xBox Games on Gold really is amazing. Released around five years ago, I downloaded Mafia II when it was available for free a few months ago. It’s a third person action-adventure game set just after the second world war, where we follow a gangster as he tries to climb through the Mafia ranks.
You play as Vito Scaletta, an Italian who migrated to America before joining the army and being sent to Scilly to fight. You play as him through part of the war, and then as he returns to America after being shot. Once his good friend, and local criminal, Joe Barbaro manages to get him discharged permanently from the army, you begin your journey to climb up the ranks of the mafia family.
The world isn’t exactly open, but there is plenty to see and do, with around thirty different cars that you can drive. The driving system itself is perhaps one of the best that I’ve encountered, sensible and relatively easy to operate, which (considering some of the driving systems I’ve had to work with) is to be highly praised. There’s also a whole range of guns to purchase, and a reasonably clever hand to hand fighting system with dodging etc.
The game isn’t particularly difficult, until you get to the final two challenges. I had to glitch the game in order to beat the warehouse level (and I had to Google how to glitch it, which is even worse), and the final level saw me dying a fair few times.
I do wish that I’d been allowed a little more freedom, a few more places to visit and do stuff within the sprawling city would have been welcome. It sounds like a really silly, small thing but also more outfits to choose from, or the ability to interact with things in your house. It just makes the world within the game slightly more real – if you’re not going to let me interact with things in my house, what’s the point of having me in control for those moments?
The other thing I’ve just got to mention is the Playboy magazine covers that you can collect throughout the game. I get that 2K Games had an agreement with Playboy, and the covers are vintage ones which is all very nice, but they’re completely and utterly pointless. They add nothing to the game, nothing to the ambience of the era, and just makes it feel a bit juvenile.
Overall, great game. Many a fun hour was spent shooting my way through a fictional America.
northernfool 