Summary [8.5 out of 10]

Set in the 40’s and 50’s Mafia II tells a classic organized crime tale of greed, violence and revenge. It is an open world/sand box formula that is more concerned with the story than letting the player do a bunch of side missions or alternate activities. Thankfully the story is excellent and the world is fully realized in such a way that you feel like you are really living that story. The game play and controls are generally tight and while some missions can be frustrating for lack of enough checkpoints and uneven difficulty, you are still left with a title that is engaging, fun and compelling.

Introduction

A lot of Open World games can get a bit muddled. You spend so much time farting around doing incidental things that you lose the thread of the story, at least that is how things often are for me. I have a hard time staying on the main mission or lose track of what I am doing in the story because I am busy doing other things or because some mission is so frustrating that it brings my story progress to a halt (see: Every GTA game ever). With Mafia II that isn’t really an issue. The open world is there not so much for you to run around doing whatever you want and provide you with a smorgasbord of options but rather to provide a world that lives and breathes for the back drop of the story being told. The structure is linear and there isn’t THAT much to do when not involved in a mission but you do get the sense that this is a world that exists around you that goes on regardless of what you are doing. That goes a long way in driving the story home and making the experience feel authentic. If you go in looking for GTA or Red Dead Redemption then you are going to be disappointed but if you are looking for a classic Mafia story that you get to experience for yourself then this is absolutely great.

The Great

• Graphics: The visuals in this game are really stunning. There are a lot of moments where I would stop just to look around at the city or the people or some small detail that I was amazed was included. Whether you are in a cut scene or in the midst of gameplay the graphics are wonderful and avoid being overly flashy. The graphics are a compliment to the story and they only stand out because of how well done they are. Like everything in this game the purpose of the graphics are to enhance the story and make it feel more real which they accomplish by being damn near perfect. It is really nice to see a game that is doing things not to show off their talent but to provide a complete experience. I think that is why the graphics turned out so well, the focus wasn’t on showing off it was just to provide the best looking environments and characters possible in which to set the story. Several times over the course of my play through my girlfriend looked over and remarked how good the game looked. It is really that gorgeous.

• Immersion: As mentioned above, everything works toward a single goal, to make you feel like you are really in this world living this story. It is successful in most areas but this is the most important one and also one of the most successful. The attention to detail here is impeccable from snow building up on cars and subsequently melting to tires reacting to the weight of the vehicle and passengers. The sound effects are all right on from the proper sounds of brakes on different vehicle types to the sound of your tires against different surfaces. There is a moment when driving slow down cobble stone that I had to just stop and admire the quality. The gameplay itself bolsters this aspect as it forces you to interact with the world in ways other games wouldn’t. Instead of a fast travel system, you have to drive everywhere yourself, which may seem like it is padding the length a bit but given that story points play out during travel, this isn’t really the case. It gives the game weight and gravity and allows you to feel that much more a part of what is going on. Other moments do this even more as you have to do things that would often just be a cut scene. If your character has to move and load crates for a job, you move and load crates. If he needs to clean some toilets, you clean some toilets. You don’t do it for long and it never feels boring or like a chore, it is just enough to feel ‘hey I am really sharing this guy’s experience.’

• Story: The story here is not necessarily ground breaking in content but it breathes and lives through your actions. Spanning several years, it tells a relatively simple tale of the son of an Italian immigrant who becomes a war hero and upon returning to the states finds himself looking for something more to keep him away from the creeping death of mediocrity that claimed his father. Throughout the course of the story you will see him rise in power and money and lose everything important to him. The lifestyle he chooses is one that takes as often as it gives and his motivations aren’t the sort you usually see in games like this. He really isn’t a misunderstood hero or someone who is a good person doing bad things, he’s a guy that has decided that he would rather live a life of crime than do something mediocre and the story takes him through all the swings and roundabouts that entails. It isn’t so much an innovative story but it is told exceedingly well and even when characters do bad things or the story takes a nasty turn you are still invested and engaged.

