Meh'fia 2
Mafia 2 was one of the most awaited games of this year. It was announced somewhere around 2008 and release date was pushed from summer 2009 to 2010. Well, since it's a lot of time to work on the game you might expect that developer would fix and add new stuff to the mechanics of the game, then it turns out that Mafia II is suffering the same thing the Driver franchise have experienced for the last 2-3 games.
Let's start with what's good about this particular game. First of all, the game looks really nice. Characters, the city and visual effects look really good. Story is full of interesting characters and much unexpected moments, which you won't forget soon. Voice actors have done some brilliant work. You will know better the characters as the story progresses with some unforgettable moments.
Another positive thing that makes this open-world game unique is the progress. You'll witness Vito's first days in Empire City as a child, he's rough childhood as a crook with his best friend, Joe. War in Sicily, 40's and 50's in Empire City. You'll also witness some years Vito spent in jail and how he survived among thieves and murders.
Fighting system is very simple but yet fair. Fighting mission can be easy and yet hard, you will notice big difference in between. Stealth missions are made very well but there are just a few missions where you'll have to "sneak in".
It sounds like it's a perfect game, but unfortunately most of the facts that mentioned above are applied to the story-mode. As for the open world there is nothing else to do, and when I say nothing I mean "NOTHING!!!". Sure you can upgrade your vehicle, buy new outfit and weapons, but that's all seems so unnecessary. Most of the clothes are the same, just with different colors. You can feel the difference between the cars of 50's and 40's, but that will be all. Yes, there are some sport cars that are faster, but they are just faster... as for the rest, it all feels the same.
Biggest frustration for me is the shooting mechanics in the game. It's really annoying when the enemies are sitting in one corner and look out once in 5 minutes, and when the shoot much possible that you'll die right away. So it's basically cover'n'shoot, that's all, most of the time I felt like I'm shooting into random object not seeing the enemies, because all they do is hide. Another frustrating fact is the checkpoints, many times if you fail the mission you'll have to go through the same dialog and short scenes, which become more annoying.
By the time I finished more than half of the storyline I was tired, tired of the visual look, missions and the characters. All that I wanted is to see how the ballad of Vito Scaletta ends, and ending is good but yet too short. I bought the special edition which included the Betrayal of Jimmy and some DLC(clothes and cars), but by the time I finished the main story I couldn't care less about this game, so I returned the game to the local store without even trying the "Betrayal Of Jimmy".
Overall, it's a really disappointing game(for me at least). It does not help to have just a good storyline and visual look, besides starring at a screen I want to play game with solid gameplay! Bad controls, horrible physics and frustrating shooting mechanics with stupid "ninja"-enemies, that's all what left after finishing the game in my mind. Maybe I was expecting to much from Mafia2???
