, so you resorted to straw men and ad hominem attacks (you dislike it because it offends your middle class sensibility, because you can’t stand playing with a criminal, because you don’t understand it, etc.). That’s pretty lame of you, specially after my previous post.
Didn’t you read that I’m a big fan of the first Mafia? Angelo killed innocent people there, too: cops in some jobs, a woman got blown up accidentally, more cops in his bank heist, and so on. I also liked very much Kane & Lynch despite its many, oh so many flaws, because of its main characters. Didn’t you read me praising movies with the likes of Adolf Hitler as its main character?
I even defended games like RapeLay and I HAVE CANDY GET IN THE VAN in previous posts. I find your accusations, sincere or not, hilarious.
Either you are so comfortable in your shell that you can’t fathom the possibility of someone disagreeing with you, or you are blatantly trying to come up with a straw man to debate with. I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but my point is much simpler: Mafia II is not Natural Born Killers, it doesn’t even try to make a point, and it doesn’t accurately reflects anything; it’s just badly written.
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@Carolina
I’ve witnessed some impressive internet meltdowns in my time, but that one takes the biscuit (Bravo I guess…). Perhaps better to do the sensible internet thing and not post in this sub thread any more. I like how you deny that you’re patronised us (even though that was clearly the intention). Accuse us of both of using straw man arguments, when it’s fairly clear we were both talking generally. Use your psychic powers (again) to read our minds and reveal our apparent deep appreciation of the plot and social commentary of porn movies (to hell with John Carmack I say, he knows nothing about the deeper meaning of porn) and then finish off with a Chewbacca defense about how because you loved Downfall, therefore you must be right about Mafia 2. I also thought Downfall was a good film (I own it on DVD). Also I hate to disappoint but no, I’ve not read everything you’ve ever written on the internet.
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*Sigh*
Alright, Kadayi. John Walker, me, and everyone else who criticized Mafia II’s writing as uninteresting, lazy, cheap, boring and “emotionally dead”, did it because we failed to grasp the awesomeness of it. Your tastes are categorical and universal; if someone disagrees with you, it will be on emotional grounds, not intellectual; because it’s impossible for you to love a flawed game, and you love Mafia II, therefore it must be a great game. Gotta love backwards reasoning.
Apparently you decided to cut off any way of communication with your quasi-religious fanaticism, cycling around the same —already addressed— arguments, so I’m signing off this conversation. I’m glad you enjoyed the game, honestly. I wish I could enjoy it as much as you did, but instead found it boring and badly written. So did many others. I guess you’ll have to live with that somehow, even if you have to convince yourself that it’s because we’re all offended and had unrealistic expectations of it.
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@carolina have you actually played the game, or are you making these criticisms based solely on Jon’s review? Because you are speaking like you have some intimate knowledge of the characters etc and whether or not the writing works, but you don’t actually come out and say that you’ve played it
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@Carolina
Please don’t bandy around words you clearly don’t understand. As a word ‘love’ (along with ‘hate’) is one of the most overused and misapplied words in the English language, having become of late the inarticulate cultural short hand for enjoy, appreciate, or admire when it actually means none of those things. Love is a emotive response to a stimuli. There is nothing emotive about my appreciation of Mafia 2. Like it or not it’s an opinion grounded very much in a critical assessment of the title on several fronts. From the unfolding of the storyline, the characterisation, the quality of the voice acting, the realisation of the Empire Bay, as well how everything ties together cohesively, whilst cross referenced and compared against both it’s predecessor and other titles I’ve played of a similar ilk and how they handled/managed things.
You see I don’t think that John ‘hates’ Mafia 2, what I do think though is that certain elements he took grave offence to (the playboy magazine collectables being one), and those coloured his review unfairly, because his portrayal of the game doesn’t mesh in any way with my experiences when playing it. If there were some cross over I could perhaps understand it, but there isn’t, and from my perspective that says that there is something wrong with the review, and that it doesn’t do the title justice.
Likewise it’s not enough to simply say something is ‘bad’, or that you don’t like it, you need to be able to explain why that something is ‘bad’ and the reasons ‘why I don’t like it’, and be prepared to accept that others will challenge you on your assessment. This is the cornerstone of critical discourse. Anything less is just pointless noise.
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@rxtx
Not according to her steam profile (click on her name). Though I guess it’s possible that she may have played it on 360/PSN. Though given she seems to own a number of beefy PC titles I’d be slightly amazed if that was the case.
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This makes me sad. I read a couple of reviews, every one of them contradicting each other, convincing me to just find out for myself. I loved the the original after all and the comments about failed open-worldiness did actually make me want it even more. So I preordered from the UK (I live in Austria and, boy, games are certainly affordable for you lot, but they take a while to ship). What’s sad is that I mostly tend to agree with your Wot I Thinks, but still, I guess I’ll just see for myself.
Is there a chance of a Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days Wot I Think? It got similarly contradicting reviews. I preordered it as well and I’m currently just waiting for my coop buddy to come home from his vacation.
Sadly, I have no interest at all for the remaining 2010 blockbuster titles. War shooter, will you ever get old?
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sorry to inform you but K&L2 is crap too
some ppl liked the visual style, i hated the fact i paid all that money for a modern game and a modern pc just so i cant see anything because of the “filmed by the worst cell phone camera ever” filter, the shooting is boring, characters unlikable and it has no ending after a very short game making you feel ripped off
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You can turn that filter off you know.
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not entirely and the game is made for it so it looks really bland with it off
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I really quite enjoy it. I don’t know but there’s something about being downed with your screen all blurry, bloody and pixelated making it hard to kill the AI character that just rushed you. I only played the first 2 missions and the aiming on those guns is loose as hell which I really find quite refreshing. I’m spraying my bullets all over the place, not even keeping track of my ammo. I can just pick up another gun, who cares if it’s better, it surely will get the job done, right?
All of that really fits the whole premise of the setting and the character of Lynch. It’s rough in every aspect. And it’s actually quite the beauty in all its ugliness. If it’s not for you, it’s not for you ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2EdEDVej2A ). They surely didn’t intend to cater to everyone, which is a key characteristic in making art and we want some of our games to be art, right? (I’m not declaring it for K&L2 here, just in general) I kinda expected contradicting reviews for this one, not for Mafia 2 though, which is the topic of this post. I’m terribly sorry.
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Yeah, I don’t like K&L 2 much either, even though I like the visuals. It’s nothing but cover-shooting, which gets boring and repetitive.
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Glad I don’t pre-order games.
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Spot on review, as always. I hope the developers read this :)
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I wish they’d read John’s preview, he said all this weeks ago.
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I liked and enjoyed this game quite a bit – I liked the story, dialogues, cutscenes, didn’t have serious problem with it, although the events nearing the end of the game felt kinda… well, let’s just say a bit wrong. But overally, it was still great experience, definitely when considering story standards in games today.
Then I looked back and tought: Wait. Were there any side missions? There were those signs on map – dock office, the guy at the scrapyard, guy who sold me the lockpicks seemed like he might have a job for me occasionaly. So I loaded some earliear chapters, but nothing. “I dont have anything for you right now, try coming back later.” There are no side missions. But clearly, where were supposed to be. As there were supposed to be many other things – missions and situations from earlier trailers an gameplay videos are often gone completely. “There were no cell phones, so you will have to use phone booths during the missions.” – happened once in the final game. Three endings reduced to one. There were supposed to be story chioces. And all of it is gone.
I wouldnt blame Vavra for all the things that are wrong with the story, because it seems to me like Mafia 2′s story was supposed to be like 2 times longer than it is in the end, with some storyline branching and side missions included and I am quite certain many of the story drawbacks mentioned in this article are the result of someone coming and stripping the original story into some sort of torso. And its really sad, because you can see how this game could have been so much better and that it actually already mostly was that good somewhere in the process.
Now that is kinda speculation, but some time after Illusion Softworks were transformed into 2K Czech, Vavra was made to leave the studio. I wouldnt be suprised if the whole story cripling process was the reason behind it…
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This seems to be the sad truth. Too much was cut down.
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Long hours of driving slowly? Sounds like a blast! Are there any buses to drive?
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I remember having to drive the Tram with Paulie in Mafia I.
And having to repeat it over and over because i got killed in the following shoot-out.
And even then it was so much better than all of Mafia II.
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Presumably you’re forced to perform such menial tasks in order to reinforce the game itself as the crime.
Ho ho ho… crushing disappointment is crushing.
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I think the menial tasks thing is overblown. All those sequences are very brief, and you’re just watching a little cutscene. You don’t actually have to steer a mop around, and there’s no way to fail the sequence… you just watch it for a few seconds. Some of the menial tasks like the urinal scrubbing, are there to make payback a little sweeter, later on. Or it can be part of a hit operation, to get close to the target. Those sequences are so short, I don’t get the negative reaction… unless people just have a phobia about cleaning. Which I guess for an average male gamer, could be a problem. ;).
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Let’s blame consoles for this! Shame I was really hoping this would be a good game, but it seems to me that the original outshines this by qutie a margin and to be quite honest the visuals are still very crisp even now so I may just replay that one.
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And now for something completely different: VROOOOOOOOAWR! (Scream it at the top of your lungs so your throat hurts and your girlfriend looks at you in shame).
I never understood the complaints concerning Mafia 1′s race. It’s a brilliant and surprising crescendo of a story thread, built up from the preceding missions (e.g. sabotaging the competitors car requires stealing it and roaring through the city in it the middle of the night). It’s hard, yes. It’s based on luck, yes. It’s quite (brutally) realistic, yes. But therein lies its attraction. It’s a breath of fresh air in the game, in the crime-sandbox genre itself, and stands alone as a unique set-piece mission just like the Death From Above Spooky-operator mission in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.
