Mafia: Definitive Edition

[Maf]

Couldn't find a thread for this so please merge if I missed it.

 

I've been playing this the past couple of weeks. I'm about 3-4 hours in to it and today completed the first big mission where you blow up a hotel and shoot up a funeral. The game has kind of surprised me because I thought it was going to be open world, but actually this game is a lot like LA Noir. The game takes place in a open city, which I guess you could drive around if you wanted, but it's very linear and structured. All missions so far start at the same bar, someone tells you what to do, you get in a car and drive to the mission while someone talks and then when at the mission it's a very scripted set of sequences with extremely mediocre driving, shooting, running/chasing. It feels very old in this sense. But I quite like it. There's really not anything great about it. At first I was like oh it's just a simple game someone is using to tell their 1930's gangster story. But even the story is generic. Enjoyable enough, but it's a series of every gangster film cliché you can think of except it's got a very ordinary 2003 style video game underneath it. 

 

Which sounds really bad, but it's fun enough and I'm liking it. It's a very 6/10 kind of thing, though. 

 

I'm playing it on PC because for some reason I thought this game was supposed to be extra awesome on PC. Which maybe it is compared to console. But the PC version is kind of underwhelming. First the game stutters a lot, so you have to find a work around to not use the 2K launcher. With the stutter gone the game mostly maintains 60 but takes big, momentary dives in to the 40's for reasons I'm not sure. You also have to keep it at 60 v-sync because without it the screen tear is unreal. I've just put all settings to max at 4K and when driving around it does look like a really nice game, but also everything in this game looks fake as fuck. It looks like a really shiny video game which from a distance looks great but when close up it quickly gives it self away and nothing in this game looks real at all. Considering what they're going for is this film authentic 30's gangster thing, it really doesn't look the part. The characters in particular are - not even uncanny valley. They don't look real enough for that. They're like walking, talking wax work figures. 

 

I'm a bit surprised the game only looks as good as it does on PC, while also not looking as good as more demanding games that run much better than it. Maybe it's just not a well made PC game. 

 

I dunno. It's kind of a blend of mediocre all the way through, but it's just easy enough and odd enough that I'm enjoying playing it. I hope it doesn't go on too much longer, though. If this game is 12 hours that'll be too much

[shinymcshine]

I played Mafia 2 (360) and Mafia 3 (PS4) with all the DLC. 

 

Enjoyable, if a bit rough at times - Mafia 3 gets a bit repetitive (and AI was pretty dumb) but you can mix it up a bit with the DLC.

 

As you say, they aren't really open world sandbox (Mafia 3 brings in some basic territory elements and more collectibles) ;- but the world is just there to drive around from A to B.