Got this (used) for $18 over the weekend. Not only is it well worth that price, I would have been completely satisfied paying full-price on release day; I'm really enjoying it. I liked the first one quite a bit, but I was wary of this one as I've played SO many "GTA-styled" games at this point... When M1 hit, there wasn't as much saturation of that genre.
At any rate, it actually differs quite a bit from GTA or open-world games in general now, as it really isn't a sand-box game at all, it just appears to be. There are no side-quests, and the city itself is really just a giant network of roads connecting each environment/mission. It has the staple food-stands, auto-shops and clothing stores, but outside of that, the city is pretty much just there for show. That's not an insult though, it's just not the game I thought it was going to be.
The game is completely linear, and doesn't have a typical sand-box style mission progression at all really. As soon as you finish a job or activity, a new waypoint appears on your map and you move on to that one. It comes off feeling more like a cohesive story-driven action game then a series of missions ala GTA, and that's a very good thing.
It plays out much more like you're living out a mob movie and as an avid fan of Scorsese and Coppola, I'm just loving every minute of it. I've never seen that idea of the Mafia (real or not) be as accurately protrayed in a game as it is here.
The premise is the same basic type of thing as GTA and the like, you start out as a small-time hood and progressively make a name for yourself in the underworld. The really beauty of this game though is that it's painstakingly detailed, has a great story, excellent characters and the action is fantastic. The details in every inch of it are just staggeringly good. There's no cookie-cutter environments here, every building interior has different art on the walls, furniture, etc, and it all looks perfect for the time-period.
The details don't just stop at the visuals either, there is a staggering amount of "realisim" to the little touches they have added here and there. Like, rob a gas-station, and the next time you drive by it you'll see a cop or a crime scene. Have a few drinks and you'll barely be able to walk. Stand in your tenement apartment building's hallway and you'll here entire conversations between other tenants, witness a police raid, or just hear a bed squeaking in the prostitute next-door's place. Little touches like this are just rampant throughout the entire game, and it makes it all a much more robust experience. Even when you go to steal a car, you have the option of smashing the window and creating a scene that may lead to police involvement, or you can try to stealthily pick the lock without anyone noticing. I've even heard that you can be fingered on the street by people that have seen you commit a crime earlier in the game. Like a, "That's him officer" type of thing...
There's also a much better level of interaction with the police then in most sand-box games. Just comitting a crime will not get you arrested or shot at ala GTA. If it's a petty crime, they will try to ticket or arrest you, at which point you can try to bribe them, make a run for it, or start a shootout in the middle of the street. If you get a wanted level, you can try changing cars or clothing to throw them off the trail, and thankfully so, because the cops in this game are NO joke. Partly due to tne increased level of realism/damage in this game, they will drop you pretty quickly if you're not careful, and it adds a lot more tension and excitement because of it. The police also seem to react in a more realistic manner. At least, at the levels of crime I've comitted so far anyway. As in, while wanted, if a cop sees me (and I'm in the same car or clothes), they will pursue me, but they don't seem to just magically spawn out of the woodwork as they do in GTA. They also don't give up nearly as easily or forget about you just because you've driven 1.5 miles away from the spot you killed one of thier fellow officers in. Just to test this out I gunned down several police officers and then hightailed it out of the city to a remote area, and sure enough I did lose them. Nobody spawned from behing vacant buildings, no cop cars appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the woods, and yet, when I headed back to the city in the same car, the first one I passed took chase. It gives the whole cops and robbers a much better vibe.
Early on there's a pretty sick amount of progression to the city that impressed the hell out of me. When you first start out, you're in like 40's era NYC at Xmas time, and everything is covered in snow, and all the music is Xmas tunes. You eventually get busted and spend several years in prison, and when you get out, the city is completely changed. There is a flood of 50's roadsters, greaser kids are all over the place, all the music changes, the city looks different; hell, even the cop cars get updated; it was all very very cool. I've never seen a game show the progression of time quite as well as it did here.
The game can be a little slow early on when you're doing menial jobs like selling cigerettes or running mob-bosses around, but it pretty quickly ramps up to a full-on action game that is just fantastic. It's pretty much just an intensely cover-based TPS, but the story and level of immersion are so nice, and the gun-play works so well that it totally rises above the basic gameplay.
The guns feel great, the control is spot on, and there is a pretty vast selection of firearms. Bullets do damage to the environment (and cars), lights can be shot out, dudes can be plugged in the legs or just shot straight in between the eyes for an instant kill; it all feels perfect. Even the AI is great for this type of game. I wouldn't say we're talking Halo AI here, but the enemies behave pretty well. They take cover, flank, they will even make a run for it at times.
There is also quite a bit of straight-up fisticuffs, and that also works really, really well. I almost enjoy the hand-to-hand brawls as much as the shooting segments. It's obviously much more limited, but I almost get a Fight Night vibe from it. You have light and hard punches, combos, an easy to use but fun dodging system, and there's a great visceral hard-hitting feeling to the hits and the fight in general. There are even context sensitive finishing moves that are usually brutal and animated nicely. You can start a fist-fight with almost anyone, and at times I've found myself risking arrest just cuz a dude looked at me wrong or said something snarky and I wanted to beat some sense into him.
You do a good bit of driving, and at times this can get a little dull just due to how vast the city is and how long it can take you to go from A to B, but the cars handle great and the radio does an excellent job of immersing you in that era. The city too is just gorgeous to look at, so I've yet to really be "bothered" having to go for a drive. There is even an option you can toggle in the menu to turn on "simulation" driving, which I think makes it a much more interesting experience. It basically just makes the cars behave a lot more realistically when they are trying to corner and move around at high-speeds. It definately makes the action-bits harder, but it also makes the hum-drum driving bits a lot more interesting. Thankfully, you can toggle it at any time.
The driving is also more interesting (and realistic) then in GTA, as you have speed limits that you can choose to obey or not, have a gas gauge, and the cars react to gun-fire much more accurately then in GTA. For one thing, you aren't immortal in a car in this game. If you hit something hard enough, you'll get hurt; if you get shot while in the car, you still get shot. If all feels much more natural and dangerous then in GTA and it really helps up the tension level.
The cars themselves look fantastic all things considered. We're not talking Forza level models here, but for an open-world, they look pretty damn nice, and there's a wide selection of them that all handle noticably different.
The graphics in general are just excellent, and while not on the level of GTA4 PC (with mods), they blow away any of the console open-worlds I've seen so far.
The sound design in general is really nice, with tons of recorded dialogue, a lot of interesting stuff to hear, and great music that totally sets the tone and era of the game.
The overall story/mission-progression feels really natural and totally moves the narrative along. The characters are written really well, and I don't recall ever seeing anything outside of a Scorsese/Coppola film that did so much to explain the way of life of a mobster. it's gritty, feels realistic to me, and the level of immersion is just fantastic. Even gun-fights play out more "realistically" here, and I can't even count how many times I've been gunned down playing this when I got too ambitious or cocky. Point being, it feels much more like you're living out a crime-drama then just playing in a toy-box ala GTA.
There is this really great overall sense of immersion in not only the time-period, but the whole cosa nostra family thing in general. They have done an excellent job protraying that life-style as the glamorous, exciting illusion that you see in the Godfather and the like.
Basically, this game is the closest I think we'll ever come to playing a game of GoodFellas, and I'm just having a blast with it. It blows the actual Godfather games out of the water entirely. Highly recommended.
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