By Sam Coles:
With the trying times at the moment we all like to reside in
our comfort zone, the games industry knows this by producing a good amount of
remasters and remakes recently. Mafia II is one of my favourite story driven
games from the Xbox 360 and PS3 era, where it wears its influences on its
sleeves with storytelling ideas taken from The Godfather and Godfellas. Now 10
years have passed since its original release, 2K Games have produced a remaster
for current gen consoles. Does this remaster do it justice? Yes and no.
Mafia II takes place in a fictional city within the US
called Empire Bay, between the years of 1945 and 1951. You play as Vito
Scaletta a young trouble maker trying to make it in the world of organised
crime, one night he is robbing a jewellery story with his friend Joe where he is
then arrested and sent to fight in the war during the invasion of Sicily. After
he is shot in the war he is sent home, where his friend Joe has connections to
get him out of the army where he then embroils himself in the world of
organised crime. He ends up working for the Clementi Family where he is then
thrown in jail for 10 years, and comes out in the new world of the 1950’s,
where he ends up in a world of betrayal and murder. The story even 10 years
later has aged well, with its storytelling with the dialogue and visual presentation.
I remember at the time gameplay was rather contentious as a
lot of people were wondering what it was trying to be, a linear action game or
open world GTA clone with a Mafioso skin. Well it kind of falls in between the
two, while you can explore the world of Empire Bay it’s like and to quote
Geralt from The Witcher Netflix series “It’s like ordering a pie and finding it
has no filling”. While the open world aspect is very beautiful, it is about a
hollow as my stomach in the morning where there is not much to do in it but
that is not the main focus.
The main focus are the narrative missions, which
have serviceable combat with guns having weight and a good punch to them which I
cannot say for the hand to hand. The hand to hand is functional but not
particularly engaging especially when you unlock the counter attack, where you
can hold the block then use the counter move, rinse and repeat. I got most of
my enjoyment out of the firefights and car chases, as the engine is still
really impressive with bits of walls falling off in chunks as bullets rip
through and cars turning into a burning shrapnel heap as you crash. Still very
impressive and amplified with this remaster.
So does this remaster do the game justice? Yes and no, while
from a console gamer’s perspective the game looks objectively better than the
Xbox 360 and PS3 version. With character models (mostly the main characters)
have more details on their face, hair and clothes. The environments look
cleaner with extra details, such as improved textures with snow and various
interior surfaces. Cars look sharper and look amazing, especially in the sunshine
as it reflects beautifully.
I can hear you now, “Sam what is wrong with the game”? Well
let’s start off with the big issue, it doesn’t run particularly well, I played
this on a standard Xbox One and it stuttered a fair bit. The game targets 30
frames per second, but unfortunately struggles to maintain said framerate in
busy environments, interior sections of the game as well as certain cutscenes.
There were a few bugs that were not present in the original too, such textures
on some character’s faces stretching all over the place which never happened in
the original game or cars just spawning out of nowhere. The last issue is the
audio mixing, this was an issue in the original but it is somehow worse in this
version where it is either too loud or too quite. What is also very baffling,
during most cutscenes audio for the dialogue will play out of one channel, the
last I checked this is 2020 and mono audio is not a thing anymore.
Overall Mafia II: Definitive Edition is fine, but
unfortunately is hampered by technical issues that were not present in the
original. I would say grab this if you haven’t played it before, but I hope
they fix these issues as this is one of the best narratives in video games from
last decade.
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