Mafia 2
Illusion Softworks put out the very first Mafia game back in 2002 for the Xbox, PS2 and PC. It was met with some good reviews, even beating out it’s predecessor, Mafia II. Illusion Softworks has since been bought by 2K and has went through a name change (now called 2K Czech), their first game as 2K Czech is a very good one.
Mafia II follows the character Vito Scaletta. A Italian gentlemen who, and like any good mafia story, gets into the wrong crowd, his dad is a drunk and they are damn poor. Vito begins to run around with Joe Barbaro, they rob a jewelry together, and Vito gets caught. Because he speaks Italian, he is sent over to Italy to help with the invasion instead of jail time. Keep in mind that half of the game takes place in the mid 40s during WWII. He gets injured, and is sent home where he meets up with his mom, sister and Joe. Joe, who at this point has solid connects, gets Vito out of military service for good. And from that point on, it’s a mob story, and a pretty good one at that. You’ll follow Vito as he goes from a errand boy to a member of the family. You’ll, beat up guys who try to rape you (no joke) endure one awesome BioShock reference and, well, shoot people. It’s a standard but pretty awesome story.
What helps it is the game’s fantastic voice work. I’ve played a lot of games lately that play better then Mafia II, but none of them can match it’s voice work. And you can have the best story ever, but if you lack quality voice work, it all comes out as flat and frankly, boring. The best performances comes from Vito and Joe, which makes sense because they are really the focus of the game. Rick Pasqualone as Vito and Robert Constanzo as Joe make the game flow, which is all I could ask for. They feed off each other well.
Visually the game is pretty impressive, though there is some pop in, screen tearing (a lot of it actually) and the animations on the characters KILL some of the most important moments on the game. They’ll act all mad, but the facial work is so bad it’s comes off as comical. But there are many points where it doesn’t focus much on their faces, which helps. But other then that, the character models look good, cars looks pretty awesome (and there’s a large variety to choose from). Be careful with the cars though, they do lose gas. In the speedometer there’s a little gauge that keeps track of your gas. But the game will also let you know when your need to get it so it’s really not that much of a burden.
Mafia II is a cover based third-person shooter. Though you don’t “have” to play it as cover based. The cover overall is alright, there were multiple times I hit X (which is how you take cover) and it snapped me to a spot I did not want to be, usually in the line of fire. So that wasn’t too great. Also while in cover, the AI is really good at getting you out of it. They’ll flak you from the sides or throw various grenades or molotov cocktail. The shooting isn’t terrible though, it gets the job done. The game gives you a good variety of weapons, I used the shotgun the most. It’s really powerful and actually has some really good range. The AI does a really good job at falling down and then getting back up. I died quite a few guys because of that, thinking they were dead I moved on. Learn from Zombieland kids. Double-tap. And driving is okay as well. You can upgrade your car and once you do it to the max, it handles much better. And they all handle differently, which is nice. If they all handled the same, I’d be very disappointed.
The overall story is about 8 or 9 hours long. Depending on how you play. There’s no side quests which, I think anyway, plays to the games advantage. Side quests to me get you away from the main story. A huge plot point could have just happened and instead of continuing that momentum, you kill it by going off and doing a side quest. Since the game has no side quests, the momentum is there through out and really makes the story that much better. Plus, and out of nowhere really, the game gets kind of hard near the end. I posted some mean things about those parts on twitter.
Mafia II is a pretty awesome game. The technical issues hold it back from being truly great though. It’s massive cliffhanger ending has gotten me really excited for the next Mafia game, if 2K decides to put one out. I’d gladly jump back into Empire Bay as Vito. The game is that damn awesome.
