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    Mafia II

    Game » consists of 20 releases. Released Aug 24, 2010

    Play as Vito Scaletta and rise up through the ranks of the criminal underworld of Empire Bay in Mafia II, the sequel to the 2002 sandbox-style hit.

    av_gamer's Joe's Adventures (PC) review

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    • av_gamer has written a total of 14 reviews. The last one was for Mass Effect 3
    • This review received 1 comments

    Time for Joe's side of the Story

     

    Joe's Adventure is the second DLC released for Mafia 2. As the title suggest, the game focuses on the main protagonist animated best friend, Joe Barbaro. The point of this add-on is to explore all the things Joe was doing during the game's main storyline.  It's actually well done, as you get to see many scenes that help advance the overall experience of the story. 
     
    Unfortunately there is one major flaw that almost ruins the whole experience. 2K Games decided to add a time limit to every mission Joe does. This was done so you can go online and compare scores with other players. This feature was poorly done, as you soon find out almost all the missions don't give you enough time to complete the task given to you. One example is a mission where you have to rescue a friend who was

    Vito at Joe's flat (Playboy)
    Vito at Joe's flat (Playboy)

    badly beaten up, then drag his unconscious body back your car, then take him to a private doctor. You can imagine how tedious this can be. Also add the fact the game itself wasn't even set up for rushing through missions. For one you have to obey traffic laws or you'll attract the police, which only compliant things. The dated handling of the old fashion cars also make it hard to steer without crashing into other vehicles or civilians while rushing, which again can alert the police.  
     
    This breaks what could have been a fun little package. Especially since the DLC itself runs at a good length. There's a good 4-6 hours of gameplay filled with cut-scenes that tie important parts of the story together really well. These story based missions are very well done and have epic shootouts in areas never explored in the original game. The game is setup in GTA fashion. Meaning instead of jumping to one chapter after another, like in the main game,  you drive to icons marked on the map then start a mission.  The basic missions however, are simple task you've seen and done in plenty of other open world games. Having a time limit on these basic missions ultimately destroy this DLC. I don't know what the people at 2K Games were thinking, but if they decide to make another DLC, they seriously need to drop the time limit feature. 
     
    Side Note: Fortunately for me, I was able to find a trainer online which allowed me to freeze the timer on all the missions. This made the game much more enjoyable. People with the console versions however are stuck with it.

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