There’s something special about the mission where you drive around in bulbously flattened cigar-shaped monocoque coffins, producing an incredible unmuffled VWROOOOAAAAR (credit to Illusion’s consistently excellent sound team) with no downforce, in beautiful art-deco cars (Bugatti! In Bugatti Blue! Ah!) liable to kill the driver with a single crash or a fatal neck-mangling roll, which would be outclassed by my unimpressively pedestrian grandpa-inherited Mazda 323.
I loved it, and so did my (then) 60 year-old dad, who typically played turn-based strategy games and racing games. He didn’t play any other missions or third person walking/shooty bits, he wanted to play the race mission. Over and over again.
It came out as a well-made, beatiful slice of a game for which there would’nt be a sufficient audience to merit independent development. An extract of an unmade brutal hard-core 1930′s racer, completely breaking from the Prohibition (and beyond!) linear plot-based drivy-shooter. Oh, and the patch completely castrated the difficulty wall (along with removing bullet impact marks on the cars too.
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Agreed. It was an awesome mission, and well placed within the game. It even felt like a proper racing game.
It might have been hard, but I can’t see any other reason to dislike it at all.
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Re: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/images/10/aug/mafia2/maf19.jpg
“Its a me, Mario!”
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I thought the melee fights were decent. Far better than GTAIV in fact. Just piss easy once you get the counter attack move. And the dodge always works. Don’t try to time it, you weren’t asked to do that, just keep the block button held down and if your enemy takes a swing he will fail for sure, letting you counter.
I don’t mind the story. It’s well told, thus the atmosphere is how it should be thanks to it. Game stories should be better and we shouldn’t applaud mediocirty but when there are so many story based games that are rated well for their gameplay and atmosphere while having the same issues, it’s a bit unfair to be fair only for certian titles, like Mafia II. Nor did I mind historical inconsistencies. Maybe it’s meant to be, and looks, realistic, but you can always think of it as an alternative timeline. That takes care of most.
I also don’t see the problem with the toilet scrubbing. It’s practically a cut scene, you just press E three times during that sequence. I suppose it could have been a whole cut scene that conveys this humiliation you speak of but the way it was handled was neither better nor worse. And not bad. I agree for the other mundane tasks you’re asked to do though.
And I disagree about the insignificance of the crime. Besides, who told you Vito is supposed to become a big shot? In the end, he’s a loser like his father, and I think that’s the point. So yes, he’s always just the lackey for bigger fish than him. I don’t mind that the crimes are often more down to earth. Besides, if he was caught for one of your other crimes, you’d be in jail far longer than that, and that point is made in the dialogue as well so it’s hard to miss. He got caught for a mundane crime, yes. And he was thankful that’s all he was caught for. Makes sense to me.
The other mundane tasks make sense mood wise, I only wish they had more gameplay to them. Perhaps if it was open ended like an RPG and management game instead of just tell you what to do and when to do it, players would find more value. You could threaten and blackmail to get goods, find the best ways to get rid of them for profit without getting caught etc.
But story wise, I prefer this, just like I prefer an RPG that doesn’t only tell you go, save the world, but keeps a more realistic approach in its quests. Maybe it’s mundane to people who want to save the world, but it’s cool for others.
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That’s a good point about “save the world” RPG’s. It’s one thing I liked about The Witcher: it managed to tell an interesting story without making the principal character save the world in some epic, overblown story. Geralt is a heroic character, but he’s also kind of a blue collar, working stiff hero, just trying to solve a mystery.
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I’m the only one who noticed that some areas of the game are just retextured from the first game? (like the 2 curve road uphill to get to the doctor house)
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i liked the shooting parts a lot (eve with the crappy AI, ive played better tho and the heavy scripting makes replayability nil), the cutscenes were alright (about what i expected), its everything else i hated
i dont know why you had trouble with the fist fighting parts, i found a flawless strategy early on, hold dodge, wait until the dude throws a punch, then 3 light hit combo, rinse repeat until they get stunned then the 2 finishing blows, you win everytime and you get bored everytime
i did not care about the open world, i really dont care if it is realistic or not, im more interested on what i can do with the sandbox, and the answer is nothing but driving and i found driving to be the worst of the game (apart from the HORRIBLE manual labor missions, seriously somebody needs to get shot for these, games are supposed to be fun, you know fun ? devs should be forced to read the definition of that word every day)
in GTA3 i could always find something to do when i got bored driving between missions, jack a helicopter, pick up a truck/tank and ram everyone, drive the wrong way at high speed avoiding cars in the last second, trying to run over as many idiots as i could, other games like Prototype or Infamous gave you really easy ways to get around town to minimize dead time, but not in Mafia II, they spent a lot of hours in that city and god damn you are going to drive though it.
the game forces you to spend 20 minutes driving cars that handle like drunken elephants slowly to keep the police from causing you to crash and repeat the driving for every 5 minutes of fun, if that wasnt enough the destructible objects in the game world are incredible inconsistent, you can drive though some lamp posts, others are made of undestructonium and kill you, you can run over telephone booths but a stick like tree will survive a nuclear blast
im having trouble finishing the game because i hate driving those cars so damn much, i pretty much quit Mafia I for the same reason, i couldnt take another taxi mission, its obvious they made a game so short they had to pad it up somehow, the amount of day0 DLC adds fuel to the fire, sigh
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I didn’t have trouble with the fist fights, and I’m a little confused why people think I did. They were easy to win, and very boring.
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This game just feels half finished! Some party are extremely well executed and some are just plain bad. I can’t believe they released a game this unfinished but allready offer dlc’s!
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Tastes really do differ. I love this game. I loved every mundane thing about it and actually enjoyed the story too. Driving in Mafia 2 is hundred times more fun than shooting in a game like Just Cause 2. I just get no enjoyment out of games like Just Cause 2 or RF: Guerrilla, no matter how hard I try. *Those* games are boring to me, Mafia 2 is not. Go figure.
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While I do get enjoyment from Just Cause 2 and RF: Guerrilla, I also enjoy this game for its mundane sections and its story. Too often in games the world revolves around the player, but in Mafia II it feels like they decided “So you want to be a Mafia member, here’s all the stuff they DON’T advertise”
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I would argue that if you’re a fan of the original Mafia you won’t be dissapointed with this game. They are almost identical in terms of mechanics and storytelling and I can see why sorting (a) crate (s) onto a truck will make some smile and leave others completely puzzled. I think it’s an interesting aspect that during the 8 years of development the game was at some point intended to be a more modern open-world game but the final product stayed very close to the original Mafia in many ways. Accurate and well written “Wot I Think”.
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I basically agree with everything said. Mafia II delivers a splendid fundament for a game but fails miserably at giving a reason to play on.
I basically kept pushing on expecting a somewhat interesting shift in the story as it was done in Mafia I but instead those turn of events appeared to me as artificial and forced.
One word on the shoot-outs: they are great yes, but in times plain unfair on hard difficulty. I prefer hard difficulty as it makes you as vulnerable as your opponents (i.e. 1 hit with a shotgun and you are dead) and you do not feel overpowered due to your regeneration. Well aslong as the game sticks to it’s design of cover & shoot combat. Thrown into areas where there is no good cover AT ALL or you are forced to run down stairs with a shotgun-guy waiting at the bottom able to shoot and kill you on sight are plain unfair and frustrating design.
What totally turned me down was in what i think was at the end of the game and you had to collect a certain amount of money. Easy deal if you stick to the missions, you basically gain most of it. Yet if you spend something in between them and need money in the four digits range you are forced to drive around the city, robbing stores for laughably low amounts of money and – even worse – you are forced to wait if there are not stores left as they are closed after being robbed for a time i have yet to figure out. Not to mention that robbing is totally boring due to the moronic AI and if you are killed you have to repeat to whole process of gaining money as the game doesn’t save.
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Slight spoiler here:
Did you find the stash of money in the office upstairs in the docks warehouse? There’s about 25k up there, meaning you only need to rob a few gun shops to get the total.
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you could alternatively steal cars, and put them in the scrap machine. There will always spawn a car next to it when you go away from it.
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By “getting nearly the needed amount through missions” I included the stash in the docks (i think I’d go insane if i wouldn’t have found that). I’m at the docs house and need ~1000$. Most of the stores are still closed because i needed to rob them to get half the sum before.
It takes a trip to the only two stores still open and two to the junkyard to net me the money and due to my own stupidity i have died half a dozen times on the way to the lone shark now. I know it’s entirely my own fault game wise (i grew bored so i speed and hit something or start shoot outs and die) but it totally breaks with the end game’s momentum and feels flawed in so many other ways too.
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“Fundament” does not mean what you think.
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i know i know. i was mildly drunk, on the hurry and English is not my mother tongue. all forgiven?
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I hold no grudges, especially since it was good for a giggle.
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They’ve done more right than they’ve done wrong in terms of following Mafia, but unfortunately the couple of things they’ve dropped the ball on are really, really important things. The story lacks focus, and the mission design doesn’t make use of the open-world setting nearly enough.
The game looks incredible, and the city is the star of the show, but it is criminally underused. The solution isn’t to drop the city, the solution is to make better use of it. The freedom allowed by an open-world setting should be incorporated into the mission design, otherwise they are just wasting it.
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I do think its a shame that so many people are now saying they are just not going to bother at all.
Flaws aside, I do think this is a game people should at least play.
And in the end, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
Getting the rob 5 stores in 5 minutes achievement was fun.
Rushing from shop to shop, stealing their shit.
And then it ended in a good old fashioned shoot-out with a bunch of police.
Took me 11 hours and 20minutes to beat, and I do not regret it at all.
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“I do think its a shame that so many people are now saying they are just not going to bother at all.”
I don’t, I think it’s a good thing. Clearly the game has problems and if they end up not selling as many copies as they’d hoped, it’ll show the devs they misjudged it and didn’t produce a great product.
They’ll need to learn from these poor reviews and gamers on various forums saying they wished they hadn’t purchased it, and alter their game design processes for future projects. There’s enough evidence to suggest they’ve dropped the ball on this one, and it makes sense to – at the very least – wait till it’s very cheap before considering whether to buy it.
