*****Official Mafia II Thread*****

Just completed it and have to say i was a little disappointed. It took ~9 hours to do the story mode on normal difficulty, which is a bit short but not too bad.

My main problem with the game is the gameplay gets quite repetitive. You spend about 50% of your time driving from A to B, 25% on cutscenes and 25% on action. The driving sections are alright at first, handling wasnt an issue for me and the world looks quite pretty and vibrant, however tedium set in after about 2 hours and it became a bit of a chore.

The shooting is solid with a good variety of weapons, but its always kill all enemies in room, move to next room, rise and repeat. Theres also some fist fighting parts, but these all boil down to hold space to block, and counter when they throw a punch.

Cutscenes are very good, characters are generally strong and voice acting is great. The storyline is solid, but is quite cliche and doesnt give you anything you havent already seen in movies.

Its a bit of a shame since the game has a lot of potential since the game mechanics are solid. Just needs more interesting missions, hopefully theyll release an expansion pack or something that builds on the game.

All in all, worth playing but wait for the price to come down a bit.
 
If I buy this, and add it to Steam, does that mean in the future I can just DL it from Steam without the disc? I have limited space here and I like to confine discs to the attic.
 
meghatronic said:
If I buy this, and add it to Steam, does that mean in the future I can just DL it from Steam without the disc? I have limited space here and I like to confine discs to the attic.
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You should just be able to register the serial with Steam and not even bother with the disc the first time round if it's like some other games.
 
Yeah you can just use the serial, and you can re-download it at any point.

Just played this for about 3 and a half hours. I like it so far. Playing on Hard with Sim handling. Seems quite tough, but so far not frustratingly so, so definitely the way to go. Will be wasting more hours on this tomorrow. Unlocked 13 Steam achievements for it already, and spent some time ogling some quite nicely-boobied Playboy ladies (which you can review on the main menu Extras option. ;) )

I like it so far. Some of the DLC Cars are BEASTS, in many ways, handling is defintiely a challenge at times, trying to get around corners without hitting... Well, Everything! Balancing the throttle is needed (and using the limiter helps a lot too). Shame there is no online, could see some of that being very good.

No Mafia 1 on the store to buy yet. Hopefully later today.

EDIT: Actually, anyone noticed any graphical glitches yet? I keep seeing flashing lights or something above steam grates in the floor. Kind of annoying but not too bad, only thing I have spotted so far. 5970 on Cat 10.8s.
 
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Just spent 4 hours downloading it on steam, boot game, crash when starting new game. Then lock up when starting new game. Verify game cache, now it's downloading over again.

Not a happy bunny.
 
Really not impressed, the story isn't as original as the first one which managed to steer away from constant cliche's and try and be a little original, the dialogue is just so generic mafia tv movie quality and the story didn't build up nice and slowly like the first game in a makes sense kind of way, it jumps about, 30 seconds story here, generic, driving, 30 seconds story scene, followed by another 30 second story scene, then a HUGE change in the story that came out of no where and made entirely no sense at all.

This is its killer problem, no idea why Chubb is bored of the duck and cover/shoot type gameplay, all games were doing were catching up to real life. What do cops and bad guys do in real life, use bullet time, have some kind of weird sense to see through buildings or any other sci fi mechanic, after games caught up from stand facing each other and see who died first, where games are now is about where real life is, hiding behind things, sticking guns out, shooting, moving forward.

THe problem is the story so far, hasn't been anywhere near as good as the first. It looks okay, still feels consoley in its pop in's and poor draw distance, still can't get a damn car camera that doesn't lag behind the turns you make which makes entirely no sense. Gameplay should be enough that its not awful, enough to make it fun to play through a story, thats what story based games should be. The hand to hand combat is appauling, and over used, the guns are fine, enemies aren't a threat except in hand to hand, but when it gets down to it, the story simply isn't good enough, so far.

I do love the guys who said cloth with physx was fantastic, its 99% used on the bottom edge of a long jacket on the main character, and its out of camera shot for 99.9% of the game, the movement of characters, buggyness of pedestrians(constantly see them walking through things and falling over like you walked into them, without ever actually going near them. As you turn a corner the guys on a pavement in line with the car as you turn freak out and jump out the way even though obviously, people expect cars to turn at corners, just not the pedestrians in this game. not always, but often enough.

Meh, I really can't decide, its okay, its nothing amazing, I've done far too much running around and hand to hand fighting with very little action with lots of story, just none of it very interesting.
 
I finished it, 11 hours 20 minutes (hard), I loved it. 9/10. The ending could be longer though, it was rather abrupt...hopefully they will continue it. But the game was fun throughout, story and characters are good (more believeable than in M1), I just love both driving and shooting in this game, much more satisfying than in any GTA (shooting especially).
 
I've only played for about an hour and a half and I'm on Chapter 5 already. The game is pretty fun but so far it's nothing I haven't played or seen before. The graphics are pretty good and the voice acting is good as well in my opinion. I'm guessing that when you finish the main story there is no free roaming?
 
