Long and Foundet Reviews of Mafia2 (compaired with Mafia1)

[Dosch]

This is my first Post and thread after I read lots of threads here after I finished Mafia 2. Today I've got enough time to write a long post for the game. I hope the thread won't be deleted by the mods, its not all new or not discussed but I think this is kind of a summary and my personal opinion.

The post is 10% too long, so it takes 2 Posts. I's sorry for this, hope you excuse my bad english and don't delete the post.

1. Overall: Mafia 2 as a Game experience:

The game comes with a nice city card and some real nice graphics. The story starts at war, were you learn to use the weapons and the controls. I like that kind of learning, no turotrial, an real easy shooting is much better. I was a big fan of Mafia1 wich was a real excellent game. Mafia 2 is overall by far not as good as the previous, nearly all of the real nice things of Mafia 1 are not in Mafia 2 and the new thins ar not at all that good to compensate the missing stuff. The story, the cars, the city, the freedom, the sequences and everything is ok, but not more. Mafia 1 was not ok, it was very very good!

2. Detailled Discussions

2.1. Graphics

First: The graphics are really good! Not all textures are brilliant, but it doesn't need to be. The important parts are good, the interiours of the houses, you can get in are nice and the number of different Items is good. The Water and the city come nice and things like the trees are well done.

2.2. Story

The story has some good Ideas, but is, in general, real bad. Characters like the mother or sister are introduced to disappear nearly at all in the next moment. There is only Joe who is a constant character who is really authentic. Most of the other people are not there to make their own story or anything like this (what ist with the guy in the junkyard?, mom?, the gunshop-guy who was at war?, several guys of the family(es)?). And if there is a person returning into the story (for exapmle the sister) there is just a very small story wiht no follow-up or anything. Just a "beat up" and thats it. No psycological things like the husband tells her that you beat him up and the sister doesn't trust you anymore and you have to earn it back in 2-5 new "under-chapters" of the story. This is a huge opportunity they missed to take!

I see about 50 small "optional" "under-chapters" who could be easily put into the story wihtout killing the main-theme or main-story but who would extend the game-time and the fun. If they would put such things in as "optional" things you can do if you want, the game and the characters would get much deeper and better. Yust another example: The chinese guys find out your friend is a rat, why don't they give you the opportunity to find that out? There could be a little optional quest of the chinese man to do that (observe a dropping or anything like this).

The story is very bound, you cant do the things in different ways like in Mafia 1 where you could get into Corleones Hotel and Kill one man or all of them. There are also no real "long" storys like kill the brother of the other organisations boss in Maifa 1 where you need several tries and around 1-2h gametime.

Then the story looks like they cut out half of it, some things go way too fast or ar not really logical in the context. And what is really bad: The story of Frankie Potts with his police-reports has much more informations about all the interesting things than the game itself! Wich family is violent, who is pro drugs and why, wich guys are fixed to a family and wich guys have connections to several families, the drug consuming of the mafiosi, the visits to the cathouse, the ☺☺☺☺☺s you can take home etc. is all very intersting stuff in Frankie Potts story, but not mentioned in the game. Another big opportunity missed here.

The actual game Time is very short! I had 10 hours for the story, but I'm a gamer who takes it slowly, never drives too fast, waits at very red light and explores the city all the times. The actual time "in the missons" (fights & chases) is in my opinion about 3-5 hours, and way too short. Why not drive 3 times to 3 spots to sell the drugs (like earn protection money in Mafia 1) - its one times driving, then watchin 1min of video and over is the misson. No action, no psycology, no learning to know ingame people (and by the way to another optional quest for them). Another opportunity missed.

2.3. The Travelling in the City and Cars

One thing who is bad at all! In Mafia 1 there were tramways, skytrains, (trains), (cabs) and cars. In Mafia 2 is cars. wtf?? Another very big opportunity missed. That is, what makes a City "living" or "REAL". People using a Bus or train, getting around, in and out of cars and buidlings etc. The waiving people who wantet a cab in Mafia 1 were fun. Using tramways or skytrains too.