I’m glad reviewers are being frank about the game’s problems. It’s probably saved me £40.
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Sadly, the only lesson they’ll learn is that next time they should just make GTA. The consensus from the mainstream media seems to be that you shouldn’t use an open-world setting unless you’re going to fill it up with shit like darts and bowling mini-games.
This game isn’t up there with Mafia back in ’02, but to put that in perspective, I’d still say it’s better than GTA 4 in pretty much every respect. Held to any standards other than Mafia, it’s really not a bad game.
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@Jimbo
Lets hope not. Personally I want my games to be distinct experiences , not merely different looking versions of the same universal game style. It seems to me that this move towards the democratisation of genres is being driven by weak reviewers who seem incapable of judging a game on it’s own merits but instead fall prey to comparing it unfavourably (and unfairly) to other titles they feel it should conform to (Yes I’m looking at you /facepalm dismal Eurogamer review). I think that 2KCzech have made an absolutely stunning atmospheric sequel to the original game. Perhaps the story isn’t as grand as the first game, but the implementation is fantastic and extremely polished. Like Chizu I’m fairly amazed at the number of people in this thread declaring that they are suddenly going to pass over it. I’m not too sure whether it’s PC game of the year material (the years not done yet after all), but is certainly a PC title worth supporting in my view.
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When it comes to new games that are generally perceived to be disappointing, there is always a portion who paid for the game who say it’s worth buying – either because they genuinely mean it or because they’re just saving face and trying to justify their own purchase – but in this case there is also a rather sizeable portion on various forums and message boards who are pretty much agreeing with what many reviewers are saying.
It’s not just reviewers who are pointing out the game’s failings.
So I don’t think it’s unreasonable or surprising at all for gamers to be declining the opportunity to buy this game. At least not at full price on release.
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@Langman
So your basically saying that reviewers are always right (even though it appears on this title the reviews are divided) and that anyone who disagrees is merely an apologist yes?
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No.
If you read my post properly and don’t try and twist my words in desperation, you’ll see that’s not what I’m implying.
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@Langman
http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-3/mafia-ii
You’d have a point if the game were receiving overly critical scores all round, but given it’s only received 2 highly negative reviews, this idea that there’s this mass movement of disappointment with the title running rampant across the internet doesn’t hold up when you look at the actual evidence. Funnily enough the detractors are the minority.
So yes, I am calling sheannigins on you with good reason.
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Again, you’re coming across rather desperate here in the game’s defence. That list of reviews contains plenty of instances of reviewers sharing very similar grievances with the game – more than enough to justify a decision to not buy the game on release.
Add that to the vibe on forums and message boards, saying how disappointing the game is – from people who have actually bought & played the game – and I don’t see anything unreasonable about making a decision not to buy. After all, we have to make a judgement call don’t we?
Sorry if it doesn’t fit into your own personal views of the game.
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@Langman
What’s desperate about going to the facts exactly? You’ve painted a picture that doesn’t hold up under actual scrutiny of the evidence. You can laa laa laa to the cows come home about it, but who exactly do you think you are fooling? Naturally there’s always going to be people disappointed with a game, whether it be that they were expecting cheesecake but instead got trifle (Why no sandbox?), or that they don’t like the mechanics etc, etc (the fighting sucks). I don’t see any more complaints about this than any other title tbh. Hell most people hated the ending of Half-life 2, but that’s still regarded as one of the best PC games of all time. I don’t think Mafia 2 is quite up there, but there are considerably worst titles out there.
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Okay, I actually have no idea what you’re problem is now.
All I’m saying is there are plenty of reasons why a gamer would choose not to buy this game. After all, I’m one of them; I’ve objectively weighed up everything I’ve read/heard about this game – not just reviews but gamer response (from sources I trust) – and have decided to give it a miss.
I mean, we can’t buy *every* half-decent PC game that’s released. We need to weigh up all the factors, then make a decision. I can’t for the life of me work out why you have a problem with this concept.
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@Langman
Try the demo. My advice would be to run through it a couple of times. I won’t deny it takes a little while to get used to the car handling.
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Oh, I have played the demo.
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But…but….you can turn the FAUCET on! Maybe you didn’t turn the faucet on? I thought that part was fantastic.
Actually the utter pointlessness of the faucet working pretty much sums up the problems with the game, to me.
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Mass Effect has flushable toilets…what a horrible game that was.
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Strangely enough huge numbers of games feature things like this. Sure one can argue it superfluous, but is it really objectionable?
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Only if you drink from the toilet rather than flush it.
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You could drink from broken toilets in Duke Nukem 3D.
Duke Nukem 3D was awesome.
Therefore Mafia is not awesome because you cannot drink from the toilets.
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It’s only a problem if you think about the other things that the devs could have spent that time on.
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damn I’m really dissappointed, never finished the first mafia but I was really looking forward to mafia 2… ESPECIALLY for the story, the narrative was mentioned so many times during development and the emphasis on the story… and now you’re saying they’re all rubbish. I don’t want to play a toilet cleaning simulator, I want a mafia-movie game and apparently this isn’t it.
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I’d like John to actually clarify what he means by a Mafia simulator, because I’d say the game very much does deal with the day to day of being a mafiosi.
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“It was never intended to be an open world.”
Why build an open world then? Why spend all that time creating this city, without putting anything interesting in there? Players will be disappointed, and they’d be right to feel that way. The developers time would have been better spent crafting a more interesting story and putting in more missions, instead it feels like it’s open world just because that’s what is expected.
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Well, you know, maybe it’s a case similair to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. , it probably went like this:
“Okay, guys, we are making an open-world sandbox-type game”
two years later
“Ugh, sorry, our programmers failed, cut everything back to linear gamestyle”
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Have you actually played the original Mafia? That wasn’t an open-world game either. Yes, there was a massive, beautiful (for the time) city there, but it was more about having it there to host getaways and to turn the game from a rather average third-person shooter to something genuinely rather wonderful. It was about the feel of the thing, and that is something Mafia II gets very right.
Shame they forgot a decent storyline and characters you can give half a shit about.
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They’re both quite clearly ‘open-world games’. You can tell by how they’re both set in open worlds.
If you (and J-Dubz) wanna tell me they aren’t sandbox games, then I’ll absolutely agree with you, but to say they aren’t / aren’t intended to be ‘open world’ is just nonsense.
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He has a point there. Sometimes the reason for the open world is not to let you do what you want in it (and I personally would argue that that rapidly gets old) but to host all the areas and missions elements in a single coherent location.
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It’s not what people think of as open world, sure, but that’s mainly because it doesn’t have a bunch of mini-quests outside the main plot. And also because the game gives you so much money and guns just by following the storyline, that you don’t need to rob stores or steal cars.
It’s still “open world-ish” in the sense that there are some choices you can make, especially when running from the cops after committing a crime. Do you drive like a bat out of hell and try to lose them all the way to your destination point? Or do you find the nearest garage and get the plates changed? Or maybe stop and grab a convertible where you don’t have to break in?
It’s heavily scripted, but there are a few places here and there, where you can make some choices involving interaction with the city. I’d be doing more of that, if it wasn’t for the stupid checkpoint saves.
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Oh, well, we still have Mafia 1. Absolutely great game, and flawed, and insanely hard at points, and with an utterly stupid final boss fight, but absolutely atmospheric (I was “living” in that city), believable characters and a little nice mafia story.
BTW, what’s all that about “that race” in this year and age? After a few tries back then I discovered that you could use the dirt road that crossed the track in half to cheat your race through (cheating offered by the game world itself). Using that shortcut was the way you were supposed to win. At least that’s what I “read” from the hints in the gameworld. You’re a bad guy after all. So, cheat and win.
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Sad. And checkpoints?. Checkpoints are for the consoles of the 20th century. Let me fucking save whenever I want, this is a PC!.
Another for the grinder, then. A pity.
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“Why build an open world then? Why spend all that time creating this city, without putting anything interesting in there? ”
To give you an awesomely atmospheric backdrop while you travel from A to B in a linear game?
I absolutely do not see the problem with the open city, at all. It’s a criticism that makes no sense, judges the game by what it’s not instead of what it is and misses its point, and distracts from the real problems the game certainly has.
About halfway through myself, and it isn’t the classic the first on is, but I wouldn’t have want to missed the game, as I am enjoying it a lot,and the transition from the 40s to the 50s and how the whole atmosphere changes is phenomenal.
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Agreed. The game certainly has flaws, but not being like GTA 1950s isn’t one of them. Rockstar could actually learn a thing or two from 2KCzech, especially when it comes to texturing, animation and cutscenes.
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+1
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God will you people stop complaining about the race! IT WAS FRIKKIN EASY.
Ahem, bitterly dissapointed by this but I was expecting it, I wasn’t impressed by the demo at all and didn’t much like the whack a mole shooting in it (despite you saying its the best part) sigh, I might pick it up on budget somewhere down the line.
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I think GTAIV was hugely misunderstood to be a “ignore the plot and go raise havoc” game like the previous gta’s when in fact it was intended to be a story driven game set against the backdrop of a city. And Mafia 2 is nowhere close to the level of writing and quality GTAIV had. So the comparisons of Mafia 2 it GTAIV are quite fair I think.
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I found GTA4′s writing to be dreadful for the most part. There were some comedic savers in there but apart from that it was an entirely forgettable affair. The last 10-15 missions of GTA4 I was just hoping the game would end because I was so tired of it.
I think both GTA4 and Mafia are 7.5-8/10 kinda games. Nothing that will stick but fun for the time being. Mafia 2 feels more like a wasted opportunity than GTA4 does though, since there is this amazing city that is so underutilized.
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@Ripbeefbone
GTA IV writing was terrible. The characters telegraph their intentions from the very first time you meet them. There was nothing surprising about the game, and it was a chore to finish. The DLC was marginally better, but that’s because it was less laboured.
