Aug 12, 2010
As a lover of the ‘Organised Crime/Gangster’ genre, nothing gives me more pleasure than to regurgitate as many pop cultural conventions in a sentence as possible, and Mafia II gives me this blessed opportunity. Mafia II, the much anticipated sequel to PC hit ‘Mafia’ (created by Czech developers, Illusion Softworks) is due for international release on August 27th, but our lucky cousins across the pond will be tucking into this little treat on the 24th. The sequel still retains the third person shooter dynamic, but boasts to be a significant improvement on the much loved original. Daniel Vavra, the writer and director of the original game and it’s successor was quoted in an interview to say:
“The old game was a tribute to gangster films, a romantic vision. Mafia II is grittier, real, a darker world, and the effects are based in reality.”
The now titled 2K Czech (Formerly Illusion Softworks) have decided to let us wet our beak a little with the tribute of a taste of things to come, available now on PSN and Xbox Live.
The demo places us immediately in the shoes of our cugine protagonist Vito Scaletta, as he waits for a call from his compares in the Clemente Crime Family. We are introduced to the character in what can be imagined as an early chapter of the game and the initial stages of his rise into ‘This thing of ours’. But it is when you leave your simple suburban home, that you start to get a real sense of scope for exactly what Mafia II intends to offer. The vast environment of the ficticious city ‘Empire Bay’, which takes it’s inspirations from the classic Mob story settings of New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Detroit is truly immersive and rich in atmosphere. Everything down to the classic cars and pin-stripe fashions gives a real sense of the post World War II 40s-50s America to which our organised crime opus takes place. The demo offers you 10 minutes of free roam to drink in this fully realised world, before you embark upon the mission itself.
The teaser mission ‘Buzzsaw’ introduces us to two of our principle characters- The dark brooding Sicillian ‘Man of Honor’, Henry Tomasino and Vito’s long time friend Joe Barbaro. The objective is to chase down and ice an opposing mobster, known as ‘The Fat Man’ in true Cosa Nostra style, weilding Thompson machine guns and rampaging your way through a liquor distillery. The game seems to have adopted a similar control system to Grand Theft Auto IV, with your Left and Right triggers being your accelerator and brake, and also your aiming and shooting mechanic. While the artilery may invite the temptation to run around spraying bullets like a runaway garden hose, the game very much requires you to make use of cover and picking your moments to attack appropriately to avoid ending up a twitching mess of tomato sauce. Leading on from that, the enemy AI is no fool, running for cover and shooting with at times deadly accuracy, just as you would want to expect when you rattle the cage of a crew of gun-toting mafioso. Essentially this shoot-out is a great demonstration of just how tight Mafia II’s gameplay really is, as well as showcasing the impressive voice acting and sharp dialogue that has been written for the game (Vavra revealed that Mafia II’s script amounts to around 700 pages, compared to it’s predecessor’s 400).
As any good demo should, it leaves you begging for more. The final few minutes sees you engaged in a car chase, escaping from a swarm of our boys in blue who have you surrounded at both ends of a bridge, and after a tense little dialogue between characters I had my controller in hand ready to dish out some lead salad, only to be met with ‘To be continued’. Naturally I was left with big old gaming blue balls, but it had me on the horn to my friend at our local independant, making sure that my name was down for a pre-order of what will undoubtably be one of the finest games out this year. Is this just another sandbox GTA clone? Fuggedaboutit! Mafia’s tradition of embracing the much loved conventions of a much loved genre, and partnering them with a piece of ninety story places it head and shoulders above it’s wannabe paesano. So, I implore all you faithful readers to download this little gem and pick up a copy of the full game on release, capiche? Expect my full review end of the month!
Mafia II is available on Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC from 24th August (USA) and 27th August (International).
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