Avalon on 26/3/2010 at 23:03
The original was badass even if it was very unforgivably difficult in some places. It easily takes a place as one of the most memorable video game storylines I've played through.
Here's hoping Mafia 2 has less of the "walk around corner and die instantly because on your first play-through you have no way of knowing that there's a guy with a double barrel shotgun waiting in a place you can't see from outside" moments. It was very frustrating in a few missions where you were pretty much forced to die so that you would know how to get through the room successfully the next time, only to then die in the next room.
mothra on 27/3/2010 at 01:17
yeah, but sometimes I miss the "omg, there is ANOTHER room" feeling :)
faetal on 27/3/2010 at 01:39
I quite liked how unforgiving it was. Made me play differently.
It made it more tense.
The level where you have to go through the prison to get the assassination spot was excellent and deadly
I'm not normally one for hard games, but with Mafia if fit the feel of the game perfectly.
If anything, I'm hoping M2 isn't too streamlined or forgiving. The clunky feel and punishing bits made it feel like 1930s gangster times.
mothra on 27/3/2010 at 01:42
well, they said that you will be able to choose carhandling: oldschool or arcadey-blockbustery. I'm sure there will be difficulty levels as well (hopefully)
Avalon on 27/3/2010 at 02:37
Quote Posted by faetal
I quite liked how unforgiving it was. Made me play differently.
It probably wouldn't be so bad if enemies didn't have the ability to instakill you with lucky headshots. It's just bad design, and kind of immersion-breaking, when a game virtually
requires you to die to beat it for the first time.
It also made me feel like a really, really shitty player when I'd die to the easiest enemies in the game because they got lucky and clipped my skull with a random potshot.
Mr.Duck on 27/3/2010 at 03:54
The driving.
Only thing that pissed me of the original.
And the racing mission now that I think about it...thank God for that bug...
faetal on 27/3/2010 at 12:31
I actually found the ability to be insta-killed increased the immersion for me. Rather than feeling like a section of game, I actually felt like I was in a firefight which involved dangerous projectiles coming my way. If it had been done even slightly differently, I'd have hated it, like I say - I'm not big on really hard games. I'm not saying it was perfect either, just that it was the right configuration and combination of elements for me (and presumably some others), so I'm not really arguing your points as they're perfectly valid, just padding out my perspective.
The race I feel ambivalent about. On the one hand, it had me swearing at the designers and frusrated as ALL HELL that I had to do it to progress (p.s. I've never enjoyed driving games that aren't Carmageddon / Twisted Metal / GTA); but on the other hand, the feeling I got when I finally beat it after more than 40 attempts, was close to orgasmic. Saying that, this is probably a bit of Stockholm Syndrome creeping in..
Avalon on 28/3/2010 at 05:45
You know, I read from a TON of people that the race was stupidly hard, but I breezed right through it.
The car chase to the warehouse, or the dock or whatever the hell that I totally forget now, was a different story though. That thing kicked my ass so hard that I actually put the game down for 6 months before I finally finished it. The car I'm chasing takes a quick left turn, I wait a second too long to make the same turn, failed. And so on and so forth for the 28748957348 turns in the route - and then finally, when I had the whole trip memorized and down solid, random traffic would spawn a little differently and I'd plow into a streetcar or something ridiculous that hadn't been there on my last drive through. I don't remember being so frustrated in my life.
Sulphur on 28/3/2010 at 06:05
That sounds like a blow by blow description of my trials and travails through the bike chases in GTA IV.
Strangely enough, I had issues with the race, but not the chase you're talking about. Guess we're all wired differently.
Briareos H on 28/3/2010 at 09:01
Quote Posted by Avalon
It's just bad design, and kind of immersion-breaking, when a game virtually
requires you to die to beat it for the first time.
Wow times have changed.
If there's no personal improvement, how can there be accomplishment?
If there's no punishment, how can there be reward?
I can get the point of Mafia's difficulty being unfair but that statement is wrong on all counts.
And still, I'm with faetal here. The tough levels and gunfights in Mafia reinforced the immersion and gave some additional depth to an otherwise good game. The racing level, on the other hand, frustrated me a bit too much.
