Mafia II - PlayStation 3

Mafia II Review: Jump Into This Thing Of Ours

Matt Bertz — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 13:00:00 GMT

America’s fascination with the Mafia is long documented. For decades, films like The Godfather and television series like The Sopranos have basked in the world of the Italian organized crime syndicate. Its current and former members tout it as a closed community that operates on trust, respect, and glory. Never mind that in reality they backstab, double-cross, and rat each other out at a higher frequency than any of the Real Housewives reality shows. No video game franchise adheres more closely to this fractured dream of a romanticized criminal subculture than Mafia.

Set in the ‘40s and ‘50s, Mafia II is jam packed with familiar plot devices pulled from classic movies like Goodfellas and A Bronx Tale. In the fictional city of Empire Bay, three Italian crime families hold control over most of the criminal underground. While the old fashioned Dons stick to the time-tested rackets of gambling, running numbers, and boosting goods, more adventurous young upstarts start dabbling in get-rich-quick schemes involving narcotics. This creates a friction that could break the alliance and pit the families against one another. This is the backdrop for Vito Scaletta’s rise from street thug to wise guy.

Like a made guy dressed to the nines in a tailored suit, fedora, and a pair of Stacy Adams, Mafia II dresses the part. The new setting, Empire Bay, is a stunning recreation of a ‘40s and ‘50s American metropolis. From the war-time propaganda posters to the era-specific automobiles and radio tunes, Mafia II transports you to a time where American pride was at an all-time high, dames were called broads, and overt racism ran rampant through the segregated communities. The impressive attention to detail is most noticeable in the expertly crafted building interiors, which look like destructible sets pulled straight out of Mad Men.

Unlike Grand Theft Auto’s Liberty City, Empire Bay isn’t an open world playground overflowing with side quests and distractions. The world still feels like a living city, but Mafia II is a much more focused experience. You can buy new clothes, get your plates changed at the auto shop, and boost cars for cash, but that’s about the extent of your interaction with the city. The game is divided into story chapters, which allows the developers at 2K Czech to alter the weather, time, and city conditions in service of the missions. While explorative gamers may miss the freewheeling structure of games like GTA and Red Dead Redemption, those who never finish lengthy games will appreciate Mafia II’s direct storytelling.

The original Mafia stood out for its engaging missions, and the sequel follows suit. You still drive through the city for long stretches (this time without a clutch or constant harassment from traffic cops), but once you reach your destination the action unfolds in smartly scripted missions that feel different every time. These quests feature your standard blend of third-person shooting and driving sequences, with the occasional fistfight thrown in for good measure. The controls don’t depart drastically from genre conventions, though the finicky cover mechanic gave me troubles in tight quarters.

For Vito to become a made man, he must earn his stripes selling stolen cigarettes on the streets, robbing jewelry stores, burying dead bodies, and taking on dangerous infiltration and assassination missions. His best friend Joe is along for the ride most of the time, and their dialogue serves as a narrative lynchpin. Though Mafia II relies heavily on mobster clichés, the ending takes an interesting turn that gives the game its own identity.

If you’re a veteran of open world games, you should note that Mafia II is extremely easy on the normal difficulty. Turn it up a notch if you want more challenging gunfights. No matter what difficulty you choose, don’t expect at lot of interference from the clueless cops. When you break the law, the men in blue aren’t overly concerned with apprehending you – some give lazy chase, but shaking them is as easy as stepping on the gas in a fast car, making a u-turn in a busy intersection, or stopping until the cops get out of their cars and then flooring it. They’re even more ineffective when the guns come out. I “hid” behind a dumpster of a closed-off alley in front of a pile of several dead officers and lost my wanted rating despite several cops patrolling the area.

Mafia II suffers from some other minor annoyances as well. The game relies heavily on cutscenes, and sometimes doesn’t know when to draw the line between interacting with the world and triggering a cutscene. I shouldn’t take control of Vito as he wakes up only to jump immediately into another cutscene when I pick up the ringing phone. The NPC intelligence during missions is also troublesome. In one mission I had to tail a car to find out where it was headed, but the driver got into an accident and the mission failed.

