Mafia II

The chronic oversaturation of the mafia in our international media has taught us much. Mafia II is an attempt to chronicle these teachings in game form. Fact number one: mafia men do lots of killing. Fact number two: they like suits. Fact number three: mafiosa don't call each other mafiosa; they use the term 'wiseguys'.

I've cross-referenced facts one and two with Mafia II, and they're definitely right – a lot of killing and a lot of suits. Fact number three isn't. 'Wiseguys', with its implied streetsmarts and cunning, doesn't fit Mafia II's mobsters. It certainly doesn't fit the mid-level gangster the game asked me to tail early in its middle act, who didn't have the presence of mind to check his rearview mirror as he drove away from a literal hatchet job. Had that guy done so, he'd have seen Sicilian-born WWII veteran and new-boy mobster Vito Scaletta about 20 feet behind, dressed in a red and white cod- Hawaiian shirt, driving a hot pink corvette with 'BUMS12' proudly displayed on the numberplate. That guy was not very wise.

Wise up

The other guy was me, and I was trying to be too wise. As Mafia II's protagonist, my first attempt to trail the escaping mobster ended in failure after my original car choice – an inconspicuous '50s saloon – was outpaced with ease on the motorways. I only chose that car, snatched unattended with a bit of pavement minigame lockpicking, to satisfy the mission briefing, which said my mark would notice anything too obvious. Dutifully I wrested against the vehicle's slightly clunky era-specific handling to try and keep pace. But after my AI target had pranged his own vehicle six times against anything and everything in his path, I realised that such forwardthinking wiseguyishness wasn't entirely necessary on my part.

That Mafia II so effectively harpoons its illusion of real life, showing its characters to be machines acting out prescribed paths, is to its detriment. But the fact that I bought into it in the first place is the game's greatest strength.

It's not that Vito is a sympathetic character. Returning from a war he held no moral stake in – after a botched robbery, it was that or prison – he joins the local mafia, even though his mum told him not to. Naughty. From there on, he relies upon menace through the typical mafioso triple-threat: punching, shooting, and scary staring. Best buddy Joe occasionally dips a toe into 'comic relief' territory, but then ducks back into 'just a bit nasty' land, gets his pistol and shoots everyone in comic relief territory. Those poor clowns.

City of dreams

It was the city that drew me in. An amalgamation of New York's streets and Hollywood's hills, Empire Bay is as interactively sterile as all other 'open-world' game-cities, but it's been coated in a veneer of dreamy credibility. Each street and hallway has a feature – a man shouting at an open window; a woman pressing her ear to a door; the sound of an argument. It's easy to see these details written down in a design document, but it gives Empire Bay a genuine rhythm, a pulse that Liberty City lacks. Plus, it helps that it is – on hefty machines – stunning. Turn up in the city in winter, and the streets are caked in snow, with layered bands of crystalline white on the untrodden paths contrasting with slush on the roads. And the lights! Even as the game transitions out of the 1940s and into the '50s, Mafia II's waxy lighting remains consistently arresting, casting pools of gold and yellow on windscreens.

But there's no point to any of it. The city breathes and grows, changing as the missions span the years, but it never moves or cries out. The game is presented in chapters, and each chapter has you wake up in your home. Vito, I can inform you, is a man who sleeps in the same vest and pants for nine years. Before the poor, smelly bugger can even get dressed, he's hit with news and a job. The game forces you to drive to a location: once there, Vito either shoots some men, punches some men or drives to another location.

Incidental chaos

Unless you make your own fun, that is. I enjoyed people-watching in a city where every pedestrian and car driver has the situational awareness of a frightened rabbit. Drive near one of the AI humans on foot and their preset reactions kick in, launching them in a seemingly random direction. Sometimes, this would be toward safety; more regularly, they'd hurl themselves into speeding traffic.

Having a woman – a few moments earlier happily strolling down a sunny street – chuck herself in front of a nearby van is certainly a surprise. Having that van then swerve to try to avoid her and plough through another three pedestrians is brilliant. Having that van then be spotted by a police car, having those police open fire before getting squished by the panicky, blood-leaking van driver, is better than another cover- shooting 'kill 50 goons' story mission.

Mafia II is a mafia movie run once through a game grinder, and that's simultaneously the worst thing about the game and the compliment it was developed for. In telling a story as convincing as most Hollywood depictions of the Cosa Nostra, 2K Czech have accomplished exactly what they intended to: only at the end does the artifice topple slightly, piling one too many game-cliché mass-battles onto the pile. But detach the story from its very familiar housings, and we're not left with much: a bit of walking, a lot of driving and too much shooting. Each is good, but rarely superb.

I'm not just played this game,I lived with this game!!!

Lasted the rest of time gameplay a little clunky now but a fantastic story and left you wishing there was much much more! With some finely polished gameplay up to date with newer systems this could have been perfect.

The story and the setting of the game is great. I loved this game the first time I played it as it was my favourite out of all three of the Mafia series. It's great progression of Vito (the main protagonist) into the crime families was really well told. The world was a nice background of the setting of what looked like New York with fantastic soundtrack of its time. The game is not an open world game so do not expect to have much more to it rather than doing mission after mission, you can still roam the world but not do much in it. The car and police gameplay is really realistic and top notched. The game had not aged well as the game play was a bit clunky the second time I played it, thankfully a remastered version came out a while ago, so the game play has been improved and holds up better to the standards nowadays. I think everyone should experience this classic of a game especially if you like the setting of the mafia in America late 20th century (well in this case middle 20th)

Mafia 2 is an epic game with tons of fun. It is mainly set after world war 2. Vito Scaletta our main protagonist comes home after world war 2 and gets involved in the mafia business of New York City.

The greatest thing about this game is its story. The story is beautifully written and it has a lot of humor in it as well. The Chemistry between Vito and Joe is funny and satisfying. It has other likable characters such as Henry and Leo Galante. The story has some twists and turns which are quite decent. Some part of its story is kind of a slog and the main story is kinda short.

Gameplay-wise mafia 2 is fine. With some weapons and it has much hand-to-hand combat and the destructive environment physics is wonderful being released in 2010.

The number of songs that you can listen to is incredible as well and the voice acting is top-notch.

The downside is that there isn't much to do around and you can get bored and there is a lot of driving as well and mainly it is a kinda short game. There are Some glitches as well but overall it is a great game considering its well-written humorous dialogues and characters and nice developing story which a little bit connects to Mafia 1.