Mafia II product reviews

This game instantly struck me as a Grand Theft Auto style of game, with a very similar pretense. Following the main character, Vito, a small-bit criminal who always ends up as the fall guy. His life quickly becomes tangled in the web of the mafia families. Story-wise, I found this game far more appealing than GTA, with a variety of events occurring, that will serve to change the environment around you, and show a gradual change in landscape over time.

The game still seemed a tad glitchy for my liking, and I would often get stuck, or directives for missions would fail to load, which would leave me stuck in limbo. Along the lines of loading, this game had far too few save points, often with nowhere to save mid-chapter. Split into 15 Chapters, you would have to be sure that you had a good 30 minutes to an hour available to complete the chapter otherwise you would lose your progress if you quit. Rather frustrating really.

I thoroughly enjoyed some of the small mechanics of the game; getting police attention for speeding, having to change your clothes after a crime, and changing plates on cars involved in crimes, all added to the authenticity of the game. Of course sometimes, the game doesn't explain things well enough. For example, I was told to rob a store, so I walked in- and as you do in GTA -I held a gun to the cashiers face, only to be shot in the back. Clearly not the way it was meant to be done. But once I figured it out it was a fun way to increase my money and change clothing.

Some of these fun mechanics were, however, unnecessary. You can purchase petrol for your car, but I only needed to fill up once in the entire game. You can pick the locks of vehicles, but smashing windows is faster and therefore will get less attention. You get attention from the police for speeding, and yet you can drive through red lights and drive on the wrong side of the road. They were all fun ideas, but were never made necessary by the gameplay.

It actually took me a while to finish this game, and despite the occasional glitches, the gameplay was pretty smooth, with some quite high quality graphics. The plot accelerated through 3 crime families very quickly, but it was definitely a fast paced game. Whereas GTA was a lot more of an open world "let's go kill some people" game, Mafia II is a much more story-based game. I wasn't as immersed as I could have been due to the lack of save points. If I can save often, I'll keep just doing one more bit... just one more bit. But knowing I can't save until the mission is complete, I don't bother with the sleepless nights, and I put it off until I know I will have the time to complete it.

I am a little concerned by the fact that you need to collect playboy magazines to get 100% in the game, and the instant pop-up of a naked centrefold for each of the 50 magazines...well it seems incredibly unnecessary, and pointless.

Overall, I was surprised by this game, I was expecting a cheap knock-off version of GTA, but the whole atmosphere of the game is different. This is a proper Mafia game, with proper clothes, and cars.