Mafia II In-Depth Hands-On Preview – So You Wanna Be A Wise Guy, Huh?

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James Parkin

To say Mafia II’s inspirations are deeply rooted in Mafioso related films is possibly the biggest understatement of the century. Even the main character, Vito Scaletta, has a slightly psychopathic and careless best friend, much like Ray Liotta did in Goodfellas – oh Joe Pesci, you’re the evilest and littlest mofo on the big screen. That’s the point though, and it’s that familiarity with those iconic pieces which is easily Mafia II’s biggest lure. Billed as a mafia epic that wouldn’t be out of place on the big screen, 2K Czech’s latest sandbox adventure may be an open-world title in essence, but the emphasis is on its storytelling, its authenticity and putting you at the helm of what it’s like to be a wise guy.

Following on from our recent E3 hands-on, we recently got chance to check out 3 more of Mafia II’s chapters. 3 chapters that offer something a little different from each other, but with one staple holding the experience together throughout, and that’s the huge emphasis on the cinematic experience. Yes, Mafia II is going to be classed as a sandbox third person action-adventure title, but truth be told, the city, no matter how alive it is, really only acts as a context for the brutal goings on.

Kicking off our hands-on was the aptly named opening chapter, “Home Sweet Home,” which sees our protagonist, Vito, return to Mafia II’s fictional Empire Bay in the middle of the 1940s. It really only acts – like any opening chapter of a game – to give the story some roots, set the scene and introduce you to a few of the basic game mechanics. As far as opening missions go, it’s a fairly long-winded affair that sees Vito reunited with his clichéd Italian-American family, before setting on his path to becoming a made-man. So that means learning how to pick-locks, steal cars and get involved in some fisticuffs. You know, typical wise guy antics.

We next pick up with Vito a lot further into the game – chapter 9 to be precise – in a mission called “Balls & Beans” where our Mafioso wannabe has risen through the ranks to the status of made man, working directly for the family heads themselves. Vito is called into assist with a potential banana skin by the Falcone family’s lieutenant, Eddie, after it appears that a couple of Falcone’s men have been taken hostage by Luca Gurino, a crime boss of the rival Clemente family. Upon leaving our apartment, the corridors of the high-rise are flooded with character and in the space of only a few flights of stairs, we walk past an elderly woman scrubbing the floor and a crew of police officers attempting to gain entrance into one of the undesirable’s apartments that lives in Vito’s block.

Vito tracks Luca down to a seedy bar on the outskirts of town, Freddie’s, and as the rival wise guy jumps in his motor, it’s our job to follow him and hopes he leads us to Falcone’s kidnapped men. In typical follow-but-don’t-get-seen-pursuing fashion, we tail Luca all the way to a slaughterhouse in the Riverside district. As Luca enters the lot, the gates close behind him and we now have the perfect chance to pull up and plan our assault. To Vito’s left stands a local leaning under the bonnet of his car, presumably fixing it, while to Vito’s right sits a tramp swigging liquor while propped up against a corrugated metal fence. After lying to the wannabe mechanic about his dog running into the slaughterhouse’s yard, Vito finds out that he can get into the premises via a small opening in the sewers... although that means facing the rats and dank sewer tunnels that were lined with the Mafia’s finest faeces. When they said being part of the Mafia meant getting your hands dirty, I’m not sure Vito had this in mind.

Once inside, the game spun on its head totally and it presented us with a stealth section that although was a nice change of pace and something totally different from what we’d experienced before, it felt terribly 1990s stealth. With enemies on set patterns, triggered scripted events and the inability to perform stealth takedowns, it was a matter of just watching, waiting and then sneaking through the slaughterhouse’s back rooms until you got to Falcone’s men.  A fist fight later with a huge hulking bodyguard, a bit of confusion in the madness and Vito suddenly finds that Luca has made a quick getaway and backup is on the way. Vito and co are then faced with the unenviable task of wasting away wave after wave of Clemente scum. Sticking to the cover inside the room that Falcone’s men were being held hostage, the backup funnels through the door into Vito’s erratic bullet spray. The beauty with being so close to the door and armed to the teeth with endless clips of Tommy Gun bullets is that the battle is short, but terribly bloody. A short exchange with Luca, Vito and a meat cart later and the mission drew to a close.