Chubb said:
Its a bit of a shame since the game has a lot of potential since the game mechanics are solid. Just needs more interesting missions, hopefully theyll release an expansion pack or something that builds on the game.
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Pretty much my thoughts too :)

I loved the crossover mission from the first game though :D
 
I wish I could put the hours in today :( but i stupidly told peeps at work i was getting it and hence im sitting at my desk not where i should be AT HOME!!! and dont point out there is always tonight, I'm going to the theater.

Having said all that I don't have to get up for anything tomorrow maybe just play through the early hours and sleep tomorrow instead
 
It's pretty good, but I turned it off for a bit, a bit too sick of DRIVING 10 MINUTES ACROSS THE MAP TO FINISH THE MISSION, EVERY MISSION.
 
SPOILERS!

Finished it. No free roaming at the end. Was hoping to be able to cause some havoc and have a nice house and loads of cash etc at the end of the game but I think I had $25 to my name.

It wound me up that when I got a nice home and plenty of cash, it all got removed from the game and had to start back at square one! :mad:

Good game though. Didn't like the demo as I didn't like the car handling but I got it anyway, put it in simulation mode and it was an enjoyable experience.

END SPOILERS!

Off to get some sleep now :p
 
Swi1ch said:
It's pretty good, but I turned it off for a bit, a bit too sick of DRIVING 10 MINUTES ACROSS THE MAP TO FINISH THE MISSION, EVERY MISSION.
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You have not played Mafia 1 then? If you do not enjoy driving beautiul cars in amazingly crafted 1950s US city, then I dare to say this game might not be for you.
 
Paul_cz said:
You have not played Mafia 1 then? If you do not enjoy driving beautiul cars in amazingly crafted 1950s US city, then I dare to say this game might not be for you.
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There does seem to be more driving in this :( Missions seem shorter too (well apart from the damn driving!!!!)
 
Ok it keeps crashing. Really wanting to play it as the demo was great, loved the first one and was loving this one up until the crashes started. Right around the first car theft mission it just crashes to desktop, it can be within a minute of starting the mission or 10 or 30 with no warning. It happened during the demo once or twice then stopped after a patch so I thought it was just an early bit buggy code. After it happens my firefox refuses to work..... laaaame. Anyone have any ideas? Every other game I play is perfectly fine i.e. MW2, UT3, Fallout 3 etc.

Specs are:
AMD Athlon 2 x3 435 (OC to 3.5ghz and 4th core unlocked - stable)
4gb Kingston 1066 ddr3 ram
GTX460 768mb
Temps and framerates are all fine - GPU has only touched 60 once in the game before the fan stepped up - cpu goes nowhere near that. Framerates run an average of 45-55 on 12:10 everything on high except shadows and physx off completely.
 
Paul_cz said:
You have not played Mafia 1 then? If you do not enjoy driving beautiul cars in amazingly crafted 1950s US city, then I dare to say this game might not be for you.
Click to expand...

Mafia 1 is one of my all time favourites. It just bugs me in this that I have to drive back to my house after every mission, then drive back to where I just was 20 seconds later.

Is anyone else having problems with loading a saved game? I just CTD every time, the only way I managed to continue last time was because Steam decided to do a first time setup again.
 
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I can't possibly see how anyone could say anything in it (bar the graphics) are better than the first one. As suggested, it does feel like the actual missions are shorter and less original and theres a larger driving component in each, rather than a fairly easy/standard end a mission it can move the timeline along, physically having to go to sleep in your home every time is a waste of time/fake extending the game.

The story though, is not even close to as good, the first has a great narrative feel to it, the story is paced perfectly, setting the scene is done better, as far in the game as I am theres NOTHING even close to the cafe scene in the first game, the rain pounding down on the roof of the car, then the cafe, the dark feel of a gloomy wet night, the closest its got is, its winter, the roads are icy...... woo.

The game skips over MASSIVE MASSIVE bits of story to move it along, one part of a mission is slow as heck story with generic gangster diatribe, then it skips through entire parts of his life the next minute.

The character, has no morale basis, is he good, bad, when did he make the decision to go bad, etc, etc, it ignores whole chunks of the story and sticks to incredibly basic crap, I mean, because of the pacing of the game, several chapters feel like they occur over a few days and several chapters that take less time to play seem to occur over a decade, maybe two, its very very unclear, as said the pacing and storytelling isn't even half as good as the first one.

THe problem is, the 1st one was bog standard mechanics, bog standard action, bog standard driving, bog standard city, bog standard gameplay but a freaking immense, immense story.

This seems to be the same, except a bog standard story, at least so far, and I just can't see it picking up enough towards the end to make up for the horrible story so far.

Massively dissappointed so far.

Its also a shame that so so clearly they put too much time into physx rather than the basics. Other car drivers do some incredibly stupid things, pedestrians are incredibly dumb, dropping things and falling over miles from any contact. But physx is massively intergrated, because theres about 30 seconds added into two missions to show off physx and debrie that stays on the ground. Its completely not involved in 99.9% of the game and the two bits are so short and pointless, its bog standard physx implementation, a tech demo within a game that you barely notice, how truly surprised I am by that.
 
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