I've been looking forward to this review, but there are two points that disappointed me.
1. You do not get pulled over and cited for running red lights or stop signs in Mafia II. However the police did do that for the original Mafia I for the PC. This feature was removed in the PS2 and Xbox ports...because....well I guess the developers didn't think much of console gamers.
2. I'm disappointed after your memorable Uncharted, Farcry 2, 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand and Resident Evil 5 reviews that you didn't mention anything about the game's blatant racism. For a long time developers have pussyfooted around this issue, to the point where the only reason that Nazis are bad guys in games was simply because they were assholes. To have racism addressed in video games such as this and the recent Red Dead Redemption and Ballad of Gay Tony seemed like a breath of fresh air.
This focus on authenticity was actually my favorite part of the game, and this made the segment of the story taking place in prison my favorite chapter. I'm Chinese-American and played this next to my best friend who is African American, and laughed at all the lines like "Dem moolies are animals all dey do's is smoke dope and kills each otha." or "A Chinaman? Lemme get him a step ladder and dis'll be a fair fight." However there were some cringe worthy points which me think that the developers weren't portraying racism from another era but instead being racist in this era.
It's surprising that an Italian American group were the only ones incensed enough by this game enough to denounce and protest it. It is true that the game perpetuates the stereotype of Italian people as gangsters, but it does this with other groups as well. And unlike the other groups, Italians are shown in a three dimensional light where they walk all facets of life. With this taken into mind, every black and Irish character is written as a savage brute with diminutive intelligence and every Asian speaks Engrish, is short and is untrustworthy.
Whenever a black character spoke "************" and "cracker" were the most commonly used words, and their speech was exaggerated to the point where I half expected them to ask "Where dems white wimmins at?" or sing about watermelon. After defeating a Chinese inmate in a prison brawl his "Dai Lo" remarks in silly laughable Engrish "Oooh dis not happin, if he yoos tiga style!" