Mafia II

[Raithe]

It's a fairly solid 14 hour shooter/driver. But I can't really see where they put 6 years in it.. It's solid for what it is, but it's nothing brilliant or heavily engaging.

 

And apart from breaking into the safe without alarms going off, or rescuing Leo without being caught.. theres no real reason to replay anything.

 

But it's engaging for what's there. It's a popcorn-for-the-brain game. Fun, but you don't have to really engage anything mentally/emotionally to play it.

[Morgoth]

Well the game started out to be much more ambitious, but in the end, 2K Czech had to cut corners. But even that doesn't justify a 6 year development cycle. Those lazy Bohemians...

[Hurlshort]

It seems like if they had made the beautiful open world more than just a backdrop, it would have been a better game. I noticed that playing the demo. At first I was in awe, and then I started to notice that my exploration was rather fruitless.

 

I can definitely see the AP comparison. Both have great stories and are going to get a nice cult following, but they have trouble matching up to other games in their genre. Mafia is marketed as an open-world game but doesn't do what GTA and others have done, and AP isn't as sharp as other stealth shooters.

[Pop]

AP is hardly the first game that failed to make money.

Tain't that it failed to make money, but that its good name has been besmirched by sub-80 Metacritic scores, which as we all know, indicates a terrible horrible no good very bad game.

[Hell Kitty]

Fan response to this does seem to be similar to AP. Reviewers who don't get it because they aren't playing it right. Scores of 7 that OMG should totally be 8 or 9. The apparently belief there is some conspiracy against the game.

 

I played a rental for a couple of nights, and going in knowing this was a linear, story heavy shooter, not an open world game at all, I found it alright. I didn't finish it and I don't really care to. The combat is a lot of fun, but there really isn't enough of it. The driving is nice, but there is way too much of it. Chapter 8 was terrible, it would have been better if they cut out the tedious driving and just made it one long cutscene. The city is beautiful and it's a nice place to drive through, but drive from point A to B, repeat isn't really acceptable gameplay.

[Maria Caliban]

So we should make a verb out of the best example available.

 

You sir, have been ETed.

[Kaftan Barlast]

Fan response to this does seem to be similar to AP. Reviewers who don't get it because they aren't playing it right. Scores of 7 that OMG should totally be 8 or 9. The apparently belief there is some conspiracy against the game.

 

 

Its just strange that a game that plays so well and looks so good gets really low scores. Unless the 360 and PS3 version are horrible somehow, which I cant imagine theyd be. The lack of minigames is not a reason to lower the score from a 9 to a 7.

[Hell Kitty]

The lack of minigames is not a reason to lower the score from a 9 to a 7.

 

Have you actually read any of those reviews? 7 isn't a really low score, the 4 from Eurogamer is a really low score.

 

This review does a good job of summing up how I feel about the game. There's also this Wot I Think from RPS, that hasn't been dumbed down with a score and forces one to actually read the text.

Edited September 4, 2010 by Hell Kitty

[Morgoth]

Finished the game and I must say it was a real drag. Too much driving, too much senseless stuff to do (unloading cigarettes) and some annoying stealth. Otherwise, it was technically well done, acting and cutscenes were excellent, story so-so.

 

Is Mafia 1 the same drag?

[Raithe]

One thing that you might have missed if you hadn't played the first one.. The drive out to the suburbs, say a line, and shoot the old geezer?

That's the end scene of Mafia I. The original character you play who got dragged into the mob, and ended up as a federal witness...You finish the game, then it jumps 20 years forward and does the cut scene of your aging character mowing the lawn.. apart from the updated graphics, it's basically shot for shot the same.

[Monte Carlo]

The sad thing is that crime games appear to all follow the same drive-and-shoot model. When, as anybody who has seen any of the Godfather series or even any Martin Scorcese movies will realise the RPG opportunitues.

 

Back-stabbing, politiking, a mini-game predicated on the rising and falling markets in different commodities (or, a la Goodfellas one based on finding the perfect pasta sauce recipe just like Momma used to make), the placing of key men in the local council and police, chosing a mob accountant and a decent lawyer, a scene with a trial, escaping from prison, whacking the other side, attempts to legitimize your business and wash your dirty money, managing your trophy wife and five girlfriends...

 

Jeez, The Sopranos needs to be made into a game. A decent one.

Edited September 4, 2010 by Monte Carlo

[Purkake]

AP is hardly the first game that failed to make money.

Tain't that it failed to make money, but that its good name has been besmirched by sub-80 Metacritic scores, which as we all know, indicates a terrible horrible no good very bad game.

The user score matches the critics' score. Plus a 7 is pretty bad when you're operating on a 7-9 point scale that game reviewers adopted a while ago.

 

So we should make a verb out of the best example available.

 

You sir, have been ETed.

Perfect.

Edited September 4, 2010 by Purkake