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Kadayi: why should we believe you about Mafia 2 when you’re so palpably wrong about GTAIV?
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@FunkyBadger
Here’s a thought badger, you construct an actual argument for the writing in GTA IV being fantastic and then we can talk more ok. Simply disagreeing is not enough.
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Hey Kadayi, how about you offer up some examples of good writing in videogames, other than just saying the characters in GTA didn’t suprise you. Plot twists are overrated and overdone anyway. There’s something to be said for playing the same old tune but playing it well, something most games can’t manage and especially Mafia 2 with every mob cliche at it’s disposal. Rockstar’s games have a quality of writing unmatched by anyone not named Valve. I actually wouldn’t be embarassed to play their games if there was someone off in listening distance.
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Ever played Deus Ex, Bloodlines, Fallout or the god of all video game writing – Planescape ?
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@Ripbeefbone
Because FunkyBadger is talking about GTA IV specifically, and I’d like him to demonstrate why he thinks the writing in it is great, beyond merely saying ‘it’s great’. An affirmation is simply not enough to carry out a critical discourse.
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Kadayi:
Examples of good writing:
-the Florian sub-plot.
-a great number of the NPCs, all of Brucie’s stuff, all of Real Badman (especially)
-the general breadth and width of content, e.g. listen to a cab radio playing an advfert for America’s Next Top Hooker, getting out and seeing a billboard for same on top of the cab.
-the aggro cab driver.
-The Men’s Room.
That’s five points backing up my position. Which is five more than you managed to back up yours.
Over to you.
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Deus Ex isn’t really anything spectacular writing wise. And yeah Fallout and Planescape were great, but let’s move on from ’98 okay? I didn’t say GTAIV was the only game with good writing ever made, I said Rockstar and Valve are the only ones consistently putting out games these days with great writing and nobody comes close to sheer volume of material in Rockstar’s games. I’d like to know what the people who think the writing in GTAIV was “dreadful” consider good writing in games.
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“That’s five points backing up my position. Which is five more than you managed to back up yours.”
GTA4 is filled with poor stereotypes without any real imagination or cleverness. I realize GTA is a semi-spoof of popular culture but at least make them interesting.
Stereotypical Irish mobsters who are drunks and overly protective of their sister.
Russian ex-military turned to mentally disturbed criminal. Yaaaaaawn.
The Hispanic tv-reporter being so over the top that
The incompetent relative.
Niko himself is so schizo about what he is about and what his motivations are that he becomes as empty a vessel as Vito is.
I agree that Brucie is a fresh of clean air because he is original and not the obvious tired stereotype. For being narrative driven GTA, I think Rockstar kinda failed. I felt stronger about the protagonist in Vice City than this game.
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Just because something is cliche doesn’t mean it can’t be good.
I didn’t find either the Irish of Russian mobsters particularly interesting in GTAIV (or Playboy X? either) but there was more than enough good stuff in there. I’m struggling to think of a better subplot about homosexuality and acceptance (subverting the genre stereotype to boot) in an AAA title than the Florian subplot.
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@FunkyBadger
Well written? You know that Brucie is just a straight rip on a guy called Scott Alexander? Get about two minutes into this video and say hello to Brucie: -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUO5BiUF4bo
Seems Freud beat me to the chase running down the other stuff (the endless and terrible clichés that permeate the entire fiasco of a storyline). I’d actually disagree with him and say that Nikko isn’t an empty vessel, but there’s a huge disconnect between the language and attitude the writers give Nikko (to make you empathise with him) and the actual acts he willingly commits. It’s hard to sympathise with a rogue when he’ll willingly kidnap and slap a woman around for money.
Talking of which, outside of Kate is there one positive female character in the entire game? The Girl friends are practically all one dimensional walling Stereotypes from from Bling obsessed nurse through to the slumming lawyer, and let’s not even get onto the subject of the strip clubs and Americas top Hooker……
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Kadayi: is there a checklist of “positive stereotypes” that a game has to include before its considered good writing?
Rather than quibble about “cliche” in GTAIV though, which games would you show as examples of good writing.
I’ll put up my own examples of GTAIV, Gears of War (for the dialogue, not so much the story), Saints Row 2 (on a smaller scale, the missions were well scripted), Alphacol.
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@Funkybadger
“is there a checklist of “positive stereotypes” that a game has to include before its considered good writing?”
That would be what John Walker apparently would like to see judging by his assessment of Mafia 2. I’d rather a game didn’t run to the stereotype cupboard every time, but perhaps tried to be come up with some original characters (a frightening concept I know) rather than ones rolling out platitudes (positive or negative).
Your take on what makes for good game writing seems to centre on dialogue, where as mine centres on the consistency of it in relationship to the game world, the storyline and the characters as a whole. Sure there are the occasional funny lines in GTA IV (I’ll admit they can tell a joke now and then), but there is a massive disconnect between what the characters say and what they do, coupled with a game world that is at odds with the weighty tale of tragedy the writers are seemly aiming for (parody works best when it’s the exception rather than the rule) .The big showdown between Nikko and Darko Brević (that ‘special someone’) was so utterly impotent it was unbelievable (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ4jjFAQJ-E&feature=related). Having killed hundreds of people (most of whom just had the misfortune to be in the way of me completing my missions) the writers try and make me weigh up whether or not to kill a character whose crimes exist only within an off screen narrative? Sure, maybe they were trying to channel Milan Kundera’s ‘The Joke’ in some reverse fashion, but somehow I doubt it.
Good game writing? Halflife 2 (+ episodes), Portal, Left4dead 1&2, Planescape torment, VTM:B, Alpha Protocol or pretty much any game that possesses some degree of consistency and doesn’t overly break the games immersion with either fourth wall asides (of which Mafia 2 is occasionally guilty) or themes or dialogue out of tune with the setting (much as I enjoyed DA:O there was way too much modern language in there at times).
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There aren’t many game elements or mechanics in Mafia II, other than driving across the city to watch a cut-scene and then all the way back again to watch another cut-scene, with the occasional brief player interaction thrown in, sometimes sneaking through a building, shooting a few guys, or more likely “press X to activate cut-scene”.
So, without much in the way of game, you’re left with scoring the game on story. Unfortunately, the story is just a bunch of scenes cribbed from other gangster movies we’re all familiar with. Sometimes completely.
It has plenty of anachronism. Playboy magazines strewn all across the game, even though Playboy didn’t start publishing for about another decade after the game. A lot of the songs are from much later than the game takes place.
The world around you is often very good looking. Everything they touted about the people in the city feeling alive and reacting to everything realistically was a bunch of bunk, though. At best, they were on par with GTA IV of a few years ago. Most of the time, however, you didn’t really notice them. Except when they behaved exactly _not_ like normal people in a city. They frequently jaywalk and if you drive by them and you share even the same zip-code with the pedestrian, they’ll drop everything and run away screaming. Other drivers never look out for you and will plow right into you. It can be a chore just getting on the roadway.
It seems to me that this is just a series of cut-scenes and the driving from one location to another (which is 90% of the player interaction) is just there to pad the game hours (which even with all the driving is around twelve hours). If you took out the busy-work of driving to each cut-scene, you’d probably trim nine of those twelve hours from the game.
I can’t see this being worth retail price, period and only worth the eventual $30 price tag if you really enjoy the Mafia genre and like the atmosphere of the 40s and 50s, because that’s really all this game has going for it as a “game”.
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Agreed. I’m usually more a fan of story and visuals over shooting and mini games, but the story doesn’t do enough to carry it here. I found myself praying for another shoot out. When I read how long the game was and I realized that I was already over halfway through the story, I thought “But…I haven’t done anything but DRIVE.”
I love the setting and the world that they created for us to play in…and I find myself looking for any excuse to play in it longer….but there isn’t one. It’s like the game itself doesn’t want me to play it. Let me shoot pool in the bar at least…I hate mini games, but anything really.
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“And there’s food, clothes and gun shops to visit, mechanics to improve cars, gas stations to refill your tank…
But, here’s the thing: they’re all pointless.”
I remember thinking exactly this playing GTA4, and Mafia 2 seems no different in that respect.
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Epic review, thank you very much!
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Well, this makes me feel better about my mild disappointment with the new Worms game. A long wait and great anticipation for an inferior sequel, but at least it didn’t cost as much.
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Heh, I was thinking just that.
I can’t really put my finger on exactly why Worms R feels so disappointing, mainly because it’s been such a long time since I played the originals, but the sense that it isn’t a labor of love is almost palpable.
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If it’s anywhere close to the xbla ports then its because it’s a gimped shell of what worms used to be.
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I was a bit disappointed when I after being propositioned in the prison showers had to fight my would be lover. Feeling lonely I decided to lose the fight on purpose and get me some man loving. My dreams were shattered when I was beaten to death and I don’t know if my dead body was involved in any love making since the game insisted on me reloading from the last checkpoint.
Choice and consequence.
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Talking about choice and consequences: I really wanted to put all those lovely crates on the truck, considering that the rest of them game would probably involve much money in not so much honest ways.
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Believe it or not, giving in to prison rape was actually going to be a valid option in the cancelled Gizmondo crime game “Colors”.
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Call me crazy, but I really missed Mafia’s driving on II. In fact I find it helped a lot to the the idea of being in a open scenario without “entertainments”. I missed the challenge of going from one place to other, respecting traffic signals and being damn sure I was driving like any normal citizen. It added a lot of realism to the game and I never had the feeling that the city was underused, as the last thing I would do is going randomly from one place to another. In Mafia II is too easy and comfortable going from one place to another, so the city is “smaller”, easier to explore and less mysterious.
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I was actually just trying to say that the game is full of completely pointless things like that, crammed into a gorgeous setting. I wasn’t literally griping about the faucet.
