I heard glowing reviews of this game, so I got a hold of it during this vacation. It's engine runs jerky fully maxed out, for no reason, it looks worse then many other games I run maxed out and still have 50fps+ on. The physics engine is the major killer, so I took out all the clothing effects on everyone but Vito and tacked about 20 fps back onto my total.

The driving and handling of the cars... I can't honestly say I've seen much worse in any other game. And when, up to chapter 9 where I am, every mission involves driving around for 10 minutes +/- it's just stupid to have a system this horribad. Toss in cops up your ass the minute you run a light or speed and it's just annoying. Then you got Joe saying we should hurry, and he splits his time between bitching at how slow I'm going, or bitching I'm going too fast.

The gun interface is terrible, sometimes you can have sniper like aim with your pistol, other times, without moving, you can't hit the broad side of a barn on a target 5 feet further away then the guy you just picked off. Combined with a cover system that just doesn't work right all the time and I wound up just walking around and zerg rushing all of the enemies so far and headshotting them.

Missions. Clean the fucking urinal??? REALLY? The entire prison part was a complete waste of time. I thought it was a nice touch, but it could have been handled entirely different. Turn around, walk 5 feet, hit the E button on a box to hand out cigarrettes for 5 minutes. What the hell??? I mean jesus look at GTA and just blatantly rip them off with the same story and you could have made a better game with very little effort. The city itself is dead. There's not a damned thing to do that I've seen so far, and even if there were, anything you can interact with is far as hell apart.

I enjoy the cutscenes, and the story, what little there is so far, but everything else is just horrible. I came to play a game, not to be tortured until I get to see the next cutscene. And once you start playing, you better finish that chapter, because it doesn't save except at the start of new chapters if you quit and exit.

I wanted to play a game where the lowly thug rises to a position of power, and so far, more then halfway in, I'm still a soldier's associate's associate. A gopher. No signs of it getting better.

So tell me, am I missing something to make this game enjoyable? It's a resource bitch for no reason, graphically only the close up face graphics are worth a damn, and even then it's still out of date, it controls like piss, it's got no real content other then the cutscenes, and it's boring. I give is a 2/10 just because more mafia games are always wanted, but goddamn, DO something in them.

 

I didn't have any problems with performance, and I had the game maxed. No problems with aiming, either.

The graphics are decent for a game released last year, but maybe you had to lower the graphics settings. If you haven't, I have to wonder whether you're looking at games you've played from that era though rose-tinted glasses.

Your other points are the same gripes I had, although you do exaggerate the driving time between missions, and how long you have to hand out cigarette packs.

The whole game seems to have been written as if it's a film, with no thought for how entertaining a game it is. A case in point is cleaning the urinals - it's a scene far more suited to a film than a game, because there's almost no player interaction with the game.

If you're looking for a 'rise to power' story, Mafia 2 isn't for you. It's about an average guy trying to live comfortably. I was pretty disappointed at the approach they took, but the story has its merits.


3.5/10 for me

 

Glowing reviews 0.o? What did they say? Because I do believe it was one of the worst games I've ever played.

 

It sounds like you should be playing Godfather 1 instead. They ripped off of GTA and made a game that was actually better than it.

 

Strange, bc I run Skyrim with everything max except for FSAA, and it had a lot of stuttery moments for me. Every other game no problems, this one had a lot of hitches for no real reason.

I think they're decent, but not good at all, and no I didn't lower the quality, just turn off FSAA and AF, and removed physic effects for clothing. But the graphics are crap for the performance it's using. Especially considering most of the time you're in boxed off areas with little to no sight lines.

How so? You hand out a few packs of each one, I think 20-30 seconds between each one. You drive aways away, you repeat it, the greasers come, you chase them for awhile with zero hope of catching. You drive find a phone booth, drive the greaser car to be sold, drive all the way across town back, drive to meet the hitsquad, spend a ton of time shoot a building exterior, which makes NO sense because you just torch the thing anyway, drive to the foundry, shoot the greasers, drive home. It's nonstop driving. I expected more action from the way they marketed it. Hell I even resent the time they make me waste going up and down the stairs in apartments. It's pointless timesinking.

GF1 wasn't too bad. It too suffered from lack of stuff to do in the world other then extorting shops, but at least you can make a game out of seeing how many different ways you could mess with people. At least it had some reason to want to go screw around in the city. GF2 was an utter failure, but hell like I said, at least it's a mafia game.

 

I was thinking of buying the game, simply because of all the good reviews, but after reading all this, I'm staying the hell away from it.

 

The biggest problem I had with this game was the story. I don't know what they did to the writers, but the change from Mafia I to II was horribad.

Let's look at the protagonist:
Mafia I: Tommy is caught in the middle of a sticky situation and has to turn to the establishment to avoid being killed, sliding deeper and deeper into the criminal world.

Mafia II: Vito wants to be a gangster, gets money for his family but doesn't really care about them, and whines like a horrible bitch when his house gets torched.

I was expecting some emotional involvement with Vito's family, and him caring about them, instead of this bland "you're a crook, go away". So much missed potential...

 

Nah it was fully patched up with the latest drivers. Glad you liked it, even looking at it the way you did, I couldn't get into it.