In an era when video games are moving away from relying on cinematics for storytelling, Mafia II draws on the rich mobster film history to weave a gripping drama about family, friendship, loyalty, betrayal, and pragmatism. If you’re fond of quoting Don Corleone and Tony Soprano, don’t miss this game.

Hands-On With 2K's Impressive Open-World Gangster Game

Matt Bertz — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 01:36:00 GMT

Several open-world action games sprang up in the wake of Rockstar's innovative Grand Theft Auto III, but the original Mafia stood out from the pack with its unique sense of place and dedication to cinematic conventions. For the sequel, developer 2K Czech is taking its Hollywood approach to the next level, with quick cuts, stylish camera angles, and iconic mood music to enrich the experience. To get a further sense of how the project is coming together, I grabbed a controller and jumped into Mafia II's first hands-on demo.

For those of you unfamiliar, Mafia II chronicles the life of Vito Scaletta, a World War II vet who returns from the war to find his mother and sister struggling to make ends meet. While Vito was diving in fox holes across Europe, his deadbeat dad racked up a sizable debt to a bookie and unexpectedly kicked the bucket before he had the chance to balance his checkbook. Not the sort to excuse a death in the family, the cutthroat loan shark demands that the family ponies up the cash. To bail out the fam, Vito and his buddy Joe Barbaro turn to petty crime. Their gift for grifting does not go unnoticed, and suddenly the duo is climbing the ranks of an Empire Bay crime family.

The first hands-on demo of Mafia II drops us into a mission called “Wild Ones,” which takes place well into Vito's criminal career. The session begins with Vito standing in his skivvies, reading a note left by Joe on the kitchen table. Joe's apartment is your typical rundown urban tenement, with the only distinguishing feature being the collection titillating pin-up posters on the wall and a red bra on the unmade bed. Joe is nothing if not sure of his sexuality. The note explains they have another job that afternoon, and instructs Vito to meet Joe at a nearby parking lot. Before heading out the door, I open the wardrobe and select Vito's attire for the day – a leather jacket. Leaving the building, I make may way around the corner to the garage.

From the fedora-donning wise guys loitering on the streets to the advertisements for booze, smokes, and baseball plastered on every wall, Mafia II delivers an unmistakable sense of place and time. Though Empire Bay is a fictitious amalgam of east coast cities, the buildings, gas stations, signage, and citizens are pulled straight out of 1950s Americana. Opening the garage further confirms the Fonzie-friendly setting, as each of the three rides I have to chose from would be right at home on Happy Days. I hop in a sleek convertible and hit the road with early-era rock and roll blasting from the speakers.

Like other open world games, the route to my destination is outlined on a GPS map in the lower right-hand corner of the screen. The car feels a lot stiffer than your typical Grand Theft Auto vehicle, so when navigating tight turns or passing between two cars, I find it best to drive much slower than I normally would. As I pull up, a quick jump cut brings me straight into a cutscene. Joe is stationed next to a cargo truck full of cigarettes in a parking lot. He says Eddie (the duo's higher up) came across the cartons and wants them moved. After we make a few sales to mopes on the street for two bucks a carton, a caravan of hot rods pulls up next to the truck. A greaser dressed in the standard jeans-and-leather-jacket attire confidently steps up to Joe and tells him that this is their turf. If we want to operate in the area, we'll need to cough up some cash and cigarettes. Not one to be strong-armed out of his goods, Joe politely tells him to scram, but the slick-haired goon doesn't step down. He signals his henchmen circling the truck in a car, and out flies a Molotov cocktail that sets our cartons of smokes aflame. Joe is not pleased; without saying another word, he draws his gun and shoots the unsuspecting tough guy in the forehead, hardly blinking an eye. We jump in a car to chase the remaining greasers, but they're long gone by the time we hit the road.

With the cigarettes burned to cinders and the cargo truck in shambles, we have to report the bad news to Eddie. Finding the nearest pay phone, we ring him up and prepare for the worst. After an expletive-laced rant chronicling the myriad ways we failed him, Eddie instructs us to meet up with his shakedown artists at a greaser hangout to set things straight. To do good by the boss man, we have to come up with the $2,000 reimbursement, and be discreet in getting revenge.

