Mafia - Got it?

So many games this fall…

Anyways, I heard Mafia hit stores yesterday in North America, so I’m getting it today after watching the new gameplay movies on GameSpot last night.

However, I’m a bit concerned that I might get all that much from this game, since I got bored of GTA3 after a while (yes, I did just say I got bored of GTA3 after a while). Still, the plotline, theme and atmosphere I’ve seen conveyed since I first saw the game at E3 2001 pretty sealed the deal anyways.

Anyone have it yet? Comments?

Despite the organized crime angle and the fact that you can drive cars, Mafia is not much like GTA3. The metagame is completely different–a linear progression of missions rather than the open-ended structure that GTA3 has.

I’ve heard the statement that they are not really that much alike, but I have to respectfully disagree.

In GTA3, if you wanted to proceed through the main plot, you were forced to perform boss missions, while some (like telephone missions) were optional. In Mafia, the main mode of play is linear missions, with some optional missions (the Bertone car missions). You don’t get any choice as to order, but you’re ending up with the same result as in GTA3.

As for open ended gameplay, Mafia has “free ride” and “extreme free ride” modes which have similar objective type missions as GTA (hack in a cab, kill people, take this car here in this amount of time, shoot this guy). It’s a legitimate complaint to say that these modes would be better if they were integrated into the overall campaign. But they offer quite a similar experience as GTA3, just not packaged into a seamless world so it’s not “open ended gameplay”.

Take an imaginary mission. You are required to go to a certain place and kill a guy. First you get a car from your garage, or if you are inclined, jack one from the street. Next, you ponder whether you should bother driving across town to visit the gun store and get some better weapons (note in Mafia you can only do this toward the end). You decide not, you drive to where the guy is and try to shoot him, but he has three cronies that do you in. Okay, fine. Next time you’ll just run them down in your car. Unfortunately it took WAY too long to drive to the guy in the first place, so this time you are going too fast and slam into some pedestrians while the cops are nearby. You spend the next 4 minutes trying to flee, running through narrows and alleyways, hiding in what seems a perfect place only to hear sirens no matter what you do; things go from bad to worse and suddenly you have 5 cop cars slamming into you from all sides. Your car catches fire and you die. Ok, time to try the mission again… Now which game was I playing?

I’m not arguing the merits, just saying they are a lot more similar than a lot of people will admit.

I got it, and I’ve been playing on and off all weekend. Graphically, the game is outstanding – the autosetup for my rig set the resolution to 1280x1024 with all the options cranked. As much as I enjoyed the gameplay of GTAIII, as a port, it could never have hoped to look as good.

From a play perspective, it’s nowhere near as “frantic” as GTAIII. Mind you, the setting is 1930s, so these 60 hp cars don’t have as much giddyup as say, the Banshee, but I really like the mission setup. Cutscenes are amazing.

Aside from a few instances of clipping and some other minor nitpicks, I’m actually enjoying Mafia more than I did GTAIII.

Then again, I’m a sucker for the Mafia subject matter, so take that as you will.

and BTW… I totally agree with xahlt. The comparison between the two games is totally fair. GTAIII isn’t exactly as “open-ended” as some have said.

Got it. Beat it. Loved it.

  1. Oustanding graphics, even on my shitter machine.

  2. Great driving engine, if simplistic in some sequences.

  3. It is similar to GTA 3, but I really like how they focused on a true storyline.

  4. Driving to all the missions got a bit tiresome, but I liked it despite that.

  5. Storyline and voice acting does wonders for carrying this game.

  6. Zero replay. Which I didn’t mind, actually.

Funnily enough I bought the game when it first came out, only to have a review copy show up at The Wargamer’s office the next day. If only I had the patience…

THIS GAME ROCKS!

SHOOTING FROM A CAR THE BEST EVER! FREEFORM MODE IS FREEFORM ENOUGH FOR ME!

CZECH’S ROCK BECAUSE THEY MADE OFP AND MAFIA AND KAFKA (and Tom Chick recently) WAS IN PRAGUE!

BTW, seriously, this game is good (IN AN ALREADY GREAT YEAR!). It’s like playing Max Payne meets GTA3. It seriously deserves some attention. The action sequences in it are as good as anything I’ve seen in most purely fps action games. The driving for the most part is cool, though I do miss the speed of GTA3… but what do you expect… it’s the 1930’s! BTW again, the Chicago mob wasn’t Mafia, that’s New York. The Chicago mob was The Outfit… uh huh… oh yeah, Eriks GS review is pretty spot on.

etc

Since I don’t know how else to get Erik’s attention and I’m unfamiliar with this “Google” of which I’ve heard so much about, I just thought I’d compliment his review on Mafia over at GameSpot here.

URLy: http://gamespot.com/gamespot/stories/reviews/0,10867,2879254,00.html

Nicely done, Erik. My sentiments…mostly. Now to go copy it for my own review. :0

If I might, however:

The game is packed with great little details. In what might be a first for a shooter, reloading a gun means losing any bullets left in the current clip.

