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Mafia 2 - Source: ONE News -
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Platform: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC
Publisher: 2K Games
Rating: 8/10
Review by :
Gamefreaks
Vito Scarletta is a great guy, but ambition and circumstance
have led him down a dark path. His life is one long string of war,
murder, betrayal, alcohol, guns, drugs, women and fancy suits. It's
a life he chose for himself, gambling safety and security for an
exciting life at one end of the gun or the other.
Mafia II is the game that follows Vito's story from its poor
beginnings through to the glamorous and corrupt world of organised
crime.
Set in the 1940s and 1950s, Vito returns from the war and sets about making as much cash as he can in the dirtiest ways possible.
The premise and story will be familiar to anyone who has seen a gangster film in the last century, and the game isn't seeking to break any new ground here.
As Vito you will travel all around the city of Empire Bay (with
brief visits to exciting locations like World War II Italy and
prison) doing all those things that gangsters love to do.
What immediately strikes you about Mafia II is how pretty
everything is.
The city itself is very well realised, immediately feeling alive and ripped straight out of the period.
The game's opening chapters have you driving through the snow-covered streets at winter time, women bustling about in overcoats and things generally looking as muted as one would expect from a country spending all its money on war.
Later on the game shifts to the 1950s and the city shifts along
with it, the bulky cars becoming more streamlined, the fashion
becoming more fashionable and the whole city making itself a little
more colourful.
The soundtrack is what really sells the setting, though.
Hopping into a nearby car will give you access to a fine
selection of some of the great music of the era, and while some of
it is anachronistic (tunes which weren't released until well after
the end of the story) the songs do an excellent job of drawing you
in and really making you feel like you're living in a different
time.
Once you're hooked on the world of Mafia II, the characters and
story are what will make or break your experience. Vito is an
extremely likable leading man.
He looks after his mother and sister, takes care of his friends, and whenever something comes up that is more morally questionable than usual mob activities you can feel his struggle to choose between the right thing to do and his lofty ambitions.
Of course, it helps that he is also embarrassingly attractive. The rest of the cast are wonderfully realised and beautifully voice-acted, despite being little more than the usual gangster cliches.
The plot and people may be treading well-worn ground, but the
story is well told, with tight dialogue and pacing.
Gameplay will be familiar to anyone who has played Grand Theft Auto
or its derivatives, with the majority boiling down to either
shooting, driving or fighting.
The shooting is solid, if not overly impressive. Gunfights generally boil down to the standard tactic of finding cover and then popping out to take a shot until everyone is dead.
Battles can be exciting, but nothing you haven't seen before. The enemies are generally intelligent, but won't do much apart from hide, pop out to shoot, then hide again.
You need to press a button both to enter and leave cover, which can make fights feel a little less smooth and leave Vito exposed for a quick death at times.
And it doesn't take much to kill our made man, so expect to
replay sections reasonably often thanks to an unexpected
exit.
Sometimes the game will put you into a hand-to-hand fight,
generally during scenes where a little more adrenalin and
testosterone is involved (such as dealing with a cheating
brother-in-law).
Vito has light and heavy attacks as well as dodge and combo moves. These sections work well and are a nice break from the gun battles, but the camera tends to hang a little closer than is comfortable.
There is also the odd stealth section thrown in when it suits
the plot, and surprisingly these parts are quite fun. Even though
they are brief, the sneaking works exactly as it should and doesn't
feel tacked on.
Lastly there is the driving, which unfortunately takes up a large
portion of the game.
Generally you will need to drive to and from each mission, and drive back and forth between locations to advance the story. There is very little to do in the city outside the main story, meaning you usually simply follow the line to the next red dot on your radar.
These driving sections are generally uneventful, serving only to break up the excitement of the rest of the game.
More often than not these sections will end up frustrating players, as you can often carefully drive the long road across the city only to accidentally plough into a wall or a police car and be sent to a quick game over screen.
It feels like most of the driving could have been cut from the game without losing anything substantial. As it is, they feel more like padding.
It's when you're driving around the city that Mafia II starts to reveal it's conceit - that it is only pretending to be a sandbox game.
The story itself is rigidly linear, which is no bad thing when you have a tale this interesting, but the game teases you with a huge, beautiful city you can explore fully right from the start. Unfortunately there's nothing much to do there.
You can sell cars for scrap and get cash, but the only thing you can spend money on is more clothes or food and drink. Gun shops are scattered around, but your enemies drop enough ammunition and weapons to easily see you through.
Gas stations let you fill up your car, if you ever happen to
drive for the lengthy period it takes to run low. All of these feel
like they were tacked on as part of a checklist of features a game
needs to have, and while an open world can be a freeing gaming
experience, without a reason to exist it just feels empty.
And while Mafia II is a beautiful game, it isn't without a few
niggling flaws.
The animation is strong throughout, particularly Vito's reactions during gunfights, but certain actions are oddly stiff and unfinished.
The robotic movements our dashing hero makes when answering the phone or opening a door are distracting amongst otherwise classy presentation.
While it does look great, certain parts of Empire Bay will start to look very familiar, especially when you realise that every identical gas station is run by an identical gas station attendant, or when you go into the same clothing shop for the nth time to be greeted by another cloned lady shopkeeper.
While the story kicks along with plenty of interest, the
missions themselves rarely stray far from the standard "go here,
kill these guys, chase this person in a car" variety.
Mafia II is a great game, but ambition on the developers' part may
have led it part way down the wrong path.
As an open-world sandbox, the game is a failure. While the city is a sight to behold, there is nothing that compels you to explore outside the story.
There are no side missions, very few collectibles and only a few shops in which to buy new suits and a couple of beers. But if you look at the game for what it is - a solid third-person adventure and a compelling story about crime, politics, greed and morality, then it is a real treat.
The action is exciting and fun to play with reasonable shooting mechanics, the characters are interesting and the plot will have you hanging on until the very end.
The game's real strength is in its narrative and presentation, offering a look inside the fascinating, and often brutal, world of organised crime.
If you're even slightly interested in the subject matter then
you should take a chance on this pretty boy.
Just like its main character, Mafia II is conflicted. A linear
structure and lack of sideline activities stop it from becoming the
sprawling sandbox it wants to be, but colourful characters, a
fascinating narrative and gorgeous environments make this an offer
not to refuse.
