Mafia II

After thoroughly enjoying the Mafia II demo on Xbox Live Marketplace, i added the game to my "Buy List". After playing the demo, i could definitely tell i liked many elements from the game, but there were also parts that weren't so enjoyable. The question many asked was "Is the game better than the demo?". It's a hard question to answer, because viewpoints may change from person to person. In my opinion, yes, the full game is better. What makes it better though? 
 
The game start's off with you, Vito Scaletta, fighting in the war. It's the 1940's. A few things happen and you return home. Thing's have changed a little, and you're good friend Joe Barbaro has been making some good money. The game goes on from there, with Vito and Joe, and a handful of other rememberable characters. The story itself is fantastic, and the atmosphere is icing on the cake. To care anything about the story however, there MUST be good gameplay. The shooting is definitely solid. My problem however is that the game is still full of glitches. Whether it be AI running in place, shooting at a wall, or police randomly ignoring that you stole a car, the game definitely has problems. Around chapter 10 (there are 15 chapters), i had a red waypoint saying i needed to go somewhere, but when i went there, there was nothing to do there and it never went away. I continuously had two waypoints from that point out, so i would have to make my own waypoint to get the correct objective. These glitches definitely hurt the game, and i wish that 2k Czech could have spent more time polishing it. 
   
Mafia II is a third person shooter. There are cover mechanics like in most third person shooters. There is a huge variety of guns, ranging from a classic tommy gun, magnum, shotgun, m16, revolver, automatic pistol, and quite a few more. My personal favorite was the Thompson 1928. I felt like a total badass slowly walking into the room with my gun ready to dominate. There is no blind fire in Mafia. This is a bit disappointing, especially on Hard difficulty. It only takes a few shots for you to be almost dead, so if you pop you head up and get shot while in cover, you might be in trouble. I found a better method is to stand up, not in cover, behind a wall. You're able to shoot enemies without being shot, unless they flank you. The AI is decent. Whenever you're aiming directly at them, they will not pop their head up. You must look away for a second or two, or reload or something for them to expose themselves. Overall the shooting feels a little above average, although this is definitely no Gears of War. 
 
I probably made the mistake of beating the game on Hard the first play through. It was fine until the last few chapters, there the difficulty spiked a lot. After lots and lots of deaths (and frustration), i finally beat the game after about 15 hours. Most people are saying it is a 10-12 hour game, which i assume is on a lower difficulty. The % complete i had after 15 hours was 80. That means there was still some stuff i hadn't done around town, like find wanted posters. One of the collectable items is vintage playboy magazines. This is a nice change from other games where you find stupid stuff you could care less about. There are 50 total, and spread throughout the chapters. So if you enjoy boobs, then this is a nice addition.  
 
How the missions are laid out may disappoint some, but i didn't mind it, because once you actually get to the mission part, it's lots of fun. Basically you wake up, get a phone call, go somewhere, go somewhere else and then finally start the "Main mission", go home and go to sleep. While this sounds very repetitive, the "Main mission" is mostly different every time. Near the end, you are usually doing lots and lots of shooting, the beginning kind of transitions you into that with easier to hard missions. While driving to your mission, you can get pulled over by police. They will pull you over for speeding or performing a hit and run. It's not much of a problem getting rid of them when you're at one or two star. You can usually pull over, let them get out of the car (1 star means you pay a ticket, 2 stars you can bribe) and then just drive away. At higher levels, they will know your license plate, so you will either need to change it a body shop, or get a new car. They also can remember what you're wearing, so you will need to change clothes at higher wanted levels as well. Between missions you can also: shop for clothes, buy new guns, rob stores, sell cars to the junk yard, go eat (which restores your health), or go on a random gun spree and kill as many as you want. It's interesting to see that a "Free roam" game is as linear as it is, but it's unique and doesn't happen often. I found it enjoyable because i like staying on a straight path, rather than having 100 side quests that i never will finish.
 
The atmosphere of the game is insane. To me, it's a whole lot better than GTA games as far as atmosphere. To see all kinds of classic cars, classic music, vintage babes, and an amazing looking city, is truly amazing. I hate when people compare this game to GTA as far as gunning and missions. The game is NOT Grand Theft Auto. I do not really like GTA that much, because there is way to much to do. Most people complained because there is only a main mission line, no side missions. While i would have enjoyed maybe a few very small things to do while free roaming, i definitely enjoyed not getting a phone call every 5 seconds telling me to do this, or do that. A game doesn't need many side things to do if it is 15 hours long. Most games average around 8 hours long, and it's nice to see a rather linear game to last as long as it did. 
 
Graphically, the game impressed me somewhat. The city of empire bay looks awesome, and the weather can range from snowing, raining, and sun shining. The game goes through the 40s and 50s, so obviously things change. At the beginning, most of the cars looks the same. Once you get in the 1950s, most of the cars looks newer. Small things like this are pretty awesome. There are some low resolution textures in areas, especially in some cut scenes. In game, for the most part, looks awesome. There are some jaggies as well. Despite the flaws, overall the game looks awesome. There are definitely better looking games; but for the scale of this game, it's pretty nice. Also as i said above, the graphics with addition to awesome music really make you feel like you're in the 40's and 50's. 
 
I bought the game the day it came out, and on the friday after release, i finally beat it. The story is probably the main thing that kept me coming back; i couldn't wait to find out what happened next. There were several plot twists that i did not see coming. Mafia II is an interesting mix. Amazing atmosphere + Amazing story + Slightly above average shooting + several glitches. It's something you don't see often, and make's me wonder what the game could have been like with a few more months in development. I felt satisfied with my purchase in the end; i think anyone who enjoys an awesome story will find enjoyment in this game. If you didn't like Grand Theft Auto for the "To much to do screw this game" aspect, and enjoy more linear games, then definitely check out Mafia II.