Mafia II Review

Any open world sandbox game faces stiff competition in what has become a popular, but crowded genre. With titles like Grand Theft Auto IV, Saints Row 2, Red Dead Redemption and Crackdown all selling extremely well, it must be an intimidating prospect for developers to enter into competition with some serious gaming heavyweights. Does Mafia II impress and can we get through this review without exploiting any gangster quotes?

Mafia II acts as a successor to the largely forgotten and generally underappreciated 2002 PC title, Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven. While there are a few clever nods to the preceding game, this sequel follows a new group of characters in a different setting: Empire Bay. Mafia II focuses on Vito Scaletta as he works his way from a tough immigrant background to the ranks of one of the world's most famous criminal organisation. Taking place during the 1940s and early 1950s, the game takes an unusual step of moving forward in time in small jumps in time with certain narrative events. This is a particularly nice touch as it leads to both the characters and Empire Bay changing in the post-war era, a feature which is rarely used in games.

It's clear that developers 2K Czech have put a lot of work into the plot in an attempt to steer it away from typical gangster film clichés. In some ways they are successful, with the story covering a lot of ground with a few really unusual missions and locations that definitely keep your interest. The characters themselves though are far more familiar, with the usual selection of enforcers, boss-figures and crooked accountants feeling like a best-of compilation of Hollywood crime films. However, this is by no means a criticism and some well-judged voice acting from a strong cast helps to lend real life to these figures.

Empire Bay is a very impressive and immersive game world, creating a lifelike and believable backdrop to the story. It's a location which has been carefully researched, with the architecture, vehicles and fashions bringing to mind classic black and white photographs of the time. In-game radio stations also play authentic licensed period music which changes as the narrative progresses, alongside the world around it. In some ways the setting feels like a story of its own, making it the perfect location for Vito's violent quest for wealth and status. Technically, Mafia II impresses with some excellent visuals and a host of realistic weather effects. Generally the character animations are fluid and lifelike, with some occasional exceptions that appear jarringly odd in an otherwise credible environment.

However, while Mafia II has a great environment and engaging plot the gameplay is much less remarkable. Split very clearly into driving, shooting or driving and shooting there is very little else on offer. The driving is fairly satisfying with cars having initially challenging, but realistic, handling. Each vehicle does feel different to drive and there is a healthy variety of transport on offer, from muscle cars and hotrods to milk trucks and flatbeds.

Empire Bay's police are both aggressive and temperamental and flouting the Highway Code usually results with them hot on your tail. As such it is often easier to drive slowly and carefully, obeying the traffic signals and not smashing that incredibly annoying slow, old driver off the road to their death. It's an unusual feeling, obeying the law, but considering most of your criminal actions need to remain silent it does make sense. Yet, it's not terribly empowering to have a brutal killer as a passenger moaning at you for running a red light.

Inevitably there will be times where you'll be pursued by the police and losing them is initially a bit of a daunting task. As long as you're in sight of the cops, they'll actively pursue you as well as submitting your vehicle registration and a description of your clothes to their colleagues. This means you'll usually have to outrun your pursuers until you can reach a garage that will change your vehicle's number plate and colour. It will also be necessary to get to a clothes shop to acquire a different outfit. Thankfully the system judges the severity of your crime, so if your offence is a minor misdemeanour you can usually merely outrun the law and prevent any further repercussions.

Alongside the game's driving gameplay is a cover-based third-person shooter, which will form the bulk of the missions. It's a system that will be immediately familiar to action gamers and it works no differently in Mafia II than any of its competition. A context-sensitive cover button will lock you to the nearest wall or object, before the tap of another button will allow you to lean out and fire. It is a solid system and works well enough, although the lack of a blind-fire button can get a little frustrating on the harder difficulties especially when you find yourself being rushed by a shotgun wielding henchmen. The regenerating health system is also fairly standard, meaning you'll be spending a lot of time in cover waiting to pop out again.

In addition to the third-person shooting, there are fairly frequent fist-fights which use a very simple interface. With only three buttons, one for light attacks, another for heavy and the final for blocking, it's like a toned-down fighting game. The camera can irritate during these encounters when you frequently find your opponent obscured by Vito's body as you circle one another. Similarly, these encounters are made very easy by simply holding down block at all times, before landing one punch at a time. It's time consuming, but seems the most effective way to take out your enemies. The only other variation is a few stealthy sections of missions which are never challenging and are too short to make much impact.

The biggest disappointment about Mafia II is the lack of activities to occupy you. In virtually every other recent sandbox game, you're presented with dozens of side-quests, hidden missions and mini-games. However, that's not the case here, you have the 15 missions the game gives you and two sets of collectables hidden around Empire Bay and that's it. It's a real letdown to discover that this vibrant setting has nothing to occupy you beyond the missions. Similarly, the limited gameplay types mean that each level is similar and towards the end of the title, a nagging feel of repetition creeps in.

Despite the pull of the story, the progression of the narrative also leads to a rather dull and monotonous opening. As Vito is a lowly hoodlum to begin with, the early missions are all very menial involve tasks as dull as handing out cigarettes to customers, driving people to destinations and back-alley scuffles. Thankfully later on in the game, the missions really pick up and become far more epic in proportion. However, even here most levels involve you having to drive people back and forth from location to location, which begins to grate after 15 missions. Another potential misstep is setting the opening levels of the title in icy conditions, making the driving difficult, which when combined with these rather tedious early missions, might be enough to put some people off.

Mafia II is by no means a bad game; in fact it's a solid, well-rounded title. However, the limited range of activities to engage in and the somewhat repetitive nature of these tasks hold it back. The story and environment are worth experiencing, but there's very little replay value in a game that is essentially 15 missions and very little else. So if you're looking for a purely single-player experience with some nice ideas, then Mafia II will provide something to entertain you. Yet there are so many other sandbox games out there that come with fewer criticisms to recommend above this title, which is a real shame given the amount of effort that clearly have gone into developing this long-awaited sequel. As such, Mafia II struggles at making you an offer you can't refuse: and to think, we almost made it to the end without saying that.