The next mission, “Room Service,” was more of the Mafia II we had sampled at E3, with the ball back firmly in the action-packed shooter court. As it seems most chapters start out, Vito awakes once again from a slumber in his swanky bachelor pad with the phone blaring away on the window sill. After taking the call from Eddie once again, Vito is called across town to Joe’s – his partner-in-crime – apartment to meet crime boss, Carlo Falcone, who wants to take out the head of the Clemente family as revenge for his latest trick in their escalating feud.

After changing into something more appropriate and grabbing a beer from the fridge – rule #62 of the Mafia code: it’s never too early to have a beer – we headed across town to Joe’s. Jumping in our Berkley Kingfisher – 188 BHP, top speed of 104 mph if you must know – our trek across town begins. After clipping the rear end of a police car at the lights as we were rushing to our destination, we had suddenly made our beloved Berkley a wanted car in the eyes of the law. Incidentally, the wanted system in Mafia II is a two-fold mechanic: firstly, your car can be wanted, and so dumping it, changing it or buying new plates can eliminate that wanted level; and secondly, Vito himself can be wanted, which will mean he’ll have to break line of sight, stay hidden and change his clothes if he is to escape the long arm of the law. If all else fails, get arrested and then bribe the bent copper in true Mafia style.

To shift the heat we ducked into a local garage and shelled out $400 on a basic upgrade, gave it a quick repair, resprayed it, changed the trims and gave ourselves customised plates. Heck, that wasn’t even enough for us, so we opted to spend another $670 on the sports tuning and raced off to Joe’s with “Mambo Italiano” filling the airwaves.

After reaching Joe’s place, the plan became apparent quite quickly: head over to the Empire Hotel, obtain a disguise, sneak in, plant the explosives and ultimately, take down Clemente and his clan when they’re all together. It’s here when Joe’s “Pesci vibe” comes out, persuading Vito to bring a young kid along as a getaway driver, with a complete disregard for the young guy’s age and Vito’s concerns – you almost know from the off that it isn’t going to end nicely.

Upon arriving, Vito and Joe leave the youngster in the car in the parking structure of the Empire Hotel, and it’s our job to find an alternative route into the heavily fortified Mafia gathering on the 18th floor. Conveniently nestled in the corner of one of the maintenance rooms of the Empire Hotel are a couple of janitor’s uniforms – fresh with a flat cap and a fake moustache that Joe brought along. It was only while waiting for the lift out of the maintenance halls that we get our break to head upstairs behind enemy lines. A familiar face that leaves the lift puzzles Vito momentarily, but that’s soon forgotten when the two are ordered up to the boardroom that they have to infiltrate to clean up after a small “incident.”

Getting to the conference room was fairly easy, although we had to be careful from getting too close to the rival family members in the vicinity who knew of Vito and his antics. Once inside the room, seconds later and Joe had planted the bomb and we’re on our way to the roof to get into our next position to detonate. It was at this point on the roof that our cover was blown and we were left to fight our way through waves of Mafia henchmen to get to the window cleaner’s elevator; a perfect vantage point to bring down Clemente from outside the meeting room.

As it quite often goes in the movies, nothing goes to plan and seconds later the bomb had detonated ahead of schedule and what broke out was an intense and bloody fire fight in Empire Bay’s classy Empire Hotel. It was here when the cinematic prowess of Mafia II came to shine, with Vito and Joe battling through the conference room into the posh bar, with glass and bullets flying everywhere. To rub salt into the wound, a Molotov or two later and the sprinklers were activated, leaving us embroiled in a fairly epic gun-fight in the hotel halls. Without spoiling the story for those that are eagerly anticipating Mafia II, the mission ends moments later, after the pair have made their way to the parking lot, with more bloodshed and twists along the way.

In typical Mafia movie style, Mafia II baffles you with its intricate web of mystery and deceit, and just when you thought you’ve worked out the allegiances, 2K Czech throws a spanner in the works and you’re back to square one. With some great voice-acting, superb set-pieces and an engaging story, Mafia II looks set to deliver on that front. The fairly finicky third-person shooter controls and surprising linearity might ultimately hold it back, but the truth is, if Mafia II can keep up this level of storytelling, authenticity, believability and suspense across the whole game, then you’re not going to want to fuggedaboutit.

