Mafia II

Hey guys and gals, are you tired of the seemingly overabundance of gang and mafia-themed products being released in recent years? No? Yes? Well, either way, Mafia II is out! Jump into the shoes of Vito Scaletta, a young man who arrives in Empire Bay as a little boy from Sicily with his family and quickly becomes involved in the gangster lifestyle, attempting to ascend the wiseguy ladder to hopefully one day be "somebody".

Pros:

• Engaging story with many memorable characters.
• The voice acting is top-notch. There was a part where everyone's talking around the table and Joe (the big dude who sounds a lot like Emeril Lagasse) smokes a cigarette while he's talking. It's really subtle but when he talks it actually sounds like he's talking while smoking, and other little things like this really drew me into the atmosphere and characters.
• The whole production values of the cutscenes are amazing! From the music to the shots to the subtle way peoples' eyes move, it gives you the impression you're watching a gangster film.
• The art style and world of Empire Bay is artistically impressive.
• Some clever gameplay moments.
• Although mainly anachronistic, the period music and playboy collectables are a nice touch.

Cons:

• Game's pacing gets very frustrating, very fast. There are many instances where you'll drive across the city to pick someone up, drive basically back to where you came from to have a two minute conversion, drive across the city again to shoot stuff, drive your partner back to their house, then drive back across town once again to your house to sleep. Did I mention you drive a lot?
• While the story and characters are intriguing, both are pretty by-the-numbers that don't offer much originality.
• Auto-aiming swings between nonexistent and completely unhelpful.
• Besides the main story and wanted posters, which I completely gave up on after two of the 159, the sandbox world offers nothing to do. It's odd because if you look at the legend on the game map, there's an orange circle that represents "jobs", yet there are absolutely no jobs like side missions that appear at any point in the game. It raises the question as to whether the developers planned on having other activities to do and just didn't fulfill that commitment.
• After the first mission or two, the gameplay becomes rather tiresome and doesn't offer much variety. Also, some of the guns feel incredibly underpowered. I'm looking at you, shotgun.
• The A.I. can be pretty stupid, both with your partner and the enemies.
• Technical problems become more apparent the longer I played. At points the game would even seize up for a few seconds and there was a full crash. Also, there's this weird, meshy, filter thingy that appears on characters from time to time that I think has to do with the shadows, but it's very obvious and it took me out of the experience.

At first glance, Mafia II looks and presents itself like a slick, stylish gangster experience with a gripping narrative and explosive gameplay; but once you actually start playing, it becomes clear that it's pretty shallow in most of its key elements. All of the gameplay elements get boring fast, and it's one of those games where its problems get more and more frustrating the longer you play. With all the time 2K Czech's been spending on this game, it's like they fell back on old mechanics and story elements instead of striving for something original.