zajazd on 26/7/2020 at 08:49
Quote Posted by Jason Moyer
And yes, the race was awesome. Especially pre-patch.
Please. The only way to win the pre-patch race was to ram the fastest driver in the first corner and then try to not let him past you for the whole of the race. If that is awesome for you ok, but for most people it was nerve wracking and extremely hard to do.
Shadowcat on 26/7/2020 at 10:28
Quote Posted by zajazd
Please. The only way to win the pre-patch race was to ram the fastest driver in the first corner and then try to not let him past you for the whole of the race.
Utterly untrue. You never needed to interfere with the other cars, or 'cheat' in any way. All you needed to do was drive like a race car driver, and bear in mind that the physics simulation was actually pretty robust. As hard to believe as it might be, the pre-patch race was pretty darn forgiving when you drove it well -- I remember the first time I got it mostly right being an exhilarating nail-biter because I made a bad error on the final lap, spun out, and came to a halt facing the wrong way -- by the time I'd righted myself and picked up speed, the competition was hot on my heels... but even after all that, I won. I drove it again immediately afterwards, avoided making any significant errors, and the opposition honestly never stood a chance -- I think the next car was about 30s behind me by the end of the race.
Thematically it didn't really work, because like a race driver you needed to know the track and the car, and your character is going in pretty blind. I totally understand why so many people hated it, because it also frustrated me hugely to start with (I too spent a long time looking for ways to 'cheat'). Once I realised what I should have been doing instead, it all fell into place.
zajazd on 26/7/2020 at 13:56
Utterly untrue. The 'wrong' unpatched version was released only in Eastern Europe and we had no theoretical chance to win the race with a fair game, that's why there is so much confusion about this race and some say that it was actually pretty easy. I dare you to try win 'our' unpatched version the way you described.
Shadowcat on 26/7/2020 at 20:41
If you say so. I'd be interested to see a reference for that, as I couldn't find one.
Tomi on 26/7/2020 at 21:42
I remember the race level being pretty tough too, and definitely quite frustrating, but not like impossibly hard as some people say. It must have taken me quite a few tries, and I guess the level didn't really fit into the game, but in the end it was quite rewarding too. I beat the level again a couple more times - it was never easy, but got much easier with a bit of practice. :) I don't know which version of the game I had, I bought it on DVD (not at the release but maybe a year later, so perhaps it was already patched by then?) and can't remember manually installing any patches.
Quote:
Senior Producer Denby Grace describes a meeting with the writer and director of Mafia, Daniel Vavra, who asked him what he thought of the game. "Maybe after a few more beers," said Grace.
He says he eventually admitted that he liked the game as a whole, but hated that damn race car level.
According to Grace, Vavra simply nodded his head and said "I know."
As for why that mother-loving level was so hard, Denby says he took a tour of the studio in Brno, Czech Republic and finally discovered the answer: The designers responsible for many of Mafia's original levels - including "The Race Car Level" - were all sitting at computers with racing wheels.
"Those guys were making a race car game," he says, adding that the difficulty curve is an aspect of the original game they've heavily adjusted for the sequel.
(
https://v1.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/102110-Mafia-II-Producer-Explains-Mafias-Infamous-Race-Car-Level)
zajazd on 27/7/2020 at 08:58
I may be wrong but I think our prepatched race was set on Extreme as a way to say *uck you to Eastern Europe because we had some 99.99% of piracy at the time, you couldn't buy legal copies of most of games even if you wanted, while the rest of the world had the prepatched race set on Normal.
Tomi on 27/7/2020 at 13:20
Hang on... so the extremely difficult race level was only in some pirated version of the game? That's the best anti-piracy method that I've ever heard of. :D
Or are you claiming that they released a special "Fuck You Edition" in Eastern Europe only? Somehow I doubt that very much...
Sulphur on 24/9/2020 at 06:52
I'm just hoping they optimised it better than Mafia 3 was at launch.
SubJeff on 24/9/2020 at 07:04
Crate and Crowbar talked about this a couple of weeks ago I think. I wasn't too interested because I don't care about this game but they had opinions, and have played it iirc, so if you're into it it's probably worth a listen.