Mafia II: Improvement in every single way

[Vympel]

This is a great game:-

* The shooting mechanics, one of the highlights of the original 2002 PC release for me (consider the times), are great, and the cover system is handy and well done, with a feature I haven't seen before (the ability to move around pieces of cover without breaking cover). Its also not too easy on normal difficulty - whilst there is health generation if you show your face for too long you get killed pretty quickly, and health regeneration doesn't take you back to full health;

* The graphics are beautiful and the game runs like a dream on near-max settings on my 4-year old DX9 machine. The only slowdown factor is PhysX, which turned my framerate into a slideshow in the first Chapter the moment bullets started wrecking shit, so I had to turn it off;

* The city is extremely detailed and feels real;

* Nice new things in the story Spoiler

You spend an entire chapter in jail, pretty much an excuse to have lots of fist fights, but its nice to see they went a believable route and had your character thrown in the slammer

* The 1940s/ 1950s split is extremely well done;

* Missions can be pretty original; and

* A little dose of black comedy.

Cons:-

* Just like the first game, you can't drive like a fucking lunatic as in GTA and expect to make any progress. Crashes fuck up your car and injure you. This isn't so much the con, but its more that the police presence is still excessive. Luckily they won't shoot you for running a red light anymore - they'll either want to fine you, arrest you, or shoot you on sight, depending on what you do.

* You do have to do a lot of driving, so if you're not into it, be warned.

[Stark]

Reviews saying it's not sandboxy are totally correct; it's a nearly totally linear, quite short game. It's a shame the shooting is so good (ie, Gears) when you spend half the game not doing any.

I like driving; I don't like every single mission being 5+ minutes of utterly boring speed-limited driving. I don't want a job as a courier, and I don't want a PRETEND job as a courier either.

While the story is good (if totally unoriginal) it seems like a waste of the huge world to have so little to do in it.

In short everything Vympel says is true - it's also short, boring, and quite empty. Rental only.

[Sarevok]

Since Mafia 2 is not a sandbox can you actually clear a street of badguys and it stays empty rather than spawning new ones ?

[Vympel]

Since Mafia 2 is not a sandbox can you actually clear a street of badguys and it stays empty rather than spawning new ones ?

There's not really 'streets' of bad guys. The bad guys are the ones in the Chapter you're playing at the moment, and thats it. Though I have some shootouts with greasers for no apparent reason ...

[IRG CommandoJoe]

It might not be a free-style sandbox game, but it's awesome to just screw around at the start of a mission (because the save system only saves at the very end of a long-ass mission) and go 'sploring, cop-shooting, store-robbing, car-crushing, or just cruising around stealing cars and listening to the radio.

I love the game because:

A. I'm an Italian-American myself.
B. I love old-school cars, music, and clothes. There's over 100 tracks of 1940s-1950s music.
C. The graphics are beautiful with an awesome cover system and destructible cover/environments.
D. The car driving is extremely realistic, with a Normal mode and Simulation mode. You can even open the hood and the trunk and buy gas eventually (though I've never actually run low).
E. Playboy magazines!
F. A World War II mission!

When you can steal a 1950s taxi and ram it into an upscale clothing store, shoot up the bodyguard with a Tommy gun, steal all the designer clothes and cash, take a Playboy magazine, drive straight out the other side of the building, and then proceed to evade the cops all the while listening to "Long Tall Sally" on the radio, you've experienced the awesomeness that is Mafia 2.

[PeZook]

I'd try it out, but the mention of a save system that "only makes a save at the end of a long-ass mission" is really off-putting. Could you elaborate?

[IRG CommandoJoe]

To clarify, let's start by saying I can only speak for the XBox 360 version.

This is a linear game with chapters and every day pretty much requiring you to do missions. You can't manually save your game for some reason. Every day you wake up and usually get a phone call to start the mission. After that, you put on your clothes, go outside, and have a waypoint to go to.

You can do whatever you want before going to the waypoint. But if you die before reaching it, nothing you did (aside from collect a Playboy magazine or something) will save. You'll lose any clothes, money, guns, or cars you've obtained unless you get to the waypoint.

This is also true after completing a mission. You'll have a waypoint simply to go home. If you complete a really long mission, steal a bunch of stuff afterwards, and then die before going home, you'll have to start from the last checkpoint all over again, whenever that was. So it's always best to screw around like that BEFORE the mission, never AFTER. I really wish they had a manual save system, but alas, none yet exists.

In any case, it's an awesome game to get especially if you like any of the letter points that I like. Especially since now they're releasing 30 new missions to play on Sept. 7 in "Jimmy's Vendetta".

[Edward Yee]

Actually had TWO guys try to trade it in, one after the other, at my store, due to it being "so short."

[Vympel]

It is pretty damn short, but the DLC should improve things considerably as long as the price isn't unreasonable.

The in-mission saves are quite reasonable - the time between checkpoints really isn't long. I never found a time when I did all sorts of difficult shit and then had to start from the beginning.

[PeZook]

I'm just asking because I'm playing through Mass Effect again, and get increasingly frustrated by some of the setpieces which are really, really difficult yet preceded by a long cutscene you have to watch every single time you die.

Which makes me remember all the other games with terrible checkpoint placement. And the wheel of hate spins anew

[Vympel]

Mafia II is well designed that way - if there's a cutscene before gameplay starts at any given checkpoint, you just tap Esc. and it'll ask you if you want to skip it. Easy as pie. Never makes you watch it.

[Edward Yee]

That alone makes it better than any Ubisoft AAA title in that respect; for some reason it seems as if Ubisoft goes out of their way to force you to endure their cutscenes.

[Terralthra]

I'm really enjoying it, but I work at 2K Games, so you'd expect me to say that.

[Bounty]

I love this game. The first Mafia never worked for me but this does indeed improve on it in every respect. I especially like all the tiny details that bring the world alive, which is also what I liked about GTA IV; there's adverts, graffiti, all sorts of different neighbourhoods with different sorts of people, it really feels like you're running around in a good gangster flick.

I've just been going through the
Spoiler

prison chapters

which were a real surprise because I was sure the game would do the standard fast-forward and instead you get every detail. Very nice.

It's also cool how you can decode the cars' names, and that they're very period-accurate. "Potomac Indian"

[Tolya]

The old Mafia was brilliant, probably one of the best games ever (for me).

Mafia 2 improves technically on the old content, but somehow falls short. The narration isn't as good in Mafia 1, the character not nearly as interesting and the story not as dynamic.

It not being sandboxy is quite a refreshment. Also, the amount of driving in Mafia 1 was much bigger than in Mafia 2, but its still annoying.

Shooting and fighting is very well done and the addition of a cover system is very welcome.

Technically, they got it right. But the story just doesn't feel as grand as it was in Mafia 1. Which is a shame.