After several weeks without any decent games being released in June/July, I was really pleased to see Mafia II being released so not buying it was out of the question really, and to be honest, I’m glad I did buy it. In the week since the game was released, I have completed the game and have started playing through it again and although I know the storyline from the first run through, it still entertains me and keeps me gripped.

The American dream…

In the game you play as Vito Scaletta, son of a Sicilian family who moved to America when he was a boy. While growing up you become friends with Joe Barbaro which leads to the pair of you committing crimes to try get the American dream and generally live a better life than what your father did. The game starts, in what I thought, was quite a surprising way, after being caught robbing a jewellery store with Joe (who escapes), you are given the choice, prison or the join the Army and help free Sicily. You opt for the Army.

After a couple of years in the service, which equates to one mission, you are shot and get to return home for a month before returning to service. However, your best buddy Joe manages to get you some fake papers which allow you to avoid the rest of your Army service.

After discovering that your father had built up quite a few debts before he died, which your mother and sister are now trying to pay off. You are forced to return to a world of crime to pay off the debts before the loan sharks get rough.

From there you and Joe continue to commit crimes for the city’s mafia families, slowly working your way up the chain, however, things don’t always go to plan for the ambitious couple and you often find yourself in a sticky situation as a result, you even do a stint inside prison.

City by the bay…

All of the events in the game take place in a fictional city called Empire Bay between 1943 and 1951. The city is based around San Francisco, New York, Chicago and little bits of Detriot and it spans a quite large 10 square miles. Unlike many other similar games like Grand Theft Auto, as soon as you start the game, the entire map is available to you along with all the vehicles and all the weapons.

Of course everything in the game is styled to match that of the period so all of the 30-40 cars are from the 1940′s and 50′s, as is the music that is played on the 3 radio stations made available. When it comes to the cars, you do get a fair bit of customisation, colour, trims and number plates are all changeable by visiting one of the many garages around the city. Although there are a wide range of cars to use, I should say, the game rewards you for being loyal to your car, there is an achievement for driving a total of 50 miles in one vehicle. However, a little feature I did like was that if you are loyal to your car, remember, you will have to stop for fuel.

Another element that the game includes is the ability to follow the speed limit. Normally during a mission or just generally driving around, I tend to speed, which unfortunately, results in several dead bodies on the pavement, or my car is smashed up (actually it’s normally both), but using the speed limiter (by pressing ‘A’ on Xbox 360) caps your vehicle speed at the speed limit of the road. This feature not only helps to keep your car in good shape, it also helps to avoid attention from the police which I’ll explain in a minute.

You wanna play rough?…

In terms of weapons, you have quite a good range to choose from. There are 4 main types really, machine gun, pistol, shotgun and just your good old fists. Fortunately, you can carry every single type of gun all at once, these gangsters have large pockets. You can then use the d-pad to navigate between weapon type and which weapon from that type. Some of the classic weapons include the Thompson sub machine gun, Colt 1911 pistol, MP40 sub machine gun as well as a pump-action shot gun for when accuracy isn’t important.

You can use your weapons all over the city, to blow up vehicles, rob shops, or even just beat up passers by. However, using your weapons, or even just getting them out will give you some unwanted attention from the Empire Bay police department. This is one feature which I was particularly impressed with. In games like Grand Theft Auto, it’s not that simple to attract the police, you really need to kill someone or assault a police officer. However, in Mafia II, the police don’t take no crap.

Long arm of the law…

As in most games, shooting someone, or even just beating someone up will get the police after you, but in this game, if you drive past a police car (going in the same direction that is) while breaking the speed limit, they will chase you for speeding, avoiding this is one of the handy speed limit featured mentioned earlier. And although you may be able to easily loose the cops in a high speed car, it might not be over. Depending on the crime you committed, they will either put a wanted report out on your cars number plate, or they can put a wanted report out on you. Although both of which can be avoided by either changing your number plate in a garage, or changing your clothes, depending on which you are wanted for, the feature does add an extra element to the game because you have to keep a low profile while you’re being hunted.

In general there are not that many downsides to Mafia II. I think the biggest would have to be that the game doesn’t include a multiplayer, which I really think could be a big hit if the single player was anything to go by. The only other downside, which isn’t really a downside, more of an annoyance, is the amount of cut scenes in the game. Although the cut scenes are good and feature impressive graphics, they do tend to rely on them a little too much and in certain situations they can be a pain. For example, in one mission, I got out of bed, which is a little bit of a cut scene, I went to answer the phone (which normally doesn’t go to a cut scene) and it went to one, I then had to walk out of my house to the outdoors where I was greeted by yet another cut scene. It’s only in a couple of places in the game where I find that a little tedious.

In other large mapped games like Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead: Redemption or Assassins Creed, the environment either tends to be slightly rigid with not a lot of interaction, or the graphics are not up to what they should be because of such a vast environment to build. However, in Mafia II I think they have managed to avoid both of those problems by building a city that look absolutely stunning from every angle, plus with shops, buildings, vehicles and the city locals to interact with, you have such an exciting city to explore. Oh and while building the game, Take-Two left a few treats around in the form of collectible wanted posters (which are very hard to find) and some quite distracting PlayBoy magazines which are left lying around the city and hiding around the missions. Keep an eye out for them.

Summary

Overall Mafia II is a pretty darn good game. Although the game-play is very similar to Grand Theft Auto, just set in a different time period, I do think for the story and graphics, it does trump the GTA games. It’s very unfortunate that the game doesn’t contain a multiplayer because I think even if it was quite a basic free roam or something like that, it could extend the life of the game which for one run through of the storyline took just over 11 hours to do.

However, like I said before, because of the great game-play and storyline, I have started playing in through again and have enjoyed it just as much, if not more, than the first run through. Plus, with the announcement that the first DLC pack is being released on September 7th, I think I’ll be playing this game for a few more weeks.

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