Just a couple days ago I finally got around starting Mafia II which has been sitting in my backlog for a while now. Oh boy am I glad I did. It grabbed me from the start so that after only few days I have finished the campaign.
It's probably easy to compare this to Grand Theft Auto but both games are actually very different. In Mafia II there really is not much else besides the campaign. There are no side missions to speak of or even other forms of entertainment we are used to have in open-world games, races, mini-games etc. It does read as a disadvantage but in reality it is a big positive. The campaign is greatly paced and you always know what to do next. Wasting time with menial and most often unfun side occupations would hurt that pacing only and not add anything meaningful to the experience. What matters most is that I never felt the need that the game should have anything besides the campaign. The absent of a character leveling or mindless XP pop-ups is refreshing and fits great with the focused style of the game. Less is more here.
In terms of side activities you can count the collectibles probably. There are three. Playboy Magazines, Wanted Posters and Pinup Posters. Later is locked behind the Hard difficulty setting. The Wanted Posters are scrambled across the world and are a pain to collect. Collecting the Playboy Magazines is the easiest since they usually are strategically placed in the vicinity of campaign missions. These each unlock a single high resolution photo of an original playboy playmate of that period. Suffice to say it's NSFW (breasts). They appear only during certain missions and disappear later. Thankfully the devs did not opt to the stupid industry standard of making collectibles glow.
The world is done great. It's fairly big with distinct areas and aesthetics. Driving mechanics thankfully are great as well but you have to keep in mind that unlike GTA, most normal cars feel too slow and heavy. Once you get your hands on a sports-car, you will drive nothing but those.
Besides driving there is a focus on combat and I'm glad to say that shooting feels great. There is a nice cover mechanic and it just feels good to run into a firefight and slide seamlessly into cover. Enemy bullets do take away health-points very quick so you will have to use cover constantly. One thing I have to stress is the very great use of physics in combat. Glass shatters, wooden cover breaks apart nicely and even concrete walls break around the edges. It not only serves as beautiful eye candy but also adds a new mechanic and tactic to keep in mind during combat.
These two things, driving and shooting will be done plentiful and no matter how fun they are on their own, they would still become a chore if the story behind it faltered. It does not. On the contrary, the story is greatly written with great, believable characters. As someone who watched most popular gangster movies I was expecting many cliche events and lines to appear but to my surprise many events and turns I did not see coming. Without spoiling too much, you will be seeing the protagonist's rise in the mafia. The ending came abrupt. I was actually believing the story would continue but it just stopped. So think, not playing throughout the whole life of a gangster but a slice of it. An early slice at that. It mostly revolves around you, Vito Scaletta and your best friend Joe Barbaro and how you both become gangsters in the mafia. Maybe it's the cliche I am used to from movies and games but I was positively surprised at Joe not being a boring and bland character.
Since there really is only the campaign to play, voice acting is important and for the most part it is really great. Leo's VO was exceptionally good. One voice stood out in a comical way. Vito's sister Francesca was bad. Really bad. The VO forced an usual high-pitched sound with her. No clue how that got OK'd.
The atmosphere of the 40s/50s America is hit nicely with old cars and music. Later comes from three radio stations. I'm not personally fond of the period's aesthetics and music but there are some catchy songs I'll listen to on Youtube for sure. The cars are an acquired taste. I don't find them appealing mostly but there's not much freedom with historic accuracy. Visually the game looks great. The city is greatly detailed with buildings and districts looking unique and fitting. Cars look great and the motion blur when driving fast is used to great effect. I also noticed that grass looks surprisingly good. Keeping in mind this is a ps360 era game, yes there are low-res textures and models but they mainly become only noticeable during close-up cutscenes.
Not all is perfect though. As I mentioned briefly, the campaign feels like there is something missing at the end. It ends faster than I'd imagined Vito's story to be. Not being able to roam the city freely after the ending only adds salt to the wound.
As said, the world is big with many places and buildings that stand out. Weirdly enough, most of these places went totally unused without any missions taking place there (dam, skyscrapers, water). Maybe it was planned initially but it got cut.
I think they also missed an opportunity with Vito's family. Her sister never gets much of a focus. A shame as it would have made for some nice arc to see her get polluted by her brother's money and power maybe.
I experienced some crashes which I could not solve but thankfully never lost too much progress. Some cutscenes are also pre-rendered movies with very low bitrates that really hurt their qualities. I have no idea why they didn't just make them run in-game in real-time (like other cutscenes), especially since the assets and everything basically in them are of in-game quality. Weird.
All in all though, I have to say I enjoyed my time with Mafia II immensely. The story, characters, atmosphere, combat all top-notch. It's a better game than GTAIV for sure even if it does not offer a similarly detailed world with many side activities but maybe because it is a very focused game that uses the open-world not only as a selling point but only as instrument for the campaign. I like this method better than GTAIV's bloated unfocused hodgepodge of menialities. Not even gonna compare story, writing and characters of the unbearable mess that GTAIV is with the greatness of Mafia II.
Mafia II is a great game and everyone should give it a try. It blew me away and will do for at least some others as well for sure. Now I am more interested in Mafia III than before. Hopefully they manage to bring over the strengths of Mafia II.