• Voice Acting: The best story in the world could be delivered in the best environment with the most gorgeous graphics and then be completely undermined by poor quality voice acting. If this aspect had been ignored, the cliched aspects of the story would have distorted to parody and silliness. As it is, the quality of the acting gives it much more weight and gravitas and really completes the overall package. Everyone in this game turns in a flawless performance and makes it feel like you are experiencing a virtual Coppola or Scorsese film as opposed to something along the lines of  Corky Romano. It really grounds and bolsters the story and is the icing on an already delicious cake.

• Combat: Regardless of whether it is shooting or fist fighting, the combat here is very tight and well executed. The targeting system is nice but it doesn’t undercut the challenge with snap targeting or even much of an auto-aim. If you line up your shot before you press the left shoulder to aim, the reticule will pop up on your target but you have to do all the heavy lifting yourself. That being said, anyone familiar with third person shooters will have little problem scoring headshots. The cover system works very well and you have to pay attention to what sort of cover you choose. If it is a breakable piece of cover then you have to worry about it deteriorating over time as thugs take shots at you. You have to be aware of your surroundings as enemies will flank and maneuver but the combat is very strategy friendly and responds well to different approaches. Combat in games like this can be a weak link in the chain but here it is a real strong point which is nice because you spend a huge amount of time gun fighting. The hand to hand combat is equally deep and strategic. With only three buttons to work with and a basic boxing model it would easy for this to feel shallow but it is executed very well and you have to approach fights in different ways if you hope to succeed. The countering system is very good but you can’t rely on it exclusively as in other games. It isn’t a crutch but rather a necessary tool for success.

• Environments: I touched upon this in the graphics section but the environments in Mafia II are so good they need their own bullet point. Both interiors and exteriors are highly detailed and authentic looking. Even places you only visit incidentally are fully realized and intricate. Even in traffic tunnels the fans are fully detailed. Every part of the city is rendered in full detail and pretty much everything is able to be interacted with on some level.

The Good

• Missions: The variety in missions, especially early on, is surprising as you go from military combat missions, to driving missions, to hits, robberies, intimidation…there is a lot to do. The mission structure generally follows you waking up to a phone call and ends with you going home and back to bed but even this is played with over the course of the game. You will find yourself doing a lot of different things in a lot of different ways. All of them will eventually include driving and shooting but these moments are delivered in a fairly unique way from mission to mission. The need for different tactics and approaches keeps missions fresh and the story points sprinkled liberally through out keep you engaged.

• Controls/UI: The controls are generally intuitive and easy to execute thanks to good button mapping and well thought out implementation of those buttons. Pressing the left shoulder button will allow your character not only to run but also to interact with the environment as far as climbing and jumping is concerned. This allows you do what you need to do at all times without having to worry about trying to get to places that you aren’t supposed to or that will lead to wasted time. Further the cover mechanic is nice and it is easy to slide into or stick to cover without fumbling and accidentally getting yourself killed. Driving controls are fairly standard for driving games and while I sometimes had issues with running into things that was less the fault of the game’s controls and more an issue of me not being very good at it. As the game progressed I got much better at it and judicious use of the speed limiter helped out as well. In addition to the controls the user interface is equally intuitive and in game displays are clear and easy to read.

• Music: Throughout my play through my girlfriend kept remarking how much she enjoyed the soundtrack and I have to agree. A collection of classics from the era, the songs on the radio really ground the player to that time period and go the extra mile in terms of player immersion.

• Game Play: As I mentioned with the missions, the gameplay is generally varied and unique offering a variety of experiences and ways to go about those experiences. There are a lot of things to pay attention to here and 2K Czech manages to deliver gameplay that makes all of those things fun. Anytime you can have toilet cleaning mechanics and mechanics for selling stolen cartons of cigarettes out of the back of a truck and they are fun to do you know you have good game design on your hands.