What is really bad: When you know Mafia 1, you expect that you can do at least all the things you had in the first game (for example to waive a cab to get around). But a very disappointing Mafia 2 in this departement, yout can just drive cars. Ant to top that: There are not really many different cars! In Mafia 1 you hat quite a lot of different Cars, and the cars were in "a developpment" during the time in the game. None of that in Mafia 2. The cars get a bit better, but there is no Jaguar, no Ferrari, no real nice Mercedes or a Dodge racing car. No really "nice" cars like a stretch or "fun" cars like a citroen 2V6 with 2PS or a Fiat500. Another opportunity missed. Or a real nice tuning-opportunity at friend XY who tunes cars if you have money or do him "favours" (sidemission). Another Thing: You get nice Hot-Rods in one mission to sell them 5mins later. And you can't get them in free ride or anything like that, and where do I have fun with those cars?? It's just bad!

All in all, the "getting around" in Mafia 2 is extremely bad (about 10 Jears back in time - even worse then Mafia 1) but at least are the existing cars made graphically and physically very nice (they feel good to use). I say: What they done is good, but they didn't do the right stuff. I would easily cut back the "feeling" by driving the cars in exchance to get more cars, cabs, waiving people, skytrain, train, bus and maybe one short subway-line...But it's nice they have higways with higher speed-limit.

2.4. Earning&Spending Money

In Mafia 1 there were in game no money-possibilities. That was not very good and Mafia 2 has it introduced. I like that. But the money-earning-opportunities are worse than in Mafia 1 in the free-ride-extreme. You can only bring some cars to the yunckyard and thats it. wtf?
No "killing-contracts", no "Taxi-driving", no "bring this to that man", no "beat up this and that man", no "steal me that car", no "destroy that car", no nothing really nice! Worst of all: No Free-Ride or something like that where you could save your game to hold on to the money you earned.

I have so many nice little ideas to put in to make the city and de economic-things in the game better: Make all the stuff above! Make a bank where you can "wash" your money and ATM's to get it (at the gas stations for example), make cop-searches where you can loose your stolen money which is not "washed", dont only sell beer, cola and little food, use nice drinks, get different bars with different meals, put some saving points in the game.

For example in every "bed" you can sleep and that automatically saves the game. Make some hotels (wiht different prices and services) with some hotel-rooms where you can sleep for money. Make some appartements you can hire (for rent per day) or buy (only with washed money). The appartmeents should be in about 7 neighboorhoods with differen prices and "niveau". Make one or two real nice Villas and one or two nice Houses where you can go if your rich. All such things keep the gamers playing the game and enjoy the "world" in the game. Or: Stripclubs, Bars, Hockey-Games, Casinos with Slots or Games, Cinemas, Car-Shops, Cleaning companys for the flat, City Tours, etc.

None of thins in mafia 2! Another Opportunity missed! I have much more Ideas and after 8 years of production you can expect much more.

[Dosch]

2.5. "Living City"

I already wrote a bit about that, and here is more: For me, Lost Heaven was more living with less specials. Empire Bay has shoe-cleaners and newspaper- or food-sellers. Yea, thats it! I didn't actually get a paper at the guy. It would be nice if there was a real newspaper of these times (there are actual dates in the game it would be an easy thing to get those papers and put the picture of the first 4 pages in the game) to see if you buy one. Car-Washers could be another nice thing (one kind: Topless Women, second kind: Poor Kids). Yust one Idea of many I have. A Prostitution-Scene at Night is missin, entering Stripclubs (or nice restaurants or discos) at Night is not possible, if you read Frankie Potts articles, you get much more of a living and fun city than in the game. At Daytime there could be Baseball-Matches or the TV could send sports or news. The Bars could be crowded if there is a Hockey-Game on TV or Cinemas with some short movies could be there (how many youg film-producers would do a short-movie for free to get in the game), etc. I see many missed opportunities here.

