I pay the cab driver, pick up my suitcase, and step outside. The background’s filled with the notes from Dean Martin’s rendition of “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!“, and as I walk away from the cab the sounds of the city drive away the memories from the war, back in Sicily. It’s February 8, 1945, Empire Bay, and the war is drawing to a close. Welcome to Mafia II.
Setting
Mafia II is not what most people think it is. For some reason, the game’s creators seem hell-bent on convincing you it’s an open-world sandbox game, Ã la (the excellent) Assassin’s Creed II or (the even better) Saints Row 2, with boatloads of stuff to do and an entire city to explore.
While there is indeed a city to explore, there’s nothing to do other than the story missions, making this game an entirely linear experience. And, you know what, there’s nothing wrong with that. Linear games can be incredibly awesome, especially if they’re as good as Mafia 2.
Mafia 2 is all about the story, the atmosphere, the lovingly crafted America of the ’40s and ’50s, the characters you’ll meet, the music you’ll hear, the cars you’ll drive, the advertisements you’ll enjoy, the radio broadcasts you’ll listen to, detailing the Allied progress in the war. It’s a tired old cliché, but this game is not so much about the destination – it’s about the journey getting there.
Let me paint you a few pictures.
One of the earlier missions has you stealing gas stamps from a government office. It’s war time in America, so gas is rationed, and the stamps are worth their weight in gold. You sneak through the building, avoiding the guards. You can hear them talk to each other, about how one of them has bought a TV.
A TV, the other guard responds, surprised. Why would you buy one of those things? It’s just a fad! There’s more to it than that, the guard who bought the TV claims. He even has an idea – what if you could actually control the little guy on the screen? Make him walk around, maybe even shoot things? You’ll need some sort of box, of course, and something with buttons on it to make the little guy do things. You’re nuts, the other guard sighs.
Then there’s this guy you talk to somewhere during the game, who is aspiring to become a voice actor. You know, for the radio – because radio is the future!
This game is so packed with atmosphere it’s nearly bursting at the seams. Such attention to detail, such beautiful graphics, and such incredible scenery – it’s hard not to just start your car and take a long drive through the city, enjoying the music.
The Story
Mafia 2’s story is a work of art, a lesson in storytelling other game makers should listen to. It doesn’t glorify the mobster lifestyle like part one did – it’s darker and more depressing, showing the less-than-pleasant side of getting involved with the mafia. You lose contact with your family, you live in a constant state of fear, the politics at the top of the mafia and its families, being a pawn in something greater than yourself – it’s all there.
I don’t want to say a whole lot more about the story, because I don’t want to spoil it for you. I can explain, however, why Vito, the game’s protagonist, is so much more lovable than, say, the schizophrenic Niko Bellic from that dreadful GTA4, even though they appear to be alike at first glance.
If anyone still remembers my review of GTA4, you’ll recall I found the game rather lacking on just about every front. My biggest complaint, however, was the main character. Niko whined for hours on end about how he regretted the things he did back in the war in Yugoslavia, how he just wanted to do it all over again.
While at the same time killing about 45 people during every single mission.
Niko just didn’t make any sense, he wasn’t believable, wasn’t real, he was clearly “created”. He was a schizophrenic hand puppet who shifted between being a hippie whining about the preciousness of life and a murdering psychopath with a total disregard for morality every other minute.
Vito, on the other hand, is different. Unlike Niko, he doesn’t whine about his past in the war or the things that he’s done, while at the same time murdering ten policemen with a shotgun.
Vito also breaks the rules, he also does things that he has moral issues with. Trafficking drugs is one of those – he despises it, he doesn’t want to do it, it’s beneath him and the mafia. However, at some point during the game, Vito loses all he has worked for, leaving him penniless – with nothing but the boxers and shirt he was wearing in bed. It is at this point that he has no choice but to resort to jobs that he normally wouldn’t do. You’ll see the conflict in his eyes.
The writers behind Mafia 2 are simply better at their job than the guys who came up with Niko; Vito makes sense, Niko doesn’t. In most of these types of games, the main character feels like a puppet on a string, doing random things that don’t make any sense, things that do not logically follow from the story or the character. In Mafia 2, however, Vito’s choices are clearly the products of circumstance. They are logical consequences from what’s happening to him.
That is what proper storytelling and character building is all about.
The Game
We’re a whole load of words into this review, and I still haven’t said anything about the actual game part of this video game. There’s a reason for that; as a game, Mafia 2 has its deficiencies. Action sequences are short and too rare, the stealth sequences are limited in variety and dead-easy, and the fist fighting gameplay, while interesting, is simple and repetitive. Driving around town is fun though, and it better be – you’ll spend more time driving around than shooting people in the face.