• Characters: While many of characters are iconic, if not a little cliched, they are well delivered and fully fleshed out. Their motivations and actions are their own and while some of the characters are genre templates the things that they do are often surprising. If you have watched a lot of organized crime media you will think that you see story points coming but more often than not you will be surprised by what they do and why. Main character Vito is interesting if only because he doesn’t fit into the typical game archetypes and is who he is apologetically. The camaraderie between Vito and childhood friend Joe feels genuine as the two characters are fleshed out and their relationship isn’t always peaches and cream. The ups and downs they experience as they take their journey through crime together feel very genuine and indicative of two people who have known each other for their whole lives.

• Playboys: There are 50 vintage Playboy magazines spread throughout the game with fully viewable centerfolds. This point is self explanatory unless you don’t understand why guys like boobies.

The Bad

• Too Few Check Points: Some of the combat missions and driving missions, especially late in the game, suffer from too few restart checkpoints. Given the often challenging difficulty it can be a drag to shoot your way through a level only to round a corner and take a single shottie blast to the chest while your character is busy reloading and then have to start the entire thing over again. With the length of most of these levels it gets really irritating to have to start all the way at the beginning.

• Frustrating Driving Missions: While I eventually got pretty good at the driving, some of the driving missions are kind of ridiculous. The timed missions and chases can be very unforgiving and a little extra leniency would have been nice. You get better with repetition but doing the same mission over and over because you have no margin for error can be very irritating.

• Inconsistent Difficulty: Coupled with the lack of enough check points and frustrating driving, some of the difficulty seems to ramp up all of sudden and the proceedings can be next to impossible. I thought I had hit a wall in one particular section where you have to escape two cars full of machine gunners and I didn’t even really have time for tactics to try to survive. After 10 retries or so I finally escaped and I am not certain what I did differently that time. There are a few of these moments and they are frustrating to say the least.

• Limited Replay: Once you finish the game, which should take between about 10 to 15 hours (my playthrough took 13), there is very little else to do. You have the playboys to collect and wanted posters scattered around to collect but beyond that unless you really like driving around and maybe robbing stores, there isn’t much left to do. Because the game is so focused on story there isn’t much room for anything else once it is over and the only reason to replay would be to go through the story again or maybe try it on a higher difficulty. Aside from personal pride and satisfaction there really isn’t much point to doing this.

• Glitches: The game isn’t a buggy mess and the glitches are a lot fewer in number and frequency than some other games but I got a freezing glitch which required system restart and several bugs when attempting stealth kills that ultimately lead to a level restart. They aren’t really bad but they are there and a bit annoying.

Conclusion [8.5 out of 10]

Overall Mafia II is a great and rewarding gameplay experience. If you are into gangster movies or interested in the mafia this is a must play. It doesn’t offer the same freedom as a lot of other open world games but given the service to the excellent story this is not really a bad thing depending on what you want to play. The graphics, characters, story, controls, combat, and the world at large are very polished if some other aspects of the game need a little tuning up. Despite its few flaws Mafia II is a very rewarding and satisfying experience.

Riyad’s Take on Mafia II

Brilliant – 9 out of 10

I played through Mafia II on Easy, which I think addressed some of the harder try/retry/retry/retry issues Patrick had later in the game. There were a few missions at the end, that even on easy, I had to redo about 4 times to pass them, but the reward of further cutscenes and story were well worth it.

If you appreciate a game with a good story, Mafia II is absolutely excellent. If you want another GTA IV, you can’t have it. Producing games *that* in depth with a city that complex and filled out with side missions costs more money than god, BUT, if you can look past the lack of side missions and want to enjoy an awesome 10-12 hrs story told through cast-perfect voice acting, beautiful sandbox world and spit and shine all over the game to make you appreciate what you are doing, than Mafia II (just like the original) is a must-buy.

I want to personally thank 2K Czech for continuing the Mafia franchise with the untouchable fidelity it has done.