Another Thing: There are not many buildings or places you can get in and explore. There is no racing-circuit, no nice port, no nice worked out park with people lying on the ground or picknicking there, no beach where actually people ar bathing. All other missed opportunities.

2.6. Fun while Playing

There are some Parts, where there is some "funny stuff". I like the speech and the scene after burying Frankie Potts, where they are singing drunken the song. But yust there is another opportunity for more fun: they say: don't turni it off. And you can not do it. What if you could and they would get aggressive because of it and shoot around out of the window? or yust other such things.

Then: Free Ride is missing big time! Why did they let out the most important part of the first game? I spent hours in Free Ride and Free Ride Extreme, finding out Easter Eggs and doing races with much or not much traffic in the streets against friends. I liked driving to the country, that was fun. I liked killing mafiosi. I liked driving around waiving people. I knew every inch of the city. I will never know as much of Empire Bay.

Who wants collectibles or Achievements? Sorry, but that is absolutey not interesting! in Starcraft 2 its another thing, its a competition game with war against others, but Mafia is an "ambiance" game! I want Free-Ride-Extreme-Quests, not Playboy-Girls or Wantet Posters! I want Easter Eggs or Fun-Stuff like Pissing in the Motel in Mafia 1.


2.7. Small Things Missing

- I'd like to see how much money I have all the time, why is there not a money-screen under the navigation card or something like that.

- The Inventory-Page of Mafia 1 was much better, it is not realistic to carry 3 big weapons around whitout coat. You could get a Tailor where you can modifi the coat to carry more big weapons for some money or anything like this (missed opportunity).

- The traffic is sometimes very annoying and dangerous because they seem to don't see you.


4. Summary

In my view, there are too many, or nearly only missed opportunities. Mafia 1 was brilliant for that time. You had a very high standart! To top this was not easy. But why don't you take the same kind of game and put in more, nice things. The communitiy there hat access to all the programming and did many nice things like more cars or appartements or rooms to get in, or garages for your cars. You could have learnt from them. If you would take the old game, put new graphics and all the stuff from ohter people in it, it would have been a better game than Mafia 2 is.

Many of the things that ar bad wouldn't be much work to put in the game. Many things would have taken time, but it would have been worth it. (I actually wonder what you did all thoese 8 Years, while Ubisoft released 2 Assasins Creed and 3 Prince of Persia games with by way more interesting storys and worlds who were invented while all you had to do was sitting in a library of 20th century history and take all those things together) It is not the most importatn thing to have the best graphig engine, all the little things done right ar much more important to make a real good game. In my text here I yust mentiones some of my ideas, and I'm sure most of the players agree with me and wish same things. I know this is no GTA, but Mafia 1 was way ahead of GTA and Mafia 2 is way behind! The Idea of a "only cinematic" game is not the idea of these times - especially not, if you had Mafia 1 in kind of another genre and anyone had big expectations in this way while playing GTA and waiting for Maifa 2.

I hoped Mafia 2 would be the breakthrew of the Year, but now I have to hope for Assassins Creed 3 to fill in the hole...

[DonGTM]

Your post pretty much sums up what many people here are feeling. (even though your english is terrible )

Nice read though and hopefully 2K will learn a thing or two about how not to trash an aspiring franchise (yeah right)

[Alex1911]

An element which sucks doneky balls on Mafia 2 compared to the original was the CAR EVOLUTION
I mean in the original you start in 1930 , then move on to 1933, 1935 and ends in 1938

over the course of the game you see how new models show up and the old ones graduelly are phased out

By the last missions of M1 about 90% of the cars you see in the first missions are GONE

This is something also completly mssing from M2. Heck they COULD have EXPANDED on this idea and make such stuff with BUILDING, you see them started in 1945 and with gradual moving along the time you see how it rises and then completed by the game's end ...

you have just 2 years 1945 and 1951 and you can't see such a progression beeing in prison