The case of the faucet is representative of everything from the gun shop that I never once needed, to the gas station that seemed to be there only for me to watch some poor sap have to fill my car up. There is little to do in your fancy hideout other than turn the faucet on and off or hit the bed to move on to the next mission, where you have to drive Joe to Egypt and back. I found I had absolutely no reason to explore the city.
I don’t know if you were being sarcastic or not, but I absolutely loved both Mass Effect games. I didn’t even remember you could flush the toilet. That should tell you something right there, about how much more game there was.
I agreed pretty much point on point with Mr. John Walker’s review from my experiences playing Mafia 2. I wanted to love it. I wish like hell it was better.
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Blah, reply didn’t go where it was supposed to.
Cheers.
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I personally am quite enjoying Mafia II. I like how Vito and Joe are good friends and do a lot together and are good friends. I didn’t mind the cigarette part but if I have to do it more times that will be kinda lame (haven’t finished the game yet). I do agree that all the characters get confusing and I have no idea what family I am working for at the moment but it still is entertaining.
Also I don’t see what people hate about the fighting, it works and I think it works well. Its not much different from other games, you block, you have light and hard punches, and you can counter and do finishing moves. If you were expecting some sort of Street Fighter or Zeno Clash mechanics I ask you why you thought that their would be strange kicks of the dragon or quick dodges, I which your character would lean back a full 90 degrees, following up by a elbow and foot to someones head in a game about fat mobsters in the 50′s?(yes that’s right, the elbow and the foot at the SAME TIME). Also I loved the prison section, the dude spouting out the video game quotes was goofy but if it had to be in the game anywhere, in a prison being said by a mental guy was where I would want it.
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Another developer misses the critical aspect of their game. Mafia II is an expansive game set in an open world, but unlike all the other open world games it’s narrative-driven. And the bit they messed up on? The narrative.
Incidentally, does anyone think that if Mafia II was more of a sandbox game its story would’ve been judged less harshly?
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If the story actually had an end then maybe. But I just sat there kinda, wishing there was more and then bam, credits.
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I understand that you might take offense on the stance this game have taken towards racism, sexism, women’s roles and language – but is it a wish to make everything so politically correct that no one gets offended or just a remark for people who this might be a deal breaker?
Maybe it’s because I have been raised the way I have or because of the country and culture I have grown up in, but I can accept that it is a game and any such rants just feels pointless and, maybe, destructive to the entire industry.
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Complex topic.
I think it this instance it’s simply indicative of poor, lazy writing. If there are topics of racism and sexism bubbling underneath the main narrative then explore them. I doubt this was ever even considered. In this instance it’s probably just exploitative – they just want to sell copies to fourteen year old boys and various other undersexed demographics because that’s what works.
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@Curvespace
That would be all well and good as an argument, if the qame wasn’t sold as an 18+. Personally like trillex I think there’s a real issue here with people setting down expectations as to how a period game should operate and not necessarily good ones.
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There are some double standards in the appraisal of racism/sexism/crime in games. A game like GTA IV is practically built on racist stereotypes and extreme sexism but it gets a pass for some reason. The Witcher, a game with a very nuanced stanced on good and evil, racism and yes, an overall much less one-dimensional portrayal of women still catches flak for the collector cards years later when GTA was practically telling you that shagging girls was an important mission objective. I’ll never understand.
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Gamers are ?_? look at the postal 3 comments then look at the fake/real ascii serial killer game.
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serial killer games comment thread (the old one).
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What conclusion you can draw about the game depends on what you think the writer was thinking…
1. “The game is set in the 40′s. Back then, all guys thought women existed only for sex.” — we can expect to see some insightful portrayals of sexist characters. Also, we can expect the male characters to occasionally end up looking stupid compared to the women.
2. “The game is set in the 40′s. Back then, women existed only for sex.” — we can expect to see some sexist portrayals of sexist characters. Also, we should not expect the women to ever do anything that demonstrates that they’re individual characters capable of independent thought or motivation.
Which is it, in this game?
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I think this game is Marmite.
Also, some disclaimers before I meander about in post-pub typing: I’ve not played GTA IV, except briefly on friend’s consoles. I’ve not played Mafia 1. I pre-ordered this game after thoroughly enjoying the demo. I don’t have an nVidia card. As of typing, I’ve not finished the game. I like this game.
*Nota Bene: There may be some spoilers ahead.*
Firstly, I like the story, so far. It’s not the most amazing writing in gaming history, far far from it. The over arching story in Deus Ex was also terrible in the sense of “so I have to raid a church of the Knight’s Templar now? O.K.”; as in, it’s full of cliches. But you know what? Bloody fantastic. I wanted a game that felt like it aimed at the Godfather and Goodfellas and hit every cliche on the way through, and that is exactly what this game feels like. There are some huge plot holes so far (bear in mind I haven’t finished it yet), such as: Where is my sister and why do I no longer care about her? On the other hand, Joe is a surprisingly entertaining side-kick – I thought he’d be pure comedy relief but it’s clear once you get further in the story line that that’s not the case. The voice acting is also very good.
The Chapter that really made me enjoy this game thoroughly were Chapter’s 6 & 7; Prison and post prison. The scene where you enter prison in 1st person is bloody brilliant. I was genuinely put out by it; very well done. The next chapter is very interesting. I think that it helped that I played it while slightly pissed, but it was pure Goodfellas all the way through. The strip club was bizarre (IMO didn’t work), but post-burial drive home made me laugh. Two drunk Italians singing along to the radio was a great touch, and made me feel a lot more comfortable with the characters. A great level.
Secondly, the gameplay. The shooty bits are great. The cover system is wonderful, the shooting feels great, and the range of weaponry is enough to keep me interested. I also like the driving. The handling is often dodgy, but that feels OK given the period cars. Also, having read that abysmal Eurogamer review before playing (and then wishing I hadn’t pre-ordered) I really did wonder whether the reviewer had played until the 3rd (?) mission enough to know that pressing “L” in a car put on the limiter, making driving around town a doddle.
The fist-fights are poo. Once you realise that holding Spacebar means you cannot be hit, all the fun drains out. The devs needed to make a Strong hit (right-click) punch through blocks, and then enabled the AI to do it to you. That was really all it would have taken to make fist-fighting enjoyable.
Oh yeah, the checkpointing is horrible. However, I didn’t find the game difficult enough for that to be a huge problem (they should have put in manual saves though, surely that’s not hard to do for PCs).
Lastly, presentation. This is both Mafia’s strongest and (IMO) weakest point. The city you drive around in is wonderful; the cars, the radio, the street life. All brilliant. I don’t like the graphics much though. I know, I know, complaining about graphics is poor form but the lack of AA beyond the immediate bubble around you was off-putting, especially when presented with vistas of the city. In that bubble, however, the graphics were great. Hopefully some crafty modding will fix that soon.
Finally: The “Open World”. Meh, so what? All you do with the open world bits is get Police aggro and die gloriously in a shoot out, which you can do anyway. Also, there was a Freeride patch this morning (that added a Freeride mode) that seem to be hard to find now? Dunno what’s up with that, but we own PCs so I’m sure it’ll be back soon.
P.S.: Not disagreeing with Jon’s WiT. Very good overview of the game, much better than Eurogamer’s shit. If you’re thinking about buying I’d suggest this and PCGs reviews, and also play the demo. Also remember that this is not GTA in the ’40s.
P.P.S: If there was a DLC released which involved more fighting in Sicily as a WWII soldier, I think I’d probably buy it.
P.P.P.S: I also really enjoyed the meta references heard within the game. Like the crazy guy in prison muttering “All you base… belong to us”; and the slaughterhouse worker joking about quitting and becoming a voice actor: all very well done.
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Oh bugger something that I forgot in that MASSIVE POST above:
Money means fuck all, but it shouldn’t. There’s nothing to spend your hard earned cash on. Any money spent is easily gained through the missions (a far trade off), but I wish more was put in a money sink somehow. Cars and clothes are a fair expenditure (if you want them to be), but once you become a Made Man you get $10,000 which is shitloads. They should have made the Money Making process harder and more necessary. That certainly would have fit with the story line.
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But the game takes away both your money and everything you buy with it on more than one occasion. If I’d spent hours grinding for cash and filling my house with trinkets I would’ve been mighty pissed off when it all goes for the sake of plot, so maybe it’s better this way.
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Keep your AdBlock on, just add RPS to the Excluded Sites list in the extension’s options.
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Ah, reply fail. Sorry about that.
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One plus I haven’t seen mentioned about the game is it’s very well optimised and runs like a charm at high settings on my midrange computer. If only more games were like that.
*SPOILER* The plot compared to Mafia I made me sad though. Vito flip flops his views on several points, the most noticeable being his father. He mentions SEVERAL times in the game’s early stages how much he hates his father and doesn’t mourn his passing. Yet when it’s revealed he was murdered Vito proceeds to put himself in deeper shit by deciding to exact revenge! The fuck?
Also, the ending bites. No two ways about that. “Tribute to the Sopranos” and “It’ll be resolved by DLC” don’t wash with me. I had 7 years of Sopranos mythos to question what their ending meant and having to pay for the true ending is bullshit of the highest order and shouldn’t be tolerated if gaming is to be taken seriously as an artform. Particularly because it will undoubtedly involve Vito driving somewhere and killng everyone.
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To misquote Die Hard 3, “I may not have liked my brother, but it doesn’t mean that I didn’t care when some Irish flatfoot dropped him off a tower block.” Or words to that effect.
I imagine a lot of people hate their relatives (or think they do), but still get hit hard when they die. Plus there’s that whole family honour thing that may or may not be a genuine part of life as a Mafiosi.
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Little bit confused about the anachronism comments. Playboy started in ’53 and has always been printed in colour. Granted it shouldn’t be there in the earlier part of the game but to claim it’s ten years off is a bit unfair, and they had colour printing well before 1945!
