Mafia III

I really hope this isn't the great era of America. It's true that America's greatest visionary's did their greatest works during this time. But some of the people with divisive slogans and platforms of today would have found themselves in their 20s and at a crossroads. Where would the end up? On the wrong side of history.

Mafia 3 is an important game to play in 2020. It was important for me to buy this game on launch because it had a black protagonist. For too long i've been content to buy the GTA's of the world. The writers, at this point, are wealthy enough to have a skewed idea of what life is like for anybody normal. How could they know anything since their wealth and status has them rubbing shoulders with people who's greatest concerns are whether the loaner car from the Jaguar dealer is an equal or greater status symbol than the car they brought in. Consultations, newspaper clippings, and a quick jaunt down to the local penitentiary are not substitutes for life experience. So chances are i don't want to hear anything that GTA has to say. if the pandemic has taught me anything is is that my favorite meal, on earth, is only $23.00 away. I'm sure the Bezos of the world get sick of steak and crab too. So what motivates them? Power?

The standout feature in this game is the directions overlay that is given during the driving sequence. The slow-mo feature is pretty cool as well but it is implemented poorly and should be more than just reangling my car. I can't recall how your player reacts to physics when driving (because you can drive a convetible) so i will so it was poor since it wasn't particularly memorable. The overlay is what i imagine is like the overlay that current luxury vehicles have for speed and gps navigation that is projected onto the windshield. I'm currently not in the market, but am definitely heading over to youtube to see what's out there in the world. I always knew where my next turn was because the overlay would appear organically in the world as a sign that would be somewhere physically on the road instead of the static heads up and dead center of the screen everytime, regardless of direction. if videogames had oscars that mattered (and not the Geoff Kealey B.S. we call award shows) this would be a best new feature hands down.

i'd really like to see some sort of crash mechanic from burnout incorporated in open world games. it's been long enough to get it right. i'm not looking for full dismemberment but the white-knuckled driving with serious crash consequences would go along way to getting me to love a game.

This game also has a cover system, and i love my cover systems. Apparently a game called Kill Switch was one of the forefathers for cover systems. i have frequently passed over this game because i am not a big fan of older games, no matter what trend they supposedly started. The game might be trash and im not going to invest the time to find out. I have loved the Gears of War franchise for my cover shooters some of those games are on my top 10 games of all time list (yet to be written). But ask me if i like the aesthetic, rudeness, drabness, dialogue, or anything about the story and you're answer is a definitive, 'NO.' I like the cover system. Mafia 3 is not better at the cover system, as a matter of fact, it is pretty terrible. Terrible enough for me to put the game down a couple of days after launch and only pick it up again because of COVID. But it's there. It doesn't have what i call the running-back-run-to-cover that l love about gears but it's got enough for me to pop out and blast some bigot with a shotgun.

There was a free upgrade to the enhanced 4K edition that kind of inspired a 4K TV purchase. i spent $250 for a tv since i could barely read text on my xbox games and the price was just right, finally. But with that free upgrade came all the headaches of downloads and updates. As of 8/1/2020 i have quit gaming completely. I donated about 50 games to the goodwill and traded in a ps4 for some store credit that will have me flush with socks, wallets, notebooks, and t-shirts for the next couple of years. i was so sick fo seeing progress bars, managing harddrives, trying to understand why external harddrives take up 2 slots on a power strip, trying to convince (now former friends) to predownload updates or maybe even buy a harddrive. I was tired of playing my second and third choice games just becuase they were downloaded. Most of all i hated planning a gaming session only to have to cancel til tomorrow, some murky time in the future, or more realistically never because of some download. I really hope that microsoft gets the external SSD right and goes into a partnership with gamestop so i can just slot my drive there and walk away after 5 minutes. Downloads for videogames can kick rocks. And i'm done.

i normally don't have anything other than cellphone internet. But because of COVID and some sort of glitch with the game where it stopped autosaving and i spent a couple of hours replaying the same parts of a mission not knowing that the autosave wasn't working. I justified internet because of COVID and just wanting all the games i had to be updated since i was anticipating getting a 4k tv for my sanity and i at least wanted to get all my games updated and be able to stream armageddon.

I'm hoping that the Mafia 3 producers consulted with at least 1 black person. That conversation sums up the black experience from Kobe to that guy you went to high school with. Research done and all anecdotes from an individuals experience are extra credit but one person can expound on what is to be black in America. This game let's you step inside the persona of Lincoln Clay. By the time you complete the game you may get the feeling that your efforts did nothing for the black community, and you truly dont. However, in the game's defense this isn't a a game about how the protagonist ushered people out of hell. The story is about how one person navigated through hell. The true black experience.

(****-) 4 out 5 stars. 7.5 out of 10. TLDR Top notch driving, yet no fast travel system which can be annoying. Drags on towards the end. Shouldn't mandatory side quests be considered mainline story quests. America wasn't/isn't great for everybody so have a blast giving it to some of your contemporaries crappy ancestors, or them directly.