As for the shooting specifically, it’s perfectly adequate, but nothing special. The game doesn’t really strike a proper balance between arcade and realism, though. On the one hand, you’ll never run out of bullets since enemies drop them like crazy; on the other hand, most guns will kill you with only a few shots. I would’ve been nice if bullets were a little harder to come by, so that you’d have to be more careful.
In all honesty, Mafia 2 would’ve been better off with a structure more similar to Alan Wake’s. Alan Wake also had the town of Bright Falls to explore, but unlike Mafia 2, only the parts of town that made sense to be accessible during that part of the game were actually accessible. I know open-world is the Chemical X of today’s gaming industry, but Alan Wake’s structure would have been a much better fit for Mafia 2’s strictly linear storyline.
Conclusion
Whether you’ll like Mafia 2 or not will mostly depend on one thing: your affinity for the time period. I absolutely love the style and class of the ’40s and ’50s in America, so I felt right at home. If you’re like me, you’ll enjoy the attention to detail and the love with which the time period is recreated on your screen.
If you’re just looking for a good action game or an open-world game, you can do a lot better than Mafia 2. This is a game that is made or broken by your love for its setting, and if that doesn’t float your boat in any particular way, Mafia 2 will only disappoint you by being generic.
I remember how I loved the first instalment of the series. I played it to death and bought multiple copies to pass out to friends (when I encountered the game in a bargain bin somewhere).
Sadly, I don’t have much time for gaming anymore… (work, wife, kids, you know), ’cause I’m aching to dive into Mafia II.
Personally I liked the first installment better, because
– Mafia 2 is short, I beat it in around 10 hours .. and a lot of those 10 hours is driving and cutscenes
– In Mafia 1 you only have the arrow for navigation and that makes you remember all the corners etc much better than in the second game. In Mafia 1 you know the city in detail when you finished it. In Mafia 2 you don’t.
– the missions in Mafia 1 were more epic for the time and the game was far more ahead of the game than Mafia 2 is now.
Bottom line:
Mafia 1 is like The Godfather
and
Mafia 2 is like Carlitos Way
Both very good movies, but The Godfather is just the best and hard to beat.
So get rid of the wife then.
I personally like the gaming news also. It’s a nice diversion from other more technical stuff.
Stamps worth their weight in gold? I know what you are trying to say, but….
Remember, gold was only $35 an ounce back then. And paper is pretty light… ;^)
I’m about halfway in the game myself and so far I love it. Yes, it’s very linear despite being (mostly) set in a big town where you can go wherever you want. It’s even divided into chapters where each mission is a new chapter. I don’t think that is a problem though, it was obviously a design decision.
It has gotten a few quite bad ratings (from IGN for example) because of this but after reading the reviews it’s obvious that the only reason for the bad rating is that they were expecting something else, an open-ended game.
I’m fine with the linearity and if you are too you’ll probably love the game, as do I.
Playing it right now.
Minireview:
– It seems to be pretty much the same game as Mafia 1 (this is good) – though perhaps a bit easier (to cater to modern taste)?
– It has big framerate problems on a PC. 2ghz core2 duo seems to be the MINIMUM this time. Recommended setup is core 2 quad.
In a way I’m happy about this, I have so far found it difficult to rationalize upgrading my pc.
🙂 Heh!
Maybe I missed it, but I didn’t catch what platforms are supported. Is this an XBox game, PS3, Wii, Windows PC, or other platform game?
Since you are already on the internet, it’s pretty easy to google it yourself ;-).
I meant it would be a nice thing to mention in the review.
As it turns out, Mafia 2 is for the PS3, Xbox 360 and Windows PCs.
I empathized with just about every character that wanted to kill him.
Good review though, I’ll probably pick it up later in the year.
I played the original Mafia and I thought it was hilarious how you were often forced to drive old timey cars around at 15 mph. It’s the complete opposite of your typical video game where speeding around with rocket boosters is standard fare.
they ruined Bioshock for me (i would probably fall in love with it if the setting was similar to System Shock though).
Having said that i have to admit I liked Mafia II a lot. I can appreciate the wonderful attention to detail in just about every element of this game – the characters, cars, music, lighting, interior design and the city. Nothing feels generic (like in Just Cause or similar sandbox games, even Fallout 3) and at times i felt like i’m driving/walking through a painting rather than a video game environment. I often found myself just playing with the camera and admiring the view – not a thing I do often now.
I’ve been playing computer/video games for more than half of my life (i’m 26) and these days most of them feel like they came of an assembly line. Mafia II is not one of those and even if the ride is short i was having fun every second of it. 9/10 in my book.
