[037]

Released: August 2010
Platforms: Xbox 360, Playstation 3, PC.
Modes: Single-player
Developer: 2K Czech

This review could go one of two ways to be quite honest. I could say nice things, or I could say diabolically terrible things, because believe me, this game has both.

I never played Mafia 1, so I cannot tell you how it compares. I’ve heard people say it’s a lot worse, I’ve heard people say it’s better, but I’m not saying a thing, as that’s something I can’t help you with. I can ramble on for a bit though about my experiences.

Like Red Dead Redemption, Mafia II has a reputation to be similar to Grand Theft Auto. This is wrong. You get to drive around a big city to get to the person you need to do a mission for, but this, to me anyway, is where the similarity ends. I don’t believe Mafia II is a sandbox game at all. You follow a set story line. You don’t go and do random side quests or decide who’s quest to do next, you get no options. You can occasionally go and sell cars or buy clothes, but I only bothered to do this to get the achievements, it’s a bit pointless otherwise. So don’t go into this game thinking, “Oh yeah, another GTA, yeah yeah!”, or you’ll just be disappointed.

The combat system did my nut in. To me, it seemed inconsistent. You can be getting shot to shit one minute without really coming to too much harm, or you can get shot once and BAM- dead. It was annoying, especially when the only thing you have to rely on is auto saves that send you right back to the entrance of the damn building. If it was due to my own stupidity of  my own terribleness at games then fair enough, but I felt this game was just trying to piss me off.

Enough with negativity though, I loved the story. It has twists and turns, death and beytrayal, wars and peace, highs and lows, riches and poor, it’s well written, it’s gripping. It’s the only reason I carried on playing to be honest, I HAD to see how it all ended.

But that’s when it gets pants again. The ending of Mafia II is the laziest ending of a game I have ever experienced. It is a cliff-hanger. I hate cliff-hangers. This is a game, not a damn movie, I want to see how my actions have affected everyone, what happens to this guys I’ve been controlling for the past eight to ten hours (yeah, this game’s short, did I mention that?). It feels like the writers couldn’t think of or couldn’t be bothered to come up with a decent ending. It’s like they just ran out of studio time. As soon as the credits start rolling, I’ll guarantee you’ll shriek an annoyed, “WHAT WAS THAT” to your screen. It’s THAT bad.

But no, let’s end of something posititve. The graphics are good. Very, very good. When you’re driving around at night and it’s raining, you can fully appreciate the level of attention to detail that went into the aesthetics of this game. It truly is stunning sometimes. And driving is fun too. Better than the shambles of GTA. Yeah I said it. I was quite happy to drive around obeying traffic laws, being courteous to other drivers and listening to 40s music because it was such a nice experience. I even won a few races. Me ! Unheard of.

Mafia II has it’s very bad points but it also has it’s very good points. I believe it’s one of those games where you can’t really listen to a review but you must make up your own mind. I know people who loved this game so much they’d rate it as one of the best of the year, but there are others like me who are a lot more sceptical.