Mafia 2
there are no spoilers regarding the story in this.
Crime doesn't pay, and I never really understood that expression but in gaming crime does replay. We like shooting in games about World War 2 a lot and any war in general, but we like even more to be a criminal in a game. There are a lot of them based on this and they always come back with more, different setting or not but always in the same format. You’re a guy, you get into trouble and take orders from some people and you shoot your way up the ranks.
Mafia 2 is set between 1943 and 1951 in the fictional city of Empire Bay. They say it’s a mix between San Francisco and New York and some Chicago in it but...it has the Empire State Building in it, so take a wild guess. Vito is our main character and he was born in Sicily... so yes, it’s one of those stories. You’re poor, you need money and you get into trouble with your friend by stealing stuff.
But let’s leave the story for later and talk about how the game looks. So, it’s amazing in short. This Empire Bay spans over 10 square miles and every bit of it is worth taking a picture of. If you ever wondered how it felt like living in that time period, this is the best representation ever. The way it’s revealed is also a treat, the game starts in a heavy winter and everything is covered in white. Streets are still busy with people, cars and trucks making noise around you and snow gradually pilling up on parked cars. But then spring comes along and it hits you in the face. Nothing is the same, trees are green everywhere, short skirts, people laughing, brighter buildings and different cars with a lot more music on the radio. I literally couldn’t recognize the street where my home was. I never thought that the ‘50s could be so amazing but Mafia 2 gives you a hint of how people feel when they say something about “the old days”.
Restaurants, bars, gun shops, gas stations and clothing stores, all these are open for you to spend your money on. The whole city is available to you from the start and every car out there can be stolen. Robbing a gas station in the ’50 with a hat on your head and a magnum in your left hand pointed at the teller. Your getaway car is right outside, and it’s not just any car. The custom plates are for you alone since they spell “AWESOM”, the tires were picked by you as well and they’re all white on the sides. Car is painted red and the engine has been tuned for racing all thanks to the mechanic down the street that knows you. You can do all these things and it’s better than you can imagine...
But this is not the game, and this is not the focus and this is not the fun...it’s all about the story...
Everything listed up there was built just for the story featuring Vito in his quest for “more stuff”. It’s a blessing but also a curse because in every chapter of the game you have your hands tied. You can’t save on your own will because you need to reach a certain point in the story to do so. Time stands still no matter how much you travel around since the mission you have to complete is nailed in time no matter what. And there are no side-missions to do in between, just the main one and that’s it. You can spend a day looting and killing, but at the end of it you’ll need to drive Joe back home and complete the chapter in order to save. It’s annoying and pointless. You have a whole city at your feet but you’re not allowed to fully enjoy it because you have some anvil of a story tied around your ankles, following you around no matter what. Does the story deserve such a privilege? Does any story deserve an entire city to be built for its uses? No, and the story in Mafia 2 isn’t all that special to begin with.
In short, if you never saw a gangster movie in you life, you never heard of the Godfather movies and you think Scarface may be just some evil character in a Batman comic...then this game is for you. For everyone else, it’s just a mash of characters and elements from everything about the mafia ever written. You were born in Sicily and you have daddy issues, you fight in a war because you were caught by the police stealing jewelry, you have a fat-dumb friend around you, a mother that is old and calls you “bambino”, a sister that has a high-pitched voice married to a jackass that you have to beat up at some point... and all the rest you can think about.
The characters are all detailed and great but there’s one that is problematic: your friend Joe. Everybody in the game talks about him like it was a miracle he got his shoes on right, so you’ll be tempted to think he’s the numskull friend. He certainly acts that way with all his bad jokes and the way he talks. But no, in this game he’s the mastermind of the duo. Vito always acts the smartass by teasing Joe about how he can barely write a letter, but whenever it’s time for action, Vito always listens to his friend for a plan. And they’re not the disasters that you would expect from a guy like Joe. His idea of taking down a mob boss is quite brilliant but then why is he portrayed as an idiot? It’s not innovative character development, it’s just stupid and frustrating. I am already prepared for a game where I will take orders from everybody and every type of mob scoundrel out there...but Joe? He even cracks a joke about how I may be the retarded one (“jury’s still out on that one pal”). You really looking forward to this kind of stuff as a gamer?
The story isn’t bad, but as I said it’s nothing special to it. It’s good enough for a game of this type, but it certainly didn’t deserve the right to mess up my gameplay. After completing the game I tried playing back just for some regular fun and I came up with the conclusion that there’s no point to it. All the chapters are packed tight and you need to search hard for a free moment between jobs so that you can roam the city and rob at random. But you’ll soon realize that it’s no fun since after everything you did, the cars that you got and customized are all going to be lost if you don’t save the game. And that means you have to complete the next mission, so you’ll pass that short moment of respite that you were hunting for. I tried to be smart about it; I knew that my next mission would require me to gather a lot of money so I did that in advance. I continue with the mission and gather the huge reward at the end of it. Combined with all I got already it should be more than enough to have the target amount. But no, I’m still 700$ short...the exact sum I was short of the first time I played. The game completely ignores what you do beside the missions. And actually, money has no value in this game since as the story goes by you’ll wake up next morning with 10.000$ on you, but in the next few hours you loose it all. I know this is meant as a reference to the kind of life those people had...one day you’re rolling in cash and tomorrow you’ll be in your underwear. But it’s a game, and this thing kills all the joy in the gameplay. Trying to find a good chapter for fun is even harder considering that the cars ingame are added gradually as the chapters pass by.
But many of you are already shouting at this point “this is not GTA4”. This is the big debate of it all. And in fact, you’re right. It wasn’t made like GTA4 and it doesn’t feel like GTA4. Sure, it has the same game style with you stealing every car you see, shops where you can change clothes and buy weapons, police-o-meters that get gradually filled up, random gang members on the street that shoot at you if you point a gun at them, a map where you set waypoints on, a minimap in shape of a bubble that also shows your life-meter on the side, even the same damn taxi-fare scene angle... it has all those things but it def isn’t GTA4. Mafia 2 is different because it misses all the fun from that other game. And that’s all the difference you need.
You have an amazing looking city begging for you to explore but everything is governed by the laws of the story, controlling you like a puppet. Thus, every joy you can have in this game comes in a very small dosage. It was fun playing it the first time, but anything more than that and you really start hitting the walls. Why this? Because it will make you hungry for content, anything new so that you can explore some more. And then the DLC’s come in... how can I smile and enjoy such a thing?
For a new player of the genre: 9/10
For everybody else who lived to see a VCR in action: 6/10
-those bad reviews the game got on other sites weren't just racist...
