Mafia II casts you as Vito Scaletta, a young Italian who returns from World War II to find his mother and sister on the hook to a loan shark. Like any gangster in a gangster movie, Vito decides he doesn't want a subpar life of the slums and goes down the organized crime route to make some cash. You'll be with Vito as he whacks dudes, steals cars and tries on all sorts of snazzy outfits.
All of this is going on in Empire Bay, a New York-esque town packed with people, cops, cars and collectable Playboy magazines. Now, at first glance, Empire Bay looks like an open world – one teeming with missions and quests for you to take Vito on. It isn't. You'll have one mission at any time and it's always one that drives the story forward. All the icons on the map – clothing stores, gun stores, and so on – are just ways to enhance that mission. Outgunned and dying a lot? Buy better weapons after restarting. Cops on your tail? Go pay to have the license plate changed on your ride. You're not going to wander around the streets of Mafia II picking up odd jobs and meeting strangers; this is a world built around the missions you're doing.
Is this a bad thing? Of course not – it's just something worth pointing out, seeing as it'd be easy to look at this game and think there are hours of freedom in it. Problem is, because there's only the task at hand in Empire Bay, the place feels awkwardly empty – it doesn't feel alive. You cruise the streets and see other people and cars, but it feels like The Truman Show. Everything is happening because of you. There isn't that "a-ha" moment seen in other games where you realize there's stuff going on in these massive metropolises. Empire Bay is like an empty playset, and that hurts the believability of being Vito's world.
That's a shame, because what I dig about Mafia II is its story and the way it's told. I love gangster movies such as Goodfellas and Public Enemies, so watching the exploits of Vito and his best friend, Joe, as they go from job to job, party with the ladies, and put the screws to people is an enjoyable experience. On top of that, Mafia II uses some cinematic tricks to really up the production value on the cutscenes. There are over-the-shoulder angles you don't normally see and little touches that make the movies visually entertaining.
Trouble is, the story is the most entertaining part of the game. I felt like everything between the cutscenes, which usually is shooting or punching people, was just something to get through to reach the next story bit. The mechanics of Mafia II are pretty much those of a basic third-person shooter. You have a bunch of guns, you take cover, and you kill all the bad guys so that you can move on. You can try to deviate from this strategy and get creative, but you'll be blow away in a few seconds. Mafia II pretty much demands that you crouch behind boxes, pop out to shoot, and then go back to hiding so you can regain health. The cover system doesn't get sticky, which is nice, but there were plenty of times that I thought I was totally protected but continued taking damage – especially when I ran into a fire-tossing boss.
Mafia II is an interesting mobster tale with some great voice acting and cool cutscenes; if you have a “made man” itch, feel free to scratch it here, but be prepared for a pretty standard third-person shooter in the gameplay department. The “take cover, kill everyone, do it again” mechanic didn’t wow me, but it didn’t let me down either.
Mafia II is a solid little game that’ll give you a fun ride – just don’t expect the world.
Mafia II is a solid little game that’ll give you a fun ride – just don’t expect the world.
DE-TECH-TIVES RATING
