Organized crime is nothing new to gaming. From Grand Theft Auto to The Godfather franchise itself, there’s a longstanding fascination among the gaming public with stepping into the shoes of a wiseguy — to threaten, blackmail or otherwise whack anyone who gets in the way during the long climb up the Mafioso ladder. Mafia II is the sequel to 2002’s Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven, and comes from a pedigree with plenty of critical praise. While it tries to follow in its predecessor’s footsteps, the results are mixed, surpassing the original in some respects while abjectly failing in others.
The Mob Needs A Few Goodfellas
Mafia II, like the original, wears its cinematic roots proudly on its sleeve, evoking shades of The Godfather, Goodfellas and other mob fiction over the course of its tale. You play as Vito Scalleta, a child of Sicilian immigrants who, like many in the 1920s, comes to Empire City (a stand-in for New York) and grows up in an immigrant district, living in squalor and idolizing the mobsters who show the only tangible promise of improving his station in life. When the action begins, Vito is an adult, a war veteran, and ready to rejoin his childhood friend Joe, who already has promising ties with one of the Families in the area. As is the case in most crime stories, things go anything but smoothly from there. It’s not an original story, but it’s told very well.
Visually, 2K Czech has done a great job with the graphics in certain areas. The lighting is well done — as seems typical of many European games — and the character models stand up extremely well to the punishing demands of nuanced facial performance in the game’s close-up cutscenes. The environments in Mafia II also largely nail the feel of the 1940s and ’50s era in which the game is set, with a progression of seasons from winter to summer and striking details on the buildings and automobiles that reinforce a strong sense of time and place.
The overall package can be a little sparse at times, and the cities lack the grime and grit of Red Dead Redemption’s crumbling cities, so in some ways it looks like a kind of idealized, super-clean, Norman Rockwell interpretation of the 50s. Technically, there are still some flaws, with the PS3 version lacking blood and blades of grass, while both versions suffer from the usual pop-up and draw-in problems of games of this size. Screen tearing is also a regular occurrence.
“Mafia II is a tightly focused, 3rd person action game…”
The sound of Mafia II is flawless, with uniformly strong performances from all the voice actors really selling this rags-to-riches story, and the sound effects of the cars and guns are both authentic and immersive. The icing on the audio cake, however, is the music. A well-scored original orchestral track accompanies the game’s dramatic moments, while the in-game radio stations offer an amazing mix of jazz, big band, pop and rock music from the 30s, 40s and 50s. If you were too young to sing along to Dean Martin on the radio while driving down the highway, now is your virtual chance to try it.
Unbalanced In Empire City
One thing players need to get out of their heads when they sit down to play Mafia II is that it’s an open-world game. It’s not. If that’s what you’re looking for, Mafia II is not for you. Rather, Mafia II is a tightly focused third-person action game that happens to take place in an environment the size of an open-world game.
This is an incredibly streamlined experience compared to its predecessor, which emphasized racing, obeying traffic laws, and intricate car damage. Mafia II has been simplified for a console audience, resulting in a game that surpasses its predecessor in storytelling, but falls short in gameplay due to balancing issues with content and pacing.
The biggest culprit is the driving. There is a lot of it, and not in the exciting “car chase” sense, although that does occur occasionally. Much of the game is spent simply getting from point A to point B because there’s no fast travel option. Sometimes, with a passenger, there can be some enlightening dialogue, but often it’s just Vito, alone, making his way to the next destination, which is either a cutscene or some real action. To say that driving makes up the bulk of the gameplay is no understatement, but while the original Mafia was almost a simulation with its painstakingly rendered 30’s cars, realistic damage models, and strict police, driving in Mafia II has been given a more arcade-like feel with better handling, faster cars, and cops who can still make a fuss but are easy to lose with a quick change of clothes or license plate.
“Mafia II is for players looking to ‘play’ a good crime film.
When on foot, the action is competently done in the cover-based, regenerative health style expected in modern games. Weapons are varied, and it’s impossible to win by being a hero, as a few rounds from a shotgun can and will drop you in short order. It’s not an inherently broken combat system, it just fails to add anything new or interesting to the genre. There’s also an option for fisticuffs, though this is largely only useful in scripted game events, as you’ll probably still want to rely on a gun in most combat situations. It’s a simplistic combat system that lacks the depth or visceral impact of something like Yakuza, which made melee combat a focus.
All of this adds up to Mafia II being a game of mixed virtues: it has a story to tell, and for players who enjoy a good narrative, the one here is worth seeing. On the other hand, there are long stretches of inactivity where you simply drive from one point to the next in a large game world with almost no side missions — aside from some collectibles like Playboy magazine centrefolds, wanted posters, and activities such as robbing stores or stealing cars for extra cash. Still, money is plentiful and almost unnecessary in the game.
Mafia II is for players who want to “play” a good crime movie. All the elements are there — they’re just scattered across a game that suffers from pacing problems due to an overly large world with little content. People looking for a long-term “killer game” won’t find it here. Instead, this is an intriguing but flawed game with a great story and a world that needs polishing. At 10 to 12 hours without multiplayer, it can be completed in a dedicated weekend — so gamers are advised to rent it or wait for a sale.
