If Mafia 2, the new game from 2K Czech is to be believed, life as a mob wiseguy in the 1950s was less like The Godfather and more like Driving Miss Daisy.
After spending 12 hours completing the game, the memories that linger are those of driving from one side of Empire Bay to the other at 30 miles an hour in a car that handles with the finesse of an ocean liner.
It’s not that the game doesn’t have a classic mafia story of honour and betrayal to tell, or that it lacks heated gun battles and fistfights. It’s just that those more exciting moments get lost in all the fluff that seems to have been added to the game to stretch out its length.
Mafia 2 is a sequel to a classic 2002 game that featured stellar visuals, outstanding mission design and engaging storytelling. Though Mafia was set in a clockwork city, it was a more serious, linear and cinematic take on the world of organised crime than Grand Theft Auto.
But the developers haven’t done enough to advance the technology and gameplay that worked so well in 2002. Mafia 2 does little to change the formula of its predecessor, making only a few grudging concessions to current gaming trends. The result is a game that feels dated compared to many of its rivals.
The listless pacing is perhaps the single biggest problem with Mafia 2. The first half of the game feels like an extended tutorial, with each mission padded out with a long drive from the home of Vito, the player character, to the location of his assignment, and then back again. Checkpoints are sparse — perhaps another way of adding length to a game that would be relatively brief otherwise.
With the exception of the few drives where Vito is speaking to a companion in his car, and those that turn into chases, these drives are both pointless and boring. 2K Czech would have done itself a favour by simply cutting them from the game.
Though you’re free most of the time to wander the game map, Mafia 2 offers few diversions outside of its main missions. You can shop for guns and clothes, hold up stores, and steal cars to raise cash, but there’s not much reason to bother with any of that.
In its review, Eurogamer describes Empire Bay as a Potemkin village. I can do no better than that. Empire Bay feels as lifeless as a movie set after the cast and crew have gone home. It’s the small details that bring a game world to life that are missing from Empire Bay.
The game’s missions offer a mixture of driving, cover-to-cover gunplay, stealth and fist fights, most of which are handled competently. Stealth and hand-to-hand combat are rudimentary, but fun in the small doses on offer.
The gun fights are occasionally exhilarating, though the artificial intelligence and shooting mechanics aren’t as tight as those in third-person shooters such as Uncharted 2 or Gears of War.
There are a couple of neat missions in the game — one where Vito and his friend Joe need to infiltrate a plush hotel disguised as window washers stands out. On balance, most of the set-pieces aren’t particularly memorable, especially when they’re compared to those in the first Mafia game.
The narrative is the main drawcard of Mafia 2. It’s a somewhat hackneyed story pieced together from mafia movie clichés, but the polished cinematics are attractively presented and feature some decent voice acting. This is by no means Martin Scorsese or Brian de Palma, but gangster movie fans will enjoy the twists and turns Mafia 2 offers as it unfolds.
Mafia 2 is a relatively attractive game on the PC, judging from the demo. The game world, as sparse as it is, looks great seen out of a car window. Character animations are a bit wooden and lip-syncing is a little off, but they’re not poor enough to be particularly distracting.
Unfortunately, the console versions suffer from unsightly screen tearing and inconsistent frame rates. PlayStation 3 owners are the worst off by far — their version of the game lacks many of the effects and details to be found in the PC and Xbox 360 versions.
Mafia 2 trailer (via YouTube):
Mafia 2 could have been an instant classic earlier in this console generation, but much of the game’s competition is years ahead of it in terms of gameplay and production values. It falls short of the mark, whether you benchmark it against open-world games like Red Dead Redemption or against cinematic action games like Uncharted 2. — Lance Harris, TechCentral
- Reviewed on Xbox 360. Also available on PlayStation 3 and Windows PC
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