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@_Jackalope_
Likewise. Seems pretty bizarre really given that Empire Bay is entirely fictional City that people are up in arms about the dates.
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given that Empire Bay is entirely fictional City
Yes, but it’s set in a recognizable time. I think whether the city is real or not, in this case, is irrelevant. There are no Iphones and flat screen televisions, correct?
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If you’re making a period piece and make stupid mistakes like having Playboy magazine around during World War II, you probably shouldn’t be making a period piece. Fact-checking is pretty friggin’ easy these days.
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In a game where they clearly thought it was funny and buff to “show” the cool guys partying and getting blown and then blasted, I don’t think realism in terms of nudie mags was much a thought that bothered them at all.
The simple version most likely was:
“Crime, Violence, Tits. What has tits? Why, Titty Mags! Hey, great idea, let’s put some in! Oh, and let’s do them as this thing, that thing these moron console gamers invented as replacement for XP and leveling, what was it called…oh yea, achievements! Let’s make them like his achievementcollectiblethingamajig, and then give them that usual menue point for them, so they can fap anytime, and actually have a reason to start the game..”
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Maybe it’s a tribute to the loading screens from Mafia, which nearly always showed out-of-period things. Filter cigarettes, for instance, which weren’t around in the 30s, and a 17th-century two-barrelled flintlock pistol masquerading as a sawn-off shotgun. Molotov cocktails were invented in the Spanish civil war, which started in 1936, in Spain, a long way from Lost Heaven. I think I read that all the banknotes shown in the loading screens are too modern as well!
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“Oh, and let’s do them as this thing, that thing these moron console gamers invented as replacement for XP and leveling, what was it called…oh yea, achievements! Let’s make them like his”
Good way to show you have never played a console game
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A pity you spend 90% of the text talking about the flaws, and a couple of paragraphs talking about the good points, but it was a good read nevertheless. I’m still buying it though.
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This is spot on. I loved Mafia I, and this Wot perfectly captures how Mafia II fails so miserably in comparison. The world is wonderfully realized. I couldn’t wait, at the start, to get down to some juicy Mafia I style gun play. But I did wait, and wait, and wait. I’m still waiting.
I quit after the corpse-driving mission discussed above: You drive somewhere. You change clothes. You drive somewhere else. You watch a cut scene. You drive somewhere else. You watch another cut scene. You drive somewhere else. You watch a cut scene. You drive somewhere else, all while listening to execrable but well-acted dialogue. You drive somewhere else. etc.
It’s horribly disappointing.
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Seems im the only one who really liked the game.
I had an awesome immersive time while playing trough and im actually on my second playtrough now.
Cant understand why i got so “bad” reviews.
But this was the same with Alpha Protocol, it seems i was the only one who liked it :S
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I thought Alphacol was great – and everyone who disagrees with me is a silly sausage.
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and flush the toilet, turn on/off the shower, turn on/off the lights and open some windows and all the car hoods.
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Okay, finished it. The ending sucks. It’s an obvious setup for a sequel or expansion pack, and not satisfying at all.
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the ending relys on imagination like often in good films.
For me this was one of the best endings of modern Videogames. Its some kind of a happy end with a bad taste.
But i think most people want hello kitty pritty happy endings where everything is explained and shown without the need of self imagination, this is also the reasion why books will die out soon.
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No, I think you’re missing my point (although TBH I didn’t expand on it enough). I don’t need a happy ending. But I do at least want to feel like the story has some closure when I’m paying $50 for the experience, and not like a cliff-hanger ending at the end of a season for a TV series (this is in reference to the fate of a certain central NPC, where there is still room for a surprise turnaround). .
It’s like what the Mass Effect 2 ending would have been like, if you never found out what happened to the crew you left behind during the final battle. ME2 provides closure for the immediate story arc, while still leaving room for the continuation of the series. It’s a “Godfathers” ending, which to me anyway, is more satisfying than an ambiguous, post-modernist “Sopranos” ending. Tragedy is a powerful story-telling element. Ambiguity isn’t.
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Hmm, I had no interest in this at all, but I must confess that I do value Uncle Lou’s opinion. It was never really high on my list to start with, but I might get it when it drops in price a bit.
It may not take too long, given that you can now pick up Kane and Lynch 2 at a hefty discount.
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I recommend staying away from K&L 1 and 2 like they were gonorrhea infested poison.
For good reason.
Unless of course you love incredibly badly done, almost 100% identically controlled(except for adding shakycam and “shiny” texturing FX, 2 is graphically just as trite as 1 and people fall over like cardboards in a shooting galley just the same way) third person corridor shooters with the most bland, generic and overly spread-shooting guns PC gaming has recently seen.
Also, K&L 2 as opposed to Postal 3 is the game that really should be hated on. Running through the streets naked with highly visible naked bodies covered in razor cuts and open, gaping wounds WITHOUT TRYING TO BE FUNNY is just not, er, funny.
It’s pathetic. Especially the censorship. Headshots, nudity, everything. Censored. But open, gaping wounds? That’s okay.
If the wot I think has something good to say about Kane&Lynch 2 I will start severely doubting the sanity of whichever reviewer.
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Another bad game. So what.
What gives me the creeps is that there are gamers in 2010 who preorder.
There is really no hope for mankind.
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A tutorial level set in World War 2. What. Just…what. And then a tutorial mission to teach me how to drive. And how to use the map. And how to shoot. What am I, my grandmother, and thus haven’t played a single game before?! You know what, “game”, maybe you could use a tutorial in HOW TO BE F*CKING FUN.
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The race in Mafia 1 was awesome – that is all
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So, any chance of 2K Czech releasing some tools so somebody can put the Mafia 1 into the Mafia 2 engine?
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Mafia 1 STORY , of course.
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I’d bet there’s exactly zero chance of them releasing anything to help modding. 2K is currently trying to shut down sites that host the freeroam mod.
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Mafia 2 is great. The guy who wrote this is more concerned with what he wants it to be rather than what it is. All the “menial” tasks like driving and washing urinals is for atmosphere and building realism. I guess all gamers have ADD because everyone complains about all the times they’re not killing people. I commend Mafia 2 for believing in players to see the depth it’s trying to go for.
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I don’t know about you, but I play games to have fun, not to accurately simulate doing chores. It has nothing to do with ADD and everything to do with having interesting things to do in the games.
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For some people fun is a 100% accurate simulation. Fun is different things to different people.
Mafia and now Mafia 2 both tried to make you feel like you were really there, living this guy’s life, and the brief chore segments and such are all a part of that. I was immersed from beginning to end and loved that stuff, I would never want to see it cut.
It’s a shame that the lesson 2K will likely take from this is more mini-game and more explosions, which is exactly the opposite of what I want from this series. Not all games should be the same thing, and Mafia’s immersive “live the life” feel is unique and wonderful.
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If it was properly realistic, you’d have to spend between a quarter and a third of your game time sleeping.
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I thought it was great. I finished it yesterday and I’m starting my second playthrough today.
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Completely agree with the review.
1. The whole makeup of the “story” seems jumbled. Ironically I started up Mafia thinking “Finally, not another WW II shooter.
And it opens, and you are…IN WORLD WAR II! FFS! Similiar to the totally pointlessness of this, so is the (spoiler???) visit to the “place you wait”. It feels at times like they just didn’t know what to really do, and just went and did SOMETHING.
2. The driving. Oh, the driving. Driving, together with the cutscenes made me feel like I was having to suffer to mutated versions of gigantic yet kind of animated/mobile loading screens, which at times required minimal interaction(nudging the analogue stick or WASD to stay on the road..) and hours and hours of waiting. The reviewer claims around 80% real action time. I would go so far as to say in the first 4 hours of play, it feels like I’ve spent about 30 minutes actually REALLY participating in something, with the rest being forced to wait out the eternal dialogues and drives and consequently walks. And I fear I am not far off the mark with that.
3. “Almost every NPC female character has the exact same pair of voluptuous breasts. ” -> interestingly enough, the pre-rendered cutscenes use seperate breast-models and surfaces to create the breasts. I.e. they have seperate geometry. However, in the game engine itself, the breasts (and bums, too) are actually one big surface, and then TEXTURED to “look” like they had a third dimension / depth, when they do not. That in and of itself is a terrible sin. You can make incredibly detailed faces, but you shrug at making two boobs? Women really are the lowest caste in this game.
4. The police have the same annoying omniscient hive-brain as in other games. Murder a long cop in a quiet corner, and the whole police world seems to telepathically just know about this as your wanted rating shoots up. Where is the game with the option to kill all cops to get your rating DOWN? Nobody to report means no report..
Finally I would like to say that I wonder if they had actually dared to let the leash go a LITTLE bit, might they have introduced a bit more of fun perhaps. Maybe not a completely open world thing, but a touch of “The godfather” game like family rivalry seems like something you could have used as THE excuse to go shooting stuff more and actually utilize the arms dealer and the fact that other capos help you out in gunfights. I had thought this would come as early as the mention of 3 families came up, free world or not, but no, it’s just an irrelevant aside. Storming some family’s places and blowing up more stuff with Molotovs, maybe even detonating a corner store with RF:Guerilla like outcome, now THAT would have made the game a (fun) game.
But no.
So the whole game over you really just feel like someone plopped a huge chore in front of you, and every so often rewards you slightly with a bit of shooting and then sends you back to chauffeur work.
For something called “Mafia”, it is a ton closer to “Driving Miss Daisy” than Goodfellas/The Godfather etc pp.
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Might of been a bug but I actually have killed the cops around me and the heat lvl dropped to 0 also driving past cops when your car is wanted will start the wanted lvl rising but if you are quick enough they don’t “recognize” your car/plates and don’t give chase, you can also lure enemies in to the police and then sit back.
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Giving this a 4 is not wanting to see the good things or having an agenda. There is no way this game is that far below average. I quite enjoyed it playing the first 11 chapters. Maybe I was lucky never to get stuck, maybe I never crash my car because i don’t always go for maximum speed. I think I enjoyed it more than others because i played along, instead of trying to uncover its flaws.
