Mafia III

Before I get in to the main review, let me just grab your attention with this: YOU CAN GROW AND SELL WEED! And create your own strains. EPIC!

This game is unjustly maligned and seriously underrated. Though 2K did get a smidge political and overly racial, the fundamentals of the game are just too strong to ignore. I highly encourage you to enjoy this phenomenal game.

Hangar 13 deserves so much credit for the functionality and rich gameplay Mafia III provides.

This game has it all: Clean, incredibly realistic sounding gunfire. Strong, reactive hand-to-hand combat complimented by gruesome finishers and chilling stealth kills. An efficient and well designed weapon wheel with very unique "summon" options for your weapons dealer, cash handler, and car delivery services. I could go on for a while!

Though this game has an invigorating main storyline, the beginning is quite dark and abrasive. It gets a little heavy, but the payoff is well worth the weight of the plot. Vengeance is sweet!

The vehicles were so beautifully designed, and the driving is as fulfilling as I've ever experienced. Perfect engine, and tire sound replication.

Give this game a chance. You'll be glad you did.

Greetings from Lithuania.

I picked up "Mafia" III (2016) for free as a PS plus free give away. After playing trough the half of the story i eventually quit it. That happens for me ultra rare. Why? Because "Mafia" III is one of the most disappointing game i have ever played - at the end of day.

"Mafia" III has to be the most repetitive game ever. First i enjoyed it. Shooting mechanics in this game are great. The sound when bullets hits your target, head shots - it done great. Other and the last good thing about this game is driving mechanics, i really enjoyed it. Other then that, there is nothing in this game that would make you to come back to it. Every single mission (literally, well except one where you have to box someone inside of the ring) is a copy/paste of previous one. All of the side missions are copy/paste. Literally. Outside of the main story which is kinda OK and side quests which are as boring as hell, there is absolutely nothing to do in this open world. It feels dead and empty, and it is dead and empty. There are glitches as well.

Overall, even for free i couldn't finish Mafia III. Its the most repetitive and boring game i have probably ever played.

The story and soundtrack are really good, but graphic ( for 2016 ) and optimization are not so much. It's not better than Mafia 2, but it's a good game.

As always, I will review this game from the story and cinematography point of view. But first let's talk about the gameplay. It's extremely repetitive but a lot of games are. Hell, all games are repetitive. you just do the same thing over and over until it's over. But the variety of tasks is bigger and you don't feel it.

In this game, there are only 2 things to do: driving and shooting and all missions are a combination of these 2 things. That can be a problem as there aren't a lot of combinations you can make from only 2 things. The shooting is great and the driving the best in open world games but I guess only 2 really good things without any context can create a repetitive experience.

The first few hours before you are let on your own to do the same things over and over again create a really good context for the story. Lincoln Clay returned from Vietnam gets involved with the mob in New Bordeaux and well, if you don't know, don't look for more, just play the opening hours, these are really, really good.

But after that, the story becomes so simplistic that could have been told in only one mission and that is the disappointing part of the game. There's not enough to justify just wondering through the city for the next 20 hours (I took my time because of the driving)

All in all, I enjoyed the story (beginning and ending, as there's nothing in the middle) but I didn't find it as offensive as the developer said. Instead of being repulsed of how the NPC react to my character (it was not easy to be a black man in the 60s), I was pleasantly surprised to hear a lot of characters being nice to me and greet me on the streets. A change of tone from the normal open world game where everyone swears at you and makes you an idiot for driving on the wrong side of the road.

Mafia III is a game that is a great in some departments, good in most departments but also bad in other departments.

First the positives, 'Mafia III' has to me the greatest soundtrack of any video game I've ever played, and this is epitomised in the radio, I often found myself enjoying playing the game the most just driving and listening to the radio. The game has a good story and a great story telling technique (doing it through a documentary), the gameplay was also good and I found all the characters tolerable and some I genuinely liked (Lincoln and John Donovan).

Now for the negatives, 'Mafia III' biggest problem is it's repetitive nature, often when playing the game you have to figure out ways to keep yourself engaged in the story, and towards the end almost force yourself to take over the last couple territories. However I feel another problem I have with this game is the ending, I don't like the choice aspect of the ending as I think a lack of a definitive ending diminishes the story.

In conclusion, 'Mafia III' is a fun game at times, with a good story, decent characters and amazing music, and in its best moments is a genuine great game but at its worst moments it becomes a bit of a chore.

Rating [7/10]