MAFIA II: DEFINITIVE EDITION The American Dream isn’t the only thing to come unstuck
Standing in the snow under the glowing sign for Stella’s Diner as flakes drift all around and Dean Martin croons Let It Snow, all Vito Scaletta wants to do is get home. It’s 1944 and we’re back from the war in Italy with no intention of returning to Europe. Our new battles will be fought on the streets of Empire Bay.
The opening chapters of Mafia II: Definitive Edition, a remake of the 2010 PS3 release, reveal all you need to know. Earlier we shot up an Italian church during Operation Husky, drank whisky with old friends, and took in the city’s sights. Hangar 13 set out to create a cinematic shooter that taps into the same mobster stereotypes that De Niro has spent a career mining, and in this respect it’s succeeded.
The game follows the well-trodden path of peeling back the realities of the American Dream. Scaletta fought and bled for his country but on returning vows ‘never to be poor again’. He wants the house with the picket fence, the Cadillac in the garage, and one of those new-fangled ‘remotecontrolled’ TVs. Getting the nice things in life means fulfilling the Mob’s unpleasant demands.
CITY SIGHTS
@IanDean4
Mafia II: DE is a mood piece. It’s a game that delivers a detailed pastiche of late 1940s and early 1950s America. It’s a place of late-night diners, smoky backroom bars, and the glamour of encroaching modernity. But it isn’t real in the same sense as, say, LA Noire’s painstakingly recreated, era-perfect Los Angeles. The city of Empire Bay is an amalgam of Detroit, LA,
Right
Fights are as easy as holding and countering on
Finishing combos liven things up. and New York; it’s not real. Dean Martin never released Let It Snow! in 1944. The game’s view of Italian mobsters (as well as its Chinese and African-American gangs) is stripped from fiction, not fact. It’s a game that asks you to rescue Tony Balls with a straight face.
This matters because while Mafia II: DE is set in its fictional open world, it never delivers the lawless freedom you might expect. This is a linear shooter closer in setup to its noughties contemporaries like Max Payne. Each chapter sweeps you up in its filmic delivery, before you drive to a location and shoot the place up. Driving missions sporadically liven up the pace but there are no side-missions (though occasionally there are bonus objectives) and you can’t tour the map looking for events. The closest Mafia II: DE gets to demanding you explore its gangster fantasy is asking you to search for hidden Wanted
Posters and classic Playboy centrefolds – because nothing screams ‘mature gaming’ like retro nudity, although the 397 F-bombs (a sweary recordbreaker in 2010) help.
Restricting how you play to set-piece events works in the game’s favour in some respects. It enables Hangar 13 to curate memorable moments that ebb and flow with the 12-hour story; as the game montages from 1944 to 1951 we commit petty crimes, survive jail, join the Mob, and suffer a downfall of betrayals and sacrifices.
SHOT OF FUN
It helps, too, that gunplay is a joy. The third-person action is built around a solid coverfire system that enables you to pop from behind crates or around walls to spray enemies with Tommy gun fire. Powered by Nvidia’s PhysX, the effects look remarkable in this remake. Pepper a gangster hiding behind a wall and particles of concrete and dust will fly up as you chip away at his cover. Wooden doors offer a false sense of security as bullets hack through them. For a ten-year-old game this remake ensures every gunfight feels robust and combustible. An early mission puts everything on display as you’re charged with shooting up a rival gang’s hideout. Tearing apart the wooden building with machine gun fire and Molotovs is a thrill.
The shootout to escape a burning modern hotel (our fault, we planted the bomb) remains a series’ high point as we take a bullet-buzzsaw to the wooden-panelled and glassblock walls. Cover is perishable, so we need to keep moving.
The open world setup means getting to these cathartic shootouts requires driving through the city. Without any GTA-like distractions it can feel like we’re going through the motions. The city is bustling with people and cars, shops and bars, but there’s little to do other than go clothes shopping (functionally to lose the cops).
Despite all that, there’s a simple joy to be had from driving a vintage sports car
“WE TAKE A BULLET-BUZZSAW TO THE WOODEN-PANELLED AND GLASS-BLOCK WALLS.”
14% Admiring the details of Empire Bay… 11% …but wishing there was more to do between missions. 15% Feeling relieved as that’s what the included DLC is for; side-quests and more Joe. Perfect.