It’s one of those games you’ll ruin if you ‘test’ the AI. Just play along, drive carefully make the decisions you are expected to make, because the game can’t handle surprises. Like you can go on a non-stop killing spree as long as you’re on the freeway. The police will not know how to get to you and give up no matter how many people you just murdered. Or you can gather up a whole bunch of vehicles and use the fact that the game will stop adding new ones. The average pedestrian seems smarter than a cop when it comes to survival and so on and so on.
Despite the flaws,though, i really enjoyed it, but i’m a nutter for this sort of game.
It’s a pretty game for one. Excellent cloth physics and reflections. The cars seem to handle well and change over the years / seasons. The streets certainly look alive. I would have given this an 8.
Besides the game does great hair. Games never do hair well. You can smell the Brylcream in this one. That has to count for at least a 5?
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By “that far below average” you mean one step below average?
http://www.eurogamer.net/scoring_policy.php
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@ JimRaynor:
That’s just a denomination. If you look at all reviews of PC games on Eurogamer.net and rank them by score, 4/10 is actually in around the 20-10% range when it comes to scores. But then, they give the original Mafia also 4/10 only to see it gain cult status afterwards so maybe they just don’t “get” the series? (that is not to say Mafia 2 is on par with its original, just that it’s not a 4)
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When you come down to it, so many sentences of criticism in that review could be lifted and placed into a GTA4 review with no edits; the checkpoint issues, the tedious driving, the ridiculous police responses, the tedious jobs, the bad AI, etc. I know it’s unfair to compare the two games, since you’re right that they’re totally different and aim to accomplish different goals … but in this case, I can’t help but wonder if the developers were aiming to shape some elements of the gameplay to be like GTA’s, merely based on the success of that franchise.
If so, they failed to realise what makes GTA4 a success has nothing to do with its gameplay.
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You are a retard, mister John Wanker.. This game is AWESOME!!
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I preordered it on Steam ( If I’m honest I’d say the Mafia 1 had alot to do with that, loved that game) and I thought it was alright, not great but not horrible. The checkpoints are annoying and it seemed very short to me, and the ending was just so bad, in my opinion.
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Finished it. 8/10. The back half really picked things up imo.
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horray at least somone with imagination and good taste :-)
Mafia 2 is a game where you have a good ending with a bad taste. Most people dont like this (or storys like that) so they talk shit about the game and try to drag it into dirt.
This always hurts me when people dont like a game because its not like modern warfare 2 type of game and talk bad about it instead of saying ” i didnt like it because i have no imagination and dont like this type of story but you might like it, get your own opinion”
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Did you even read any of the criticism about the game?
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@ThisIsntTestDriveXYZ
It’s called not being a slave to opinion.
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the sopranos ending made perfect sense
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So, like every other modern game that wants to be a film? Great.
(Previously.)
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You know the problem with Warren’s criticism is that he’s damning everyone, but to be honest if he really wants to galvanize game developers to change their ways when it comes game narrative he really should be leading the charge himself in terms of his product, and building on the foundation stone of Deus Ex (figuratively rather than literally) rather than making mickey mouse games.
Mafia 2 is not trying to be an RPG with choice and consequence, it’s a linear tale that you as the player drive through. The same criticism can be levelled at Halflife 2. Back in the day I recall that there was something about Warren (prior to setting up Junction Point I believe) flirting briefly with a career at Valve, but couldn’t go along with their linear polished approach to game development Vs his choice & consequence one. Gabe Newell’s perspective was that alternative routes was a waste of development time because as it is something like 70% of gamers never finish games anyway (this was something Steam was bringing to everyone’s attention through the stats), and that it’s only the hardcore who tend to and even then they rarely bothered playing a title more than once. I think Gabe had a point, however I choice and consequence titles are great fun as well (Deus Ex is my favourite game). Personally I don’t think that there needs to be an and/or approach to game design. I think both linear narrative and choice and consequence both have their strengths and weaknesses.
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My main issue with this game was the enormous amount of needless driving. It became so grading that it made me focus on otherwise trivial issues with the game. Implement a taxi system and I would probably have very little complaints about Mafia 2
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Wow, I think the reviewer has pretty lofty expectations for story-telling in computer games. Game stories are riddled with cliches and Mafia 2 is no exception. But it’s still leagues better than most games I ever encountered.
I played through the game in 14 hours and enjoyed nearly every minute of it. It was a very immersive experience, with a lot of memorable moments throughout. For those who have not yet decided whether to buy the game or not, I think the demo is indicative of what you may expect gameplay-wise. Like in Mafia 1, there is a lot of driving… if you like the driving model, you will probably like the game.
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Kinda more: if you like TO drive (11 out of those 14 hours) – and with that Mafia 2 model and cars for driving, no less- then you will probably like the game.
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“Kinda more: if you like TO drive (11 out of those 14 hours) – and with that Mafia 2 model and cars for driving, no less- then you will probably like the game.”
Definitely some truth to that. I started minding the driving a lot less, by the time I was about 2/3 of the way through the game. Nothing to do with the game design, I had just finally trained myself to drive better and not smash into stuff as often. Also I had started using just two favorite cars and got familiar with the fully-tuned handling… at least, when the plot didn’t force me to use other cars as part of the missions. That’s an odd aspect of the game design. Part of it encourages you to find the hot cars you like and customize them. The other part keeps forcing you to drive something else as part of the storyline. The need to keep switching vehicles (and often as an ad-hoc choice in crime getaways) made perfect sense as part of the story. But I missed having access to my favorite cars. The game is kinda schizophrenic that way.
Oh, and people keep saying gas stations are useless. They’re not, and you’ll notice it if you try to drive the same car for several missions, instead of just constantly hijacking whatever is handy. None of this changes my opinion of the game as being deeply flawed by the checkpoint save pacing, or the quality of the ending. It just made the last part of he game a little more fun than I expected, based on frustrations with the first 2/3 of the game.
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..actually, the demo mission is one of the top quality missions in the full game truth be told. Driving around really does take at least 60% of the gameplay time imo another 20% are idiotic missions like selling cigarettes from the truck (exact copy of a scene from Scorsese’s Goodfellas, with the exception that characters selling cigs in Goodfellas were kids and in MII they’re “Mademen” ?!?! – that makes no sense at all), last 20% are really good missions but that’s it. What angers us that criticize the game is not so much what the game is, but what it could and should have been, when you play the game with some exceptionally strong sides – like excellently built city and atmosphere and boring laborious missions you can’t help but be really critical.
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“None of this changes my opinion of the game as being deeply flawed by the checkpoint save pacing, or the quality of the ending.”
My copy of the game had none of these problems. ;)
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The urinal scrubbing, crate moving and cigarette picking combined can’t come to anymore than about 3 minutes. There are legitimate problems with the game, but damning a ~12 hour game on a handful of minutes worth of scene-setting content is a bit of a stretch I think. As part of a better storyline, I suspect these elements would even have been praised.
The first two examples achieve what they were aiming for in as little time as possible. The third does drag on longer than required – as it’s just an arbitrary mob activity to trigger a fight with a rival gang – but again, we’re talking about approx. a minute of box picking here to set up the rest of the mission (a car chase, shooting up & burning down a building, then a lengthy shootout iirc).
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@Jimbo
Exactly. I agree I disliked the cigarette box thing, but not so much what it served in terms of the story, more that the truck was confined so targeting the right smokes was fiddly. I’d of rather in way they’d just cutscene the entire thing at every location. However these control quibbles are small fish, so to have them paraded as monumental is ludicrous by John at the end of the day. Tonally I don’t think he liked the game and that’s coloured his review to the extent that molehills have become mountains. Certainly the game suffers from deficiencies, the odd fiddly control moment, and a lack of variety in terms of NPC character models being the big ones (seeing the same faces & clothes does break the mood a lot) , but I think it’s a worthy sequel to the original.
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Note to self – when you buy a new game make sure you don’t go on the internet until you;ve played it!
I got mafia 2 on friday but have been away for the weekend and only just returned. From what I’ve seen it looks an excellent game – I just hope it builds on the original.
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What really rankled me with this game was that EVERY SINGLE TIME there was the opportunity to do something fun, as delineated by the story, you could be damned sure the cutscenes would play it our for you. The game wakes you up with a cutscene, allows you to walk to your wardrobe, put on a suit and exit your house then BANG another cutscene. As I believe the Eurogamer uk review put it, is this trying to illustrate the banality of being a mafioso? I wouldn’t mind the game being repetitive and one dimensional anywhere near as much if it didn’t articulate all of the fun things that could be done through cutscenes, rubbing your face into each time YOU CAN’T CONTROL THIS, YOU CAN’T SMACK HIM, YOU CAN’T WALK THIS WAY because a cutscene has to play to reveal the absolutely banal story.
I adored the previous game, though I must admit its faded in my memory, but where are the missions in Mafia 2 with anything like the expansive nature of the previous game? I’d love the race to return. Just for the frustration. Or any missions moving outside the city. Or anything with a pulse.
Do these guys want to make a game or movies. Because the technology behind this game really could have provided an amazing experience. But its destroyed under the weight of cinematic pretension that wrecks it. The acting was indeed very good, but by the end of the game I resented it because it was responsible for undertaking all of the fun aspects of the story, leaving me to shoot and little and drive a lot, and throw cigarette boxes about. Its a pity….
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That cut scene after cut scene thing only happened once as far as I recall. Also there are a few missions where you have to race the clock.
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I am torn, I really liked the demo but the mixed reviews concern me. I loved how the cars felt to drive, the atmosphere of the city, the music. All very superficial, I know. I think I will give the game a chance now. I loved the original, but the ending to that left me deflated. I busted my arse off and felt cheated. Of course, objectively the ending is very brave, realistic and should be applauded but at the time I was mad as hell! Several times I was annoyed with Tommy for being such a wet blanket, despite empathising with him. I guess the sequel is the flip side, someone who enjoys the life and to hell with everyone else.
