Mafia II is a game that seems to be very divisive for good reason. It puts together a lot of basic elements at the core of a mobster tale that admittedly isn't terribly unique. Upon release the game got a middling review from this site and a wide variety of interpretations from other reviewers and forum posters. Knowing that people considered the original Mafia a classic on PC, I just had to know for myself if this game was worth a damn knowing full well it might turn out to be no good. In light of that, I saw flaws and understood where others might see more but my experience with Mafia II's basic elements was that I had fun more or less through to the end. As much as the game is kinda flat overall and somewhat, if not completely, forgettable, I can't deny that I had a fun time with the game while playing it and here's why.
The game is basically a roulette between driving, shooting, and watching character interactions couched in an open world-esque setting. I say "-esque" because it's not really an open world in that there are things sitting in the world to do, whether that means multiple missions at once, side-missions, or random activities. That's not necessarily a bad thing but it's a question of whether or not you'll get hung up on the fact that Mafia II's open world is purely aesthetic. I both knew this coming in and didn't particularly mind but like many other things I either didn't mind or liked, your mileage may vary.
I guess I should be up front here and say that I love crime fiction but I never really consumed all that much mobster stuff. So the story beats seem cliche but a lot of story felt like it was just a story and not a ripoff from a movie. This was my experience and certainly could detract from yours if you're looking to Mafia II to provide a unique story in this genre. What it does well instead is crafting two main characters I enjoyed watching interact and deal with the mob life. You play as Vito Scaletta, an honest guy with a lot of heart but a desire to avoid the troubled life his father led as an Italian immigrant in the early 20th century. As it always seems to be, Vito's wise-cracking childhood friend Joe steers him off the straight path into the illustrious life of a mob man. Joe Barbaro at times steals the show from Vito's earnest character, bringing a lively and believable comedic foil to what could have been a dry tale of mob ascension and deception. The motivating force to keep playing is the interplay between Vito and Joe as the Abbot & Costello of the New York Italian mafia. The supporting cast is decent but takes a back seat to Vito's climb and occasional hiccups as a man aspiring to be made. Needless to say I was really surprised with the quality of the duo and without them I doubt the rest of the game would have been interesting at all.
That's not to say the rest of the game is bad. In fact I feel like Mafia II was some of the best shooting an open world game has had in a while. Sure it's your standard cover-based fare but it's crisp, hits hard, and the weapons feel really nice. Even the pistols are fun to use, which is fortunate since you'll pretty much always have one handy throughout the game. In addition to the shooting itself, I felt like the cover mechanics were a breeze to use and I would have to think really hard to remember a time when it failed me. The action was incredibly smooth and the experience was enjoyable throughout despite its straightforwardness. At no point I felt an additional mechanic or twist was needed to make the shooting better. In fact the first thing that struck me when playing was, "man, I wish the shooting was this good in GTAIV!".
The last important part to talk about here is the infamous driving sequences. It has been popularly asserted that there is way too much driving in this game. Ordinarily I would come to this game's rescue but this is where I have cop to a legitimate flaw. The gripe though isn't the quality but quantity of driving. Empire Bay is a beautiful, if empty, city which is a joy to drive around. The cars exhibit a realistic weight and feel while still handling reasonable well for cars made in the '40s and '50s. This is also where I have to praise the simple but effective traffic law mechanic. There are speed limits all around the city and one can choose to drive below them with the help of a speed limiter button or barrel down the street in that fancy car you just tricked out. Included with the law is its long arm. I don't know if it was intentional but it always felt that a squad car was always around the car when I sped down the street, swerving around slow moving traffic. The fun of it all was having an eye to pick up on where the cops would be, slow down to just below the limit, and punch the gas as soon as they lost line of site. Even screwing this up was fun because the police aren't permanently after you if you break speed limit and so escaping them is a viable strategy. Man were those car chases fun. Behind the wheel of a sports car this element was by far the best the driving got and I was lucky to do it on a regular basis given how much you drive from objective to objective.
Before I get to the real sad trombone, I'll speak about the city for a moment. Save for the character models of these weird looking flapper-type women, the city was an effective stereotypical rendition of 1950s New York, which is to say it captures what you picture an Italian mob tale's version of that time and place looks like. Adding to this is the admittedly anachronistic but thematically appropriate radio music. It felt really good for a while to enjoy the ride between missions listening to the radio, darting past cops, and weaving through traffic. Did I forget to mention that speed limit is all that matters? Yeah no one gives a shit if you run lights or drive on the wrong parts of the road. Now to cue the sad trombone...
...the game design feels old. It was released in 2010 and I played it in 2011 but man this game was straightforward as hell. Brad Shoemaker is correct when he says that it's frustrating to realize how much driving you've done over the course of the lengthy 15 hour story and how little else there is. It's a bummer to think that all you can do is drive to the next part of the story with literally nothing to do in between. This wouldn't be a problem except that so much of the pace was dictated by driving yet again. A tighter focus with some rearranging of the basic elements could have addressed this issue. That or take on the truly difficult task of making a truly compelling and fleshed out open-world game. 2K Czech did take the easy route design-wise and that's to the game's detriment really. The comparison is done to death but it's right for someone to compare this to a GTAIV or a Red Dead: Redemption. Those games shine on story and make good use of its gameplay and open worlds but it seems that Mafia II does a few notches below that on the former two and doesn't really try to do the latter.. Relative to those games' quality that's not a bad thing at all. However it does feel like a second-tier game that could have been much worse if the gameplay and main characters were not as enjoyable as they were.
Some final comments about the story. I really have to say the game got more and more confusing as it drew to a close. By the end I had no idea who worked for which family when and why. It's kinda not a good thing if I've lost focus of the plot and just accepted the objective byline of "go here, shoot that guy" which is what happened by the end. Speaking to that the pace of the story itself was off. It was slow to start, kept steady, but then got too dense near the end. A more consistent or dynamic story pace would have served the characters much better in the end. While I enjoyed my time with Mafia II quite a bit, thanks to those three core elements, as an open-world game and a mafia story it's nothing noteworthy and probably lackluster depending on your prior experience and expectations. But is it a good game, a 4-star game? Hard to say and that's the catch with Mafia II. That there is a catch and it's not a straightforward recommendation makes it really difficult for me to sit here and say outright it's a good game and that it's worth play BUT I had what I would deem a 4-star quality experience playing it and I can't be anything but honest about that. Mafia II: it's a 4-star game...sort of. But really it's a 3-star game I probably enjoyed more than I should have.