Mafia II review (Xbox 360, PS3, PC)
Mafia II does a good job of recreating the spirit of 1950s America, but a number of problems means it is a game that you can refuse.
The great pity is that developers 2K Czech seem to put a lot of thought into everything but the game-play itself.
In Empire City (ie New York), they have brilliantly recreated a snowy war time America and, later, the booming 50s.
The graphics are superb, with the headlight effects while driving at night time particularly impressive.
While in the car, you can listen to three radio stations, which play the great music of the era, interrupted by updates on how the war effort is going.
Everything feels right - the atmosphere it evoked made me want to jump in a time machine and head right back to what was a golden era.
However, the gameplay simply does not live up to this high standard.
Missions are run of the mill, the usual drive to point A, then point B, have a shoot-out, then evade the cops.
Gun-play is okay, with a decent cover mechanism, but the guns feel far too weak (it can take several hits to topple a bad guy), while the lack of an automatic aiming system can make things frustrating.
Meanwhile hand-to-hand combat is terrible. You can never get hit so long as you keep your finger on the evade button, and the counter punch mechanism makes every fight a doddle.
Mafia II seems like it was rushed out a few months too early - it has plenty of unfinished business.
For example, it was only late on in the game that I discovered that cars can run out of fuel and need to be filled up at a gas station, yet this only happened to me once in the entire game.
Perhaps the developers were originally planning to make this an integral part of the game but then ditched the idea to save time as their deadline loomed?
There is also little reason to explore the wonders of Empire City within the linear, mission based gameplay, which is a great shame.
And the game only takes around 12 hours to complete, with the legion of cut scenes taking up at least an hour of this time (there is little replay value unless you are lonely enough to want to collect all the Playboy covers dotted around the city).
Overall, Mafia II seems like a missed opportunity.
It is not terrible and can actually be quite entertaining at times, offering enough to make you want to complete the well presented story about an Italian American trying to make his way in the unforgiving world of the Mafia.
But when compared with other sandbox games like the brilliant Red Dead Redemption (which has 30 hours plus of pure gunslinging joy), Mafia II is certainly one to rent rather than buy.
Version reviewed: Xbox 360
Console Corner score: 7/10.
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Aylesbury
Saturday 04 February 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: -1 C to 2 C
Wind Speed: 16 mph
Wind direction: South
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: -0 C to 3 C
Wind Speed: 9 mph
Wind direction: West