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I think if that’s the impression you are taking from the reviews regarding Vito it’s not an accurate one.
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Usually when I read stuff at RPS, its about the game.
But the opinion columns here really blew me away! What writing! What emotion! I almost didn’t care if Mafia II was good or not.
I have never seen so much dedication from someone such as Kadayi to defend a game he truly loves. I’m beginning to think he must have been paid or something by game developers to promote the game. Not that I’m implying anything. (Please don’t reply this point, please don’t reply this point :).
Kudos also to the others who tried their best to impress their thoughts to Kadayi. Honestly the way you write reflects your own dedication to the games you enjoy. @Caroline, wow I’ve never met a lad with your tastes… too bad we can’t go out and date. Trust me, I’m just too far away.
But here I would like to repeat my words that I used somewhere in the past in other RPS opinion columns: Its all about preference. Some people like A, others like B. Its ok for them to express the reasons why they like it. BUT to change their perception of A or B, now that’s a different and usually almost impossible. So let people enjoy what they like. That’s what games are supposed to be; enjoyed. It doesn’t matter if I love one game and another hates it; it is the personal and unique immersion and enjoyment we gain from playing games that makes it important. Each game is perceived differently and enjoyed differently. I love GTA: San Andreas more than GTA: IV because of its awesome humor (I know its you Ryder – it ain’t me!) and sometimes unrealistic game-play. Others might not believe so preferring more realism.
So to readers of this review remember; its a review from one opinion. Get other opinions and if you are really torn, try the demo. Still torn? Then ask yourself, what will you enjoy and get out of this game? Then buy the game and no regrets. Hell I’ve bought Risen just from reading reviews and WOT I Thunk at RPS and its a great game (from my perspective).
Oh and one last thing. Great write up JW, as usual the writers and reviewers at RPS do amazing work and although not everyone shares your opinion as seen in this case, at least you were kind enough to share your perspective and not forcing it unto others.
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Oops Typo on the lad there Caroline… I know your a lady gamer (growl)~ Naughty fingers~
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@wrathfirex
Go to page 1 and read the whole thing I wrote about the misuse of the word ‘love’.
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@wrathfirex
Also you also don’t really seem to understand what the point and purpose of a comments section. Even though I don’t necessarily agree with John’s assessment of Mafia 2. I doubt very much whether he or any of the other RPS Hivemind simply want constant positive validation of their posts.
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@Deston: Well said, sir. You brought a tear to my eye and my hand to my wallet.
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I actually just finished the game 30 minutes ago, which is why I came to this thread, and John, yeah, spot on review. However, here’s something I haven’t seen mentioned in the reviews of this game: Not only are most of the characters in the game acting racist (which is fine, because hey, real people are racists sometimes), the minorities in the game are also portrayed in a racist, stereotypical fashion.
This comes through in the random bits of dialogue that you hear, such as one exchange at the prison between a black guy and a Chinese guy, with the black guy offering to teach the Chinese guy basketball if the Chinese guy teaches him kung fu; and during a firefight with some Chinese guys, hearing the Chinese guys talk about how they’re going to eat dog that night. Those are just the examples I remember off the top of the head, but I remember observing that virtually everything uttered by minorities in the game supports a stereotype of that minority group, and that’s just not acceptable. That’s, at best, lazy, and, at worst, racist writing. This problem isn’t unique to Mafia 2, but based off the first game, I expected better.
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This is stupid that I’m writing this, but I just think Kadayi should chill. Relax man, quite a lot of people don’t like the game you do. You don’t have to go on a holy crusade to make sure they like it.
I’m cool when I write on week old threads.
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@Pawul
Strangely enough I’m interested in having some critical discourse. Knowing the ‘why’ behind a persons like or dislike of a game (or a film, or a TV show, etc etc ) is very interesting to me. I’ve a design background so it’s SOP for me to break things down into operators and weigh them up in terms of whether they work or not, and the reasons behind their success of failure, and how they come together as a whole. By understanding the construct you can (if not entirely objectively) then at least fairly assess it, and then at least posit how it could be improved upon in future (which is useful information at the end of the day) .
Someone saying they ‘hate’ a game or that ‘it sucks’ really doesn’t communicate anything valuable as regards information to the reader. Where as someone saying ‘I felt that the boss fights in Batman Arkham Asylum were repetitive’ opens up the opportunity for a discussion and some critical dialogue on that position. The problem a lot of people have unfortunately is they don’t put up thought through arguments a lot of the time. People jump to a conclusion and run with it without considering the ‘why’ a lot of the time.
Let’s take an example. John said this: -
“And women (or should I say “broads”), unlike in the first game, only serve one purpose here: fucking. Almost every NPC female character has the exact same pair of voluptuous breasts”
Now he is certainly right that a lot of the younger female character models in the game do have voluptuous breasts. However what is equally true is that there are a finite number of minor NPC character models across through out the game. This is especially noticeable with respect to the Chinese NPCs ( I’d actually say it’s one of the games failings as its breaks immersion to see the same minor character models repeated in cut scenes, even though they are quite clearly supposed to be viewed as different people). So given the fact that there seems to be a hard limit on the number of NPC character models included across the board, my inclination is that perhaps this model repetition might have less to do with over sexualising the games entire NPC female population as john suggests and probably a lot more more to do with keeping the overall game size down so that they could comfortably squeeze the game onto 1 DVD (6.8GB) for the 360 version, and therefore avoid paying MS the the hefty multi-disc licensing fee.
Mafia 2 certainly isn’t a perfect game. I just don’t think it’s nearly as bad as either John Walker or John Teti would have you believe. Whether it’s a full price or sale purchase price game is up to the individual. However I’d say it’s certainly a game that much like its predecessor deserves to be played rather than passed over. I’m also not alone in that thinking if you delve a bit deeper into the thread.
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I have a problem with this:
“So I’ve not slept much in the last 24 hours to complete the game, in order that I can tell you my thoughts”
I hate to qualify a comment like this, but the fact is this game is immeasurably worse when you force an extended play though.
If you can limit to a few missions a night though, then I think you’ll come to not only like, but truly enjoy it.
Again, it’s a shame I use that qualification, but it’s where I’m at. Think about everything in the reviews, here and elsewhere, and just realize that all the bad stuff, from all the driving driving and menial tasks to the shooting, is made far better when taken in moderation. I don’t think, in other words, the mechanics are inherently bad, it’s just that little things snowball out of control if not properly mitigated.
Let me put it this way: IF I had to play though this game in extended sessions it’s a no bones about it 2/10. Yes, the bad parts are that bad. Check pointing often sucks, the shooting gets old, etc etc.
However, because I’ve purposely limited myself to a very reasonable 1/12-3 hours a night, it’s an easy 7/10.
I’d like to know if anyone else feels the same, because to be honest, I’d like to think I’m not crazy for actually enjoying this game.
Funny, but true.
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” I hate to qualify a comment like this, but the fact is this game is immeasurably worse when you force an extended play though.”
I’d say that’s probably true for most games tbh. Generally the people who hate on a game tend to be the ones who get past the finishing line first, rather than taking their time over them. Games are like wine in that respect.
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I liked it a lot. I have no idea why John thinks there wasn’t enough shooting. For me the entire game was a shooter, with the action broken up into segments with errands and driving so that people wouldn’t get bored to quickly. And I liked the non-shooty errands because they added the much welcomed sense of realism, which lets you immerse into life in the 40′s.
The gun shops, gas stations, diners, mechanics etc were unnessessary, but honestly, I’m very glad they’re in the game. I’ve been waiting for Rockstar to put in fuel meters on the cars and make the petrol stations in GTAIV actually do something. It’s because of those unnessessary shops that make Empire Bay is more interactive than other open worlds. Liberty City had car washes that did absolutely nothing useful, but they still added to the game.
On the note of police noticing crimes, I noticed early on that proximity means nothing, unlike in GTA. Instead you need to be seen. I wanted to pick the lock of a car but a cop was driving past. I waited untill he was just past me on the road (so that he was then facing away from me) and then picked the lock free from persecution. Ducking behind cars also hides you from view.
While the story was just a bit meh, I enjoyed it from begining to end.
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Mafia 2 is a game about mundane tasks. The missions are uninspired, repetitive and sometimes outright dreadful. The whole time I’m wishing that the mob will entrust me with a deeper role, it never does. Vito is a lifeless character with zero development. Even with hinted strong family values, he abandons and forgets about them quickly. The use of currency is pointless and buying guns, food, or gasoline is not needed. The checkpoint system is a complete failure, especially if your into replaying sections of missions.
I could go on and on, but in the end, the flaws outweigh its successes. Its very apparent that Mafia 2 tries so very hard to outdo its brethren, but fails everytime an attempt is made (aside from graphics).
I truly enjoyed the original Mafia, enough to finish it for the 4th time a few months back, and not once did it feel like a chore, a grind to play.
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Am i the only one who has a greate time playing mafia 2?
I know its only 9-15 hours (depending in the difficulty setting) and has no “social activities” like gta4 but i had 1) a fucking greate time playing it, best story told for a long time
2) i HATED the stupid social activities in gta4, i can do these in RL i dont need a sim-clone for that
3) the setting / slow driving / mission structure was greate as it was like reading a book with several story jumps in between (chapters).
I have games where i had 30 hours playtime but at the end i felt like i wasted time and money, and here for 75 bucks (switzerland) i felt i had a bit expensive but fkin greate time !
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I know I’m a month late replying to this (way behind on reading RPS), but the race in the first Mafia isn’t that bad once you figure out how to do it. It took me many tries to figure it out, but once I did it only took two or three. The trick is to not accelerate a whole lot, and to take the turns slowly.
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thank you for your sharing
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