Jason Moyer on 30/8/2010 at 18:54
The things that separated Mafia above the GTA games for me were the great driving model and the atmosphere, and Mafia II improves both of those areas and adds stealth to boot. Then again I've always preferred the Mafia/Mercenaries/Saboteur way of doing open world games to the jack-of-all-trades-master-of-shittiness of the last 4 GTA's.
Sulphur on 30/8/2010 at 19:04
I'm not much of a GTA fan any more (never been much of one, tbh); I loved the original Mafia. But the driving was not the best part of that game, and evading the cops for running a red light was tortuous in the most frank and non video-gaming way ever. Realistic, of course. But fun? Bleh. 30's jalopies were not exactly noted for their impressive control. The cars control much better in the demo I played, but I can't imagine 30 minutes of driving around to get to the next mission, to be honest.
Also, the original Mafia had a stealth mission. It wasn't very well done, but it was atmospheric. Still, I preferred the hard-as-nails combat and inevitable hanging-on-by-the-skin-of-your-teeth missions to the stealth and the regen nonsense, but eh. No sense crying over spilled milk.
Anyway: the real reason why I liked Mafia - the missions, and the story, and the non-trivial link between them. MII doesn't quite measure up, I take it?
redface on 30/8/2010 at 20:48
Driving IS fun in Mafia 2. But going more or less the same route over and over again just to begin/end a mission is not.
Avalon on 31/8/2010 at 05:20
Beat it once, then played through a second time and beat it again on hard. Either hard mode is not hard in the slightest or I'm just really, really good, but I don't think it's the latter. It really is as simple as duck into cover and wait for the enemy to pop out, shoot him in the head and move on, you are never in the tiniest amount of danger.
My weapon of choice was the magnum up until the very last mission - the only one where enemies actually rush you (and only because they "spawn" 3 feet away to begin with). Then, I used the tommy gun, and just mowed through them before they fired a shot as they charged at me in single file lines. These were the only two weapons I ever used, as everything else was too weak to get those instakill headshots, be it either the power of the weapon or the unreliable aim. The rifles are a really close second to the magnum, I suppose, but pistol ammo is everywhere.
The AI really should've been made to try and advance on your position instead of hiding behind their own cover all day long. I can duck behind cover, go make a sandwich, walk my dog, take a shower and come back, and the bad guy will still be sitting behind that park bench popping a shot at the car I'm hiding behind every minute or so.
The ending was boring and anti-climactic. Without spoiling anything, I was expecting to hear a gunshot, but they didn't even give it that amount of finality. They leave it open for a potential sequel, but the story wasn't interesting enough that I'd care for another Vito game.
Sulphur on 13/9/2010 at 22:27
Hokay. I'm in Chapter 7, four hours in. Just after Vito's great Prison Break odyssey. And I don't get it - some of the prison scenes were a bit hokey, like the attempted shower rape and following beatdown - but the game so far, overall? Very nice. And my views are quite in contrast to a lot of the reviews I've read.
I actually do like the driving, strangely enough. I guess there's something to driving heavy, muscular cars. And I love exploring the city in them. Never mind the fact that it's not a sandbox. Sandboxes are fucking over-rated anyway: will people please get off the fucking GTA comparisons? It's not GTA, and was never meant to be. Anyway, poring over the city's details is a source of delight in itself. Snow dusts off the roof of the cars you bump into, bonnets and fenders bounce and sway if your car gets too damaged, ice glints off the tarmac, the city lights glint in the distance, and that warm and cozy Dean Martin Christmas song crackles off the radio in the middle of a wintry, snowy night.
The missions themselves have been slightly underwhelming, and the simplistic brawling and pop 'n stop shootouts are merely competent instead of realistic and awesome even on Hard, but it's still fun. And even though Vito's a little too much of a bland, unquestioning henchman and the narrative wrapped around him's a bit humdrum, the cinematic excellence on show in the cut scenes and attention to detail is hard to ignore. The story might be no particular great shakes so far, but it's still compelling to play/watch. It's almost a damn movie.
In short: dumb to downright lazy design decisions, but fucking impressive execution overall.
242 on 20/9/2010 at 17:14
Quote Posted by Sulphur
In short: dumb to downright lazy design decisions, but fucking
impressive execution overall.
It would be better if the game had actual content and not impressive execution.
Sulphur on 20/9/2010 at 21:09
It does have actual content, though. The driving around, while the sheer amount of it gets painful near the end, is fun. The story's handled pretty bizarrely in many places (Vito's sister, the prison thing, Henry, the @!$% ending), but the atmosphere and cinematic direction is spot on. And the missions end up being mostly all right if sorta unimpressive in comparison to Mafia's. The gunplay's great, but still too easy most of the time, even on Hard.
It's not a bad game, it just doesn't rise to the occasion most of the time. Never has the phrase 'go the extra mile' been more apt in a game, and it's especially ironic here considering how much driving Mafia 2 happens to have. It could have been special. Unfortunately, we'll have to settle for 'mostly okay'.
Which isn't so bad... that city, Empire Bay, it's a fucking marvel. Where's the goddamn freeride mode, 2K?
Sulphur on 20/9/2010 at 22:13
That's awesome. Thanks a ton for that, Eva! :)