It’s not. Most of the more realistic tactical shooters have been observing this for some time now. Examples: the entire Rainbow Six franchise and SWAT 3.

Yep, even my games (BCM, BCG), have the same feature :D

Anyway, from I’ve read about Mafia, its my weekend purchase!!!

I’m only on mission two and I have to say I like the style of the game. It makes a hell of good first impression, even if the driving, for some reason, is a bit dull. The city feels too sprawled and too available too early, y’know? Anyway, good writing, cinematic cutscenes, even decent acting on the park of the polygonal puppets. The city feels lifelike too. This game was in development before GTA3, right? Because this is definitely a case of parallel thinking then. That’s a compliment to Mafia.

I am wondering how the protagonist, in 1930, got ahold of filtered cigarettes to smoke though.

Maybe i missed it - but has gamespot always had one word under the score? 9.2 Superb - 8.7 great 8.4 great 7.7 good 7.3 good 7.0 good 6.6 fair 1.8 abysmal

Is 7.0 as good as 7.7?

Could they help me along a little and have a picture of me driving to the store if the game is good/great/superb, and maybe a picture of me spending time with my family if the game is only fair or god forbid abysmal? I need more feedback, the numbers are too confusing!

Chet

Perhaps they should just get rid of the numbers and summaries and replace them with a flashing ‘Just buy it NOW!’ button. The more stupid people playing Hooters Road Trip, the fewer stupid people playing Battlefield 1942.

Lino

Yeah I agree. Gamespot generally has good reviews. But they REALLY have to go to a new scoring system. I’d be happy with the generic 5 star ala CG GDR AV etc. Whats wrong with it? What makes an 8.1 better than an 8.0? Weird.

etc

Our’s go to 10.

8.1? It’s .1 better.

:wink:

Eurogamer friggin’ hated this game:

http://www.eurogamer.net/content/r_mafia/2

Weird.

I’m waiting for a review scale that goes to 11.

The reviewer makes good points, especially on that garage level which is definitely incredibly frustrating, and likely the culmination of all the stupid problems with the game.

But I didn’t experience the huge amount of bugs he did. I lost the tail fine without having to kill anybody; I didn’t have to drive any specific car out of the garage level and there was a first aid station right in the middle of the levels; I never saw an intersection where cars all rammed into lamp posts; I didn’t find the AI any worse that GTA3, and in fact found it superior; I found that the multiple wanted levels made a LARGE difference in whether you were really going to get away with your crime. I found the car speeds equally irritating, but I don’t understand how you could make a prohibition-era Mafia game without them.

On the other hand I thought the “brilliant” storyline was restrictive and uncompelling. Not horrible like a Max Payne, but just sort of there.

Smaller maps and more detail. I’m only at the beginning, but there was no reason why I had to taxi people from one side of the map to the other EXCEPT to familiarize me with the freaking huge city. I could be wrong, maybe it becomes essential later on, but the driving model would work better with a smaller area to roam in. Just a theory.

It’s already been done…

http://www.workingdesigns.com/rpg_critic/contents.htm

Alternately… http://www.workingdesigns.com and click on the RPG critic link. Their games go to 11! so why shouldn’t their review scale?

–Dave

i have never played GTA3, but this game is drawing a lot of comparisons between itself and that game.

so w/o having played GTA3, here is how i see Mafia:

  1. i run i guess what is considered in the gaming world as an “out-dated rig.” i have a Celeron 566 which is OC’d to 850. i have 512mg of RAM and a GeForce 2 card. all that said, i installed the game, changed the resolution to 1024x768 and let ‘er rip. and guess what? game looks sharp and doesn’t frame - at all. what’s this mean for all you geeks running some of the top o’ the line PCs? well, judging from what i have read, this game is simply gorgeous on GeForce 2100 and up cards. it looks good on my old tech, so i can see where they are coming from with that opinion.

  2. i guess the merger (i.e. see Vivendi) between movies and games is almost complete. all big title games now start with “movie intro” including actors names, producers, directors, programmers, artist, etc and Mafia is no different. this intro is really nice. how nice? so nice that Illusion added an option in the menu to just play the intro, even though you get to watch it in game in the first chapter. i watched it twice. along with the visual intro is the audio intro: what can only be described as a “score” just like movies have. all in all - very impressive way to start a game.

  3. there is a pre-game tutorial where you can try out all the usual moves you might need in game, from 3rd person movement to 3rd person driving. good little workout to teach you b/c if you are like me, the driving with a keyboard is going to take some getting used to.

  4. then there is the game. i am only in chapter two, but so far the story is interesting…although i feel that i am really just working in a plan to learn the city right now before the real action starts. still, seems fun to me and i am interested in continuing play.

so far it’s been real enjoyable. coupled with the reviews that are out there, i think it is going to be a real winner.

for more info: http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/4807.asp