Mafia II is out August 24th and August 27th in North America and Europe respectively.
Comments
44
  • i didnt like the last game
  • Never played the first one but so far this one seems interesting (so much so I pre ordered it.)
  • This looks really gd gonna be day 1 buy for me. :p
  • The first was probably one of the best games I played 'back in the day!'. Hope this can do it justice.
  • I'd played the first game on PC and xbox did not like it on the console. Hope this one doesn't stink on the xbox and is a good one on the pc.
  • Finally a game that brings back the seperate wanted levels that I loved in Driver: Parallel Lines.
  • tight
  • quite excited i gotta say!
  • Still undecided, suppose I can just hope for a demo or I need to watch some gameplay videos before I decide.
  • @9 I read a few weeks ago that we should be receiving a demo for this game early August.
  • seriously cannot wait for this game!!!!!!!
  • Looks sick, cannot wait, but don't know if I'll be able to get it day one, as much as I want to, so I'll have to wait and see...
  • Those screens sure are pretty.
  • I am an absolute sucker for pre order crap so I went ahead and ordered the $20 extra collectors edition... I have high expectations for this game
  • Looks good. Debating whether to get it though
  • can't wait for this game to came out
  • I have mine on order.
  • i have pre-ordered this and the demo is out 10 august
  • I loved the first, and will preorder this one... I just don't know with who. Stupid companies giving too many freebees. I guess it comes down to what cars I like best.
  • looks cool, always up for trying something new :D
  • I am looking forward to this, roll on the demo! From the demo, I can see whether or not it is all cracked up to what they make out.
  • Looking forward to this, hopefully will be a step up from the Godfather games :)
  • Played the first one on PC, one of the best games I ever played. The story and the gameplay was brilliant. I'm hoping Mafia II does even better than Mafia I :)
  • Mafia is one of the best games i ever played. Iam soooooo excited for Mafia II!
  • it looks like im playing another 3rd person and sand box game
  • Looks great! Can't wait.
  • never played the mafia 1 but reading this im excited for mafia 2!
  • I hear its comming out in about 22 days or something.. the second it comes out im rushing the stores, mwuahahaha :) the first one had ehh. badish' graphics, but from the look of this im amazed at what they accomplished
  • I never played the first one but I'm a sucker for Mafia shit. Think I'll cancel my pre-order of Kane and Lynch and pick this up instead.
  • The ending to the first one was straight from a movie. Amazing!
  • Really lookin' forward to this one!
  • I played the first one on the good ole pc and i loved it, i love the italian american accents, and i love the whole gangster theme. Much better than gta in my opinion :)
  • "Surprising linearity" are two words that I wish I had not read in this article. I knew the game sounded too good to be true.
  • Played the demo, not for me.
  • Liked the first game as it had great atmosphere, I hope they improved the combat system though as it was terrible iirc.
  • never played the first one, but i will be acquiring this one.
  • i play the demo and it look like garbage i dont like it att all
  • demo is great good graphics an engine those who say its not good dont no a good game when they see one its 40s,50s style is nice gta4 lost n damned gay tony are really good but something is missing that this game has a life like feel.gta4 is still great should have done this mafia2 is way better than saints row 1n2 an mafia part 1 sand box games are big now an this will be too its almost as good as red dead redemption nothing beats the feel of that game.ok peace
  • i might get this game
  • one of the games im going to preorder
  • can't wait for next week when this game comes out. played the first one and played the demo. excited for the release
  • After playing the demo, I can honestly say that it feels like they nailed the atmosphere. Looking out the window of my house felt surreal, but then to walk outside, it seemed just right. The only thing I didn't like was how responsive the cops were. They nailed me for speeding, hit and run, holding a weapon, and assault. I like how you can bribe them and just get on with the story, but they were too "on the spot" which didn't feel right, especially for that period. Other than that, I loved the voice acting and how all game videos were done with the game engine. It just goes to show how good the engine is. I can't wait. I preordered the Collector's Edition and will definitely play this on day 1.
  • Liked the setting, liked the driving. Fucking hated the combat. Possibly the clunkiest combat system I've ever come across. No deal.
  • I'll buy it once the price is cut.. i dont think its a release buy for me.. demo was good though..
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