Impressions: Mafia II (Xbox 360)

I just want to point out before I start that I haven’t actually bought this game, instead a friend rented it and we played it for a few hours, so this article should not be taken as a review.

It’s no secret that I’m a fan off open-world games. Looking at my shelf right now, I can see Fallout 3, Skate 2, GTA IV and Red Dead Redemption as four titles with sandbox style gameplay. Mafia II is a similarly open-world title.

In a game like this, there’s a few elements that need to be spot-on for it to work. Firstly, the driving and shooting mechanics need to have weight, be characteristic of the cars or weapons and while doing all of this, be fun. There’s almost nothing worst than shooting or driving being loose and wobbly (Saints Row 2 and Killzone 2 feature those two problems, respectively). Thankfully, with Mafia II, the developers seemed to have gotten the two systems just about right. The cars have drive as you’d imagine cars from the 40′s or 50′s did, giving you enough bite to be fun while still remaining unforgiving to mistakes and the player trying to treat them like Enzos. They really got the design of the cars right and you can easily feel the difference in the different models and between cars, trucks and buses.

The shooting similarly has weight and the guns have the power and force that makes it fun and fulfilling. Using a Tommy gun against a window, some crates and a human being leaves each appropriately affected, as elegantly shown in these videos.

The next point is the game’s world; whether that be a sprawling city, apocalyptic wasteland or dusty prairie, the universe you’re given should feel authentic and immersive. (This is something I’ve written about before). From what I’ve played, Mafia II hasn’t faired too well in this category. While the game’s streets, warehouses and roads look impressive, it often seems like it’s there purely as the backdrop for the missions. The game always leaves a red waypoint marker on the map, pointing you to the next mission. This essentially creates an almost ‘blinkered’ look on the world, where you find yourself continuously moving on to the next mission because you think it’s just part of the current one you’re on. It wasn’t until we (being me and my two friends) realised that we were storming through the single-player that we actually decided to explore the world.

Once we did some exploring we found that it just lacked the attention to detail that is featured in games like Red Dead Redemption and Fallout. Those small details are what bring games to life, especially in open-world games where you can often spend hours just driving around doing very little in terms of actual story progression. It’s hard to pinpoint just how the game doesn’t quite drag you in to the gangster world, we just felt that it didn’t have nearly the level of immersion that other titles have. The backdrop looks great (as does the entire game), but it seemed to be just that: a 2D image rather than a living, breathing world.

As for the story, I pretty much glossed over it after a while. The sheer use of stereotypes was slightly off-putting. Not in a “that’s offensive” way (although…) but more that each character was based off of a bland stereotype. Angry Irishman, angry Italian-American, fat-Italian-American, helpless sister of angry Italian-American etc. I realise this is the case in almost all games, and that stereotypes are a great way of conveying the whos and whats of a character, but it seemed overly obvious in this instance. I’ll let you play the game or read a proper review to get more of the story as I didn’t finish it. I’m sure it would become more compelling the more you played, but I wasn’t really into it.

As for the usual points: the game looks great, it has some awesome music and sound effects (vehicles especially sound great) and the physics engine works well, with glass, concrete and debris flying everywhere very convincingly. I noticed slight screen tearing and the game can look a little sluggish at only 30 FPS in the Xbox, although things like pop-ups weren’t too bad which is nice.

Overall, Mafia II seems like an interesting, but deeply flawed game. Over the several hours we played it we enjoyed the experience, but often came to the conclusion that something was simply “missing”. The game is set in an awesome period of history (or at least the popular view of history) and uses that in an impressive way, but if I had spent the full £40/$60, I would have certainly felt disappointed. I wouldn’t want to advise you on it fully as I’ve not played it enough to review, but personally I would rent before I buy. It’s not that there’s anything drastically wrong with the game it, it’s just that some things aren’t quite right, and these things – mainly the game’s world – really impact on the game overall.

Interestingly, John Walker over at Rock, Paper, Shotgun suggests that the game isn’t supposed to be an open-world game, using almost the same language as me (I read it after I’d finished this piece). He suggests that the game’s open-world isn’t supposed to be compared to GTA et al because it’s simply a “backdrop”. He suggests that it’s the story that fails to move and the fact that you’re given mindless tasks to do (like handing out cigarettes or moving boxes). I don’t quite agree with all of his points, but it’s a great piece so I suggest you take a read.

As an extra perspective, my friend Andy has penned a few of his thoughts which I’ve added below.

I don’t agree with all that Sam’s written above, but here’s my thoughts either way.

I agree with Sam’s sentiment that Mafia II often felt  ”sterile” against the likes of other games of the same genre. The worlds in Fallout, GTA and Red Dead created a complete, complex experience without the need for the story element, which, to me, starkly confound the sheer laziness of the missions – especially GTA and Red Dead which have a unrelenting “go here, kill this guy” theme. I applaud Mafia II for trying to make the story (ignoring its stereotypical, rather obvious nature) the limelight by making it the constant focus with the waypoints. The problem is that while doing this, they left the soul and interactivity out of the world.

How many car types did we actually notice? How little traffic was there and how little buzz and background sound did we really see and hear? How artificial was the day/night cycle made by being based on which mission you were on? Having your room up two to three flights of stairs to stretch time out and having missions miles apart so you actually have to use the city, but for absolutely no point just compounds this problem. Mafia II is The Truman Show: it feels wrong and plainly not real. The world was forced down our throats; there was no escapism like that of Red Dead, no “city soul” like in GTA. It just never felt remotely organic.