I’ll admit I didn’t know a lot about Mafia II until I started writing my article on my top 5 most anticipated games but after reading a bit about it and playing the recently released demo I can firmly say that I’m rather impressed with 2K’s take on the open world genre.
The first thing I noticed is the fact that the police in this game are relentless. There isn’t a circle around you like in GTA when you’re trying to escape the police, you actually have to hide to get away from them. They are also much more aggressive and it’s somewhat harder to get away from the police in the boat like cars of the 1950s.
I was immediately impressed with the games graphics and character models. They seem slightly more detailed than Grand Theft Auto 4′s and the in game characters seem a little more life like. However I noticed a little tearing when driving or running at high speeds, it was rather distracting and annoying but this is just a demo build so perhaps this issue will be gone from the final version. I was also playing it on the Xbox 360 so I can’t really speak for the PS3 version, maybe this issue doesn’t exist over in Sony land.
You only have 10 minutes to drive around the open world level, which was kind of disappointing but it definitely was enough time to get a taste for what the game will actually play like. The level featured in the demo was pretty exciting and made good use of showing off the games very destructible environments. Boxes go flying, glass breaks in a very realistic manner and you can actually shoot through certain objects. This added another level to the games on foot run and gun portion featured in the demo.
The game follows Vito Scalleta a would be gangster that wants to become a made man in the Italian Mafia. The phone rings and you meet up with another fellow mobster and storm a warehouse in a very violent fashion. The level is very exciting and definitely shows off the game in a very positive light. It also ends on a cliffhanger, Vito is surrounded by the police with seemingly no escape.
I’d need to see a little more of the game before I actually decide to pick it up but from what I’ve played it looks like it will be a great time. The 1950s is an interesting take on the open world formula and Mafia II definitely seems like it’s done an authentic job recreating the era. I haven’t played an open world game that feels this fresh since the mostly overlooked The Saboteur.
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There’s a lot I don’t like about the game:
1. As a PC game the graphics are pretty simple.
2. NPC reactions seem extraordinarily fake.
Ok 2 things. I’ll probably buy it.
@ Paul
I kind of like the NPC reactions, I hated the reaction they gave to gunshots though, they seemed rather exaggerated.
Generally I was pleasantly surprised with the game.