Pretty well, we have to say. In the preview build we played, we were given access to 4 chapters of the game, one being the E3 build, where your mission is to take out ‘the fat man’, mafia style. The other 3 included an ‘intro’ to the game’s mechanics and Vito’s return home from the War, some stealth based sections coupled with a lot of shooting (we’re avoiding any story elements for the sake of spoilers here), and disguising ourselves in order to plant a bomb and ambush our enemies.
Enjoyin' the rays, drivin' on the wrong side of the road..
In all chapters we were mighty impressed behind the solid mechanics, pacing and strong focus of the game. The shooting is essentially based off the ‘Gears of War’ syndrome going around, which is pretty much run to cover, shoot, rinse and repeat. That’s really all there is to it; there’s no fancy additions like how Platinum Games Vanquish is adding in, but it doesn’t particularly need any as what’s there works with the flow of the game. While it’s a simple and very standardised way of shooting, it’s focused and blends extremely well with the destructive reactions of the environment when bullets are fired. Bottles will shatter, cover will tear apart and glass will be torn to thousands of pieces as the chaos of a Tommy Gun ruptures your eardrums in a tense firefight. So while it breaks no new ground, it tends to follow an Uncharted 2 esque route, where great use of cinematic angles and destruction greatly enhance the effect of what is effectively very simplistic gameplay.
Direct-feed shots from the PC Build in Eyefinity.
But what really sucks you into the world and keeps things going in Mafia II is its OCD levels of attention to detail, and sharply written dialogue. While the shooting mechanics blend nicely with the game’s destructibility, the dialogue and ‘feel’ of the game will suck you into it. Everything feels absolutely like it’s the 1950’s; whether it be in the voice acting (which is absolutely fantastic mind you), dialogue or overall use of colour, 2k Czech have done an amazing job in replicating the atmosphere and feel of what it’d be like in an era full of sophisticated gangs. Even when driving around the massive city (whether it be driving away from police or acting sane), you can’t help but be sucked into a world that is lovingly crafted, and captures the very essence of the time period.
And with its great artistic direction also comes strong technical ability. Our last preview on Mafia II mentioned that the visuals were slightly disappointing, but we blamed it on the TVs. Turns out we were right to, as when the game is running maxed on a PC with Eyefinity technology, it’s absolutely stunning. Texture detail is very nice and detailed, complimenting the very solid modelling and animation work, but most impressive of all is its global lighting setups, which give off an eerily realistic feel to the game as a whole. It’s all very nice and detailed and runs very well even in preview build, with not a single hitch in framerate happening on our PC setup, so PC users are in for a treat when the game ships.
Combat is a blast.
We’ve been a little brief in terms of explaining what we have played and seen in our preview build for Mafia II, but trust us when we say that there’d be some massive spoilers if we went into any more detail. All you really need to know is that as a whole, the gaming is shaping up to be quite an excellent sandbox title, with simple but focused gameplay mechanics, a very strong narrative, and highly polished production values. It runs buttery smooth on the PC as well, so we’re pretty sure all three platform owners will be happy come the games release. So while Mafia II doesn’t necessarily break any new ground or turn the genre upside down, what it does do is show us exactly how mature, story driven sandbox titles should be done, and with style at that.
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