Ultratwinkie said:
captain awesome 12 said:
To most all posters: Demo does not equal full game. Remember the Mirror's Edge demo everyone thought was so amazing? Then the actual game turned out to be...poor? Demo's are marketing tools first and foremost designed to show off the best and most polished section of a game to build hype. Furthermore over on Gametrailers the guys said the Demo's a very small part of the game and barely showcases any of the actual game. While this could be good or bad, based on professional reviews it seems to be suffering from Just Cause 2 syndrome.
OT: IGN's criticisms make a good bit of sense if you take out the subjective stuff. Basic 3rd Person Shooting, Basic brawler hand to hand combat, a world that advertises itself as free roaming but really isn't, and no side missions to occupy time outside of the story in a game that seems tailor made for it. However they still liked the story, and praised many parts of the game. They said it's a fun game, but one that lacks depth and could have been great rather than just good. All in all, 7.0 is still a decent score and it's probably worth checking out. I do agree with everyone else on here that you should play the game yourself to decide whether it's good or bad, but you should keep the objective criticisms in mind while you do.
how does it advertise as free roam? if you wander around a city it automatically advertises free roam? hell no. i played the demo with the timer OFF and i can say that the demo is amazing. the cop ai is the most impressive i have seen. the hand to hand combat is FAR from basic. brawl near a table or car and you will see that. mafia isn't GTA and it never was. it is its own creature with its own style. everyone is comparing it to GTA and it cant be done.
My dear Twinkle,
First off, I never compared the game to GTA at all, so let's get that off the table. Second, I have neither played the demo nor the original Mafia, so my opinion is limited to what I have both seen and read. Also, my post was nothing more than a warning against judging a game by a demo, since we have seen that passing such quick judgement often times leads to disappointment. A controlled area of the game released for marketing purposes is much different than the entire game. Keep in mind though, I never passed judgement on the game. The demo may be extremely good, as in your opinion it was. However you cannot say with 100 percent certainty that because you liked the demo you will like the game exactly the same. It can't be done.
As to the comment about advertising itself as free roam...
Again I can only go on what I've watched and read here, but from that I've extrapolated that the map encompasses a pretty wide area and you can move around it a fair bit. However despite this sense of freedom, you can never escape from the directed, linear story. Now personally, I don't see this necessarily as a bad thing, but I get where IGN's coming from criticizing this aspect of the game. It's showing you a large open world but not allowing you to affect it in any meaningful way outside of the story based missions. It allows you to wander around but only "oh so far" before it's back to linearity. While I definitely think the game could easily accomplish this successfully, if it's being pointed out as a flaw one can only assume it didn't turn out as the designers' expected.
As to the hand to hand combat...
Let me reiterate that I have not played the game and thus my point in my original post was to state the flaws objectively as IGN brought them up. In watching videos from Gametrailers the brawling mechanic did indeed look competent but basic to me. You can punch guys by mashing buttons, and as you said you can push them into walls and cars? But just because pressing a button will push people into walls doesn't mean the system isn't basic. Furthermore, basic does not equal bad in any sense of the word. Think Arkham Asylum. The game's brawling mechanic was extremely basic, but it turned out to hold greater depth than at first glance. It was polished extremely well and turned out to be incredibly fun. However, again since they brought it up as a criticism, I can only assume that the mechanic wasn't handled as well as it could have been.
Finally, I know this is a long post...
My own opinion on the game will be reserved for when I play it. I brought no judgement on the game myself in either of my posts, I merely stated that a. judging a game based on a demo is faulty logic; and b. certain criticisms brought against the game by IGN could be considered objective and thus the argument "IGNZ dont knows NuTHING bout gamezz" doesn't hold weight.
I bid you good day.