I fail to understand How bioshock was ruined by the very time period that informed the central premise and setting of the game. If you wanted to play system shock then you should play system shock.
I find it faintly amusing that you’re complaining about assembly line production when what you wanted was a rehash of system shock.
There’s a difference between “ruined” and “ruined it for me”
I just don’t care much for the visual style and 50s “technology” just doesn’t quite do it for me in sci-fi games. I’m not saying BS was a bad game because of it, it’s just a matter of preference.
In many ways one may consider bioshock to be a “rehash of system shock”. Set underwater and 150 years earlier. No way around the fact that they share a lot of gameplay and (more importantly) story elements, generally speaking of course.
I partially agree with the review, especially when you consider the amount of detail poured into the game, the references to other forms of entertainment or art (architecture in primis). At the same time, being a great fan of the first game, I sadly have to say that the sequel is almost a complete trainwreck.
There are two (huge) main problems in the game: story and gameplay.
Story is not really a work of art, it’s good, but filled in with cliches, underdeveloped and unbalanced. The first was a lot simpler, and yet more refined, And it’s sadly not only that, the first game was directed by Daniel Vavra (who also wrote the story) while this one is not, and it shows. Direction is sketchy and repetitive, and while you play along the less than 10 hours of gameplay, your screen will turn black every 5 minutes, and the story will be interrupted by countless of “2 hours later…” “6 hours later…” “two days later…” “4 years later…” imagine if you had a movie in which they interrupt all the action to tell you how much time has passed. The first game had a lot more clever direction, and there was a lot less disconnection between the storytelling and teh actual gameplay. Which brings me to the second issue: gameplay. Lackluster at its best. Again, not only the first game was way better than the sequel, but Mafia II doesn’t really stand out among modern games. You do two things in game: drive and shoot. You can sneak a bit as well, but in the end the missions in which you’ll do are so few, that it doesn’t really count. Driving is generally fun, and the environment is really great, but it’s not enough to fill in half of the gameplay. The fighting as well is a mixed bag. Guns are great and the destructible environments are awesome, but they’re too seldom apart, there are no melee weapons and the hand combat is one of the lamest and most boring things ever seen. But the worst part is how all this is mixed together. For some obscure reason, it was decided at some point during the production process that, in order to make the game more fast-paced, most of the side missions were cut, and instead of having you phisically doing something, it was better to have a cutscene. Early alphas of the game show the missing gameplay, and you actually wonder the reason of the removal since the result of it is a very disconnected experience. Now whenever you refuel, you enter a building, or do something that the devs decided it was out of place, the screen goes black. Which means that other than driving and shooting, most of the times you’re watching cutscenes. The last big issue is the length of the game. You can beat the thing on the hardest setting (difficulty hard + driving simulation) in 10 hours or even a bit less, and with no free roaming when you finish it there’s basically no replay value. If you think of all the details and love put into the environment, the cars, and the character models, you can’t really say it’s put to good use. Sure, there’s a lot of DLCs planned, one already released as an exclusive for PS3 and another due tomorrow, but these are not free and you just wonder why 2k released a half finished and rushed game for full price.
You’re wrong.
http://www.danielvavra.com/eng/games/mafia-ii
I’m right.
From Daniel Vavra profile on LinkedIN:
He did write Mafia II, but left the company (Illusion Softworks) when it was acquired by 2k Games in early 2008. He DID NOT direct Mafia II (he ‘only’ wrote the original script), and he did not write the dialogues (Jack Scalici from 2K Games did). From 2008 till the release date Mafia II was completely overhauled, the core game mechanics completely changed (in Daniel’s original design it was almost an open world game with 3 different endings, lots of activities and side missions) and most of the people (not me, I already knew what to expect) are actually pretty much pissed off by that. In the end, it’s right to say that the game released has very little resemblance to the one conceived by Daniel and therefore… You’re wrong. ahah:D
you’re well informed, sir :]
I am Italian and I can’t see myself playing this game, knowing what I know about the real mafia.
Throughout the last 60 years the organized crime has spread and contaminated the whole country, since the americans first cut a deal with the families to control the territory and to exterminate different ideologies. This approach was followed by the italian state too, so that, nowadays, all top levels of the government are in one way or another entangled with the mafia.
The mafia has gotten different, more subtle, more global, more legal and political. Also much bigger, even if it does not seem so.
I hope that kids in my country are not alienated by games about such a subject and spend time considering the real phenomenon.
I fully understand where you’re coming from, but the important message in this game is that the mafia isn’t funny at all. The picture painted in the game is one of loss, death, prison – there’s a sequence where you’re actually asked to clean toilets with a small brush.
Again – I understand you, but I do want to note that Mafia 2 does NOT glorify the mob. Quite the opposite.