Mafia II Review

MAFIA II REVIEW

Ever wondered, how being in the Mafia would make you feel? Ever felt the feeling of being betrayed or the tension of acting outside the commandments of the family in which you have a place? Mafia II will deliver you just those feelings.

Set in the 1940s – early 1950s era of Empire Bay, a fictional recreation of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston and Detroit, the game starts with the protagonist Vito Scaletta, looking at an old photo album of his and narrating his story in a voice over. Vito was born in 1925 to a poor family in Sicily, who immigrates a few years later to Empire Bay, which turns their situation even worse. Growing up, Vito befriends a local criminal named Joe Barbara, with whom Vito pulls of Robberies and other crimes. One day Vito gets caught during a heist and is given a choice, to go to jail or join the army. He chooses the latter. He becomes a part of the troop that helps liberate Sicily during Operation Husky in the World War II, where he is shot and send home on leave. He also learns that his father had a lot of debts before he died. Joe helps Vito get discharged through his Mafia connections and helps Vito become a member of one of the Mafia families. Life after that turns out to be deadly for Vito and the people around him.

The game features many good things. There are about 30-40 vehicles in the game and they all have their own unique tight handling (because they’re all vintage cars). The game gives you the right feeling of a 1940s city.  The players can interact with everything in the environment in two ways, for example, when interacting with a car, two buttons map to two different actions. The violent action makes Vito break the car’s window and enter it while the silent action makes Vito pick the lock. The guns are amazing. The full power and weight of each gunshot is displayed in the damage caused. Player’s can refuel their cars when they run out of gas too. That’s sick!!

The graphics are awesome as well. For a game released in 2007 and using the ever so amazing PhysX, the game looks and feels like the best Vintage themed Mafia game. Cloth fluttering feels very realistic and is one of the reasons why I love PhysX. The character animations are also very detailed. The rain feels good but not very wet, I mean, usually you would feel the character behave differently when it rains, but in this game, it didn’t appeal much to me. But I must say, the game does LOOK awesome!!!

The story was not the best written Mafia story I’ve read or played. There are characters that are simply put there just for the sake of adding a mission and some are there who have no connection to anything in the game. There are some loops where you have to start from scratch again which makes it annoying and also not many characters are memorable. The story was the only thing that made the game a tiny bit less exciting. But it’s not all that bad for every gamer, you might find it different.

Genre Rating: Third Person shooter, Action-adventure

Third person shooter: 8.5/10

Action-Adventure: 9/10

MY Overall Rating: 8.8/10

So to wrap it all up, this is a game that you definitely have to add to your “Played” list. It offered a wonderful experience to me and I’ve played it 2 to 3 times already. One of the best Mafia games out there!

These words are based on my opinions. Others may have different feelings about the game but these are the things that I felt while playing the game. Mafia II, go for it!