Mafia II Review (PS3 [Reviewed], Xbox 360, PC)
Developer: 2K Czech
Publisher: 2K Games
Released: August 24, 2010
ESRB: M – Mature

Mafia II is a linear, story-driven third person shooter that happens to have a pretty big city as its backdrop. If you go in expecting Grand Theft Auto or Red Dead Redemption, you’re going to be disappointed. The city of Empire Bay is open for exploration and you’ll spend a decent amount of time driving through it, but there isn’t much to actually do out there. You can browse clothing stores, gun shops, diners, and gas stations, spend a little cash or rob the place, and that’s about it. There are no side missions. The world is set dressing, not a playground.

What you will spend the bulk of your time doing is driving from one story mission to the next, and to 2K Czech’s credit, they do a good job of keeping those missions varied. Most sequences involve arriving somewhere and either fighting your way out or fighting your way in, but there are enough surprise set pieces and one-off jobs scattered through the fifteen chapters to keep things from feeling repetitive. There are stealth elements in certain situations, a handful of timed missions that create genuine tension, and enough variety in how the story is delivered that the campaign rarely feels like it’s on autopilot.

The melee combat is the weak link. You’ll be forced into fistfights fairly regularly and it’s mediocre at best, feeling sluggish and imprecise compared to the shooting, which is handled well. It’s clearly there to break up the gunplay but it never feels like it belongs in the same game.

What elevates Mafia II above standard third person shooter territory is the story, and it’s a genuinely great one. The writing is sharp, the voice work is excellent, and the mob drama that unfolds across the game’s fifteen chapters is compelling enough that you’ll want to push through missions just to see what happens next. In a strange way, the lack of side content actually works in the game’s favor here. Nothing gets between you and the narrative, and for a game that lives and dies on its story, that’s the right call.

The attention to detail throughout is impressive. Toilets flush, lights switch off, faucets run. Vehicles get dirty and can be taken through a car wash, and watching the machine kick on the first time you pull in is one of those small moments that sticks with you. The vehicles themselves can be customized with paint jobs, new rims, and tune ups, and they take damage realistically. The period-accurate radio soundtrack, complete with news reports and advertisements between songs, makes cruising around Empire Bay genuinely enjoyable even when there’s nothing out there to do.

The realism has its limits though. The cops will pull you over for speeding or clipping another vehicle, but you can run red lights, drive into oncoming traffic, and blow through stop signs all day without consequence. Your partner will comment when you run a light, but since there’s no penalty for doing it the game essentially winks at you and moves on. It’s a strange inconsistency in a game that otherwise sweats the small stuff.

The biggest problem with Mafia II on PS3 is the freezing. Every game freezes occasionally, that’s just life. But Mafia II froze on me four or five times across an eleven hour playthrough, including once during the final shootout of the last mission, which is about as bad as timing gets. I can’t speak to whether the 360 or PC versions have the same issue, but on PS3 it’s frequent enough to be a real problem.

The ending is also a letdown. Without getting into specifics, it’s abrupt in a way that feels unearned given the investment the story asks of you. It’s the kind of ending that leaves you sitting there wondering if something went wrong rather than feeling satisfied with what you just played through.

Overall, Mafia II is a standard third person shooter with an excellent story, despite the lackluster ending. The controls are usually good, some sticky spots cause some frustration, but the shooting combat and driving is handled really well.

Ultimately though, Mafia 2 does not to set itself above the pack, which combined with the fact that there’s nothing to do in the city outside of the story, and no multiple paths to take, the game has very little replay value (playing through the DLC once excluded).

If you’re a fan of great stories in games, good combat, and the idea of an open-world set in the 1940s-1950s America, then you’ll want to experience Mafia II once and then you probably won’t care to touch it again as there are much better genre games on the market with a lot more to offer.

Mafia II gets a three out of five: SUBSTANTIAL.

If you enjoy this one, you might also like to check out Sandman’s review of Sleeping Dogs or my review of L.A. Noire, both open world PS3 gems. Or click here to check out more game reviews. If you’re in the mood to find a movie to watch, you might be interested in William’s review of Casino.

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