Build A Mafia Empire In 2K Games' Anticipated Sequel

Matt Bertz — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:17:00 GMT

Critics showered accolades upon Mafia for its intricately detailed missions, but the sparse open world failed to captivate gamers in the same way as other sandbox games like Grand Theft Auto and Saints Row. For the sequel, 2K Games and its Eastern Europe-based developer 2K Czech (formerly Illusion Softworks) are focused on crafting a more engaging world. The 1940s era metropolis Empire Bay eschews the barren city streets of its predecessor in favor of a more active populace, dynamic police patrols, and several side missions that branch from the overarching narrative of Vito’s rise from petty criminal to made man. Like AMC’s hit drama Mad Men, Mafia II transports you back to another era, with authentic cars, clothing, and music that change with the years as the story progresses into the 1950s.

Running From the Fuzz

Any two-bit thug can pull a heist or commit a crime in broad daylight. The tricky part is evading the inevitable police pursuit. In Mafia II, 2K Czech tapped a unique resource when designing the police intelligence — common sense.

Unlike other open world games that require you to evade police Pac-Man style or take down the squad cars on your tail, Mafia II employs a philosophy that adheres much closer to reality. If the cops don’t see you commit the crime and there are no witnesses, the men in blue are less likely to begin a citywide manhunt. If they do begin pursuit after a bigger crime, it’s much easier to lose them by skillfully evading the cars and diving into a darkened alley before they have the chance to turn the corner on you.

“Mafia II is set in the 1940s and ‘50s, so we want the police to be period-authentic,” says 2K Games producer Alex Cox. “Police back then didn’t have the same tools as modern cops. So, if you dive unseen down a back alley you’ll quickly lose the heat…unless the cops noted your license plate, of course.”

Just because you’ve evaded the cherries in your rearview mirror doesn’t mean everything is back to normal. Police will dispatch a warning to all nearby cars detailing your make, model, and car color. The only way to lose the heat on that car is to ditch it for another or get one of your associates to change the plates or repaint your vehicle. Cops also take note of Vito’s outfit if he commits a crime on the streets, which necessitates a change of clothes so you don’t match the description being sent across the wire.

Put Up Your Dukes

While Vito gets in his share of gunfights, he’s also not averse to throwing the occasional punch.

“The melee combat is very much inspired by street fighting,” says 2K Games producer Alex Cox. “The guys we are dealing with are street thugs, not kung-fu masters.”

Rather than develop a complicated combat system with myriad combinations, 2K chose to focus on the visceral experience. The control layout sticks to the basic two attack buttons and a dodge button, but 2K created a pool of over 200 individual animations to choose from during battles to keep the combat interesting. Players can string together combinations with the two buttons, or enlist the help of the environment. Characters throw each other into tables, lean on objects while falling, and grab dynamic objects to use as weapons for ultraviolent finishing moves.

“It’s pretty awesome to drag an enemy out of his car then beat him unconscious against the front grill,” says Cox. “Actions like this have a great mobster feel to them.”

Expanding the Narrative

Vito’s journey from small-time thug to Mafioso features twists and turns on par with classic mobster flicks, but developer 2K Czech knows a strong narrative isn’t enough to carry an open world game. In between missions, Vito will come across optional side quests. Secondary missions branch from the main storyline to reveal more information about key characters and lead you to less-frequented corners of the city. “The best way of thinking about how the subquests work is like an extended cut of a movie – bonus enjoyment for people that want to delve deeper, but it won’t spoil the main game if you choose not to do them,” says 2K Games producer Alex Cox.

To give an example, 2K shares a scene that starts with a lady of ill repute putting her clothes on in Vito’s apartment after an assumed romp in the sack. Vito and the girl both leave the apartment, but as she drives off he witnesses her car get rear-ended. The situation quickly escalates, and the angry driver starts getting rough with her. It’s up to you to step in and save the lady of the night or neglect the situation altogether.
Vito can also do favors for mobsters, which reward him with extra money to spend on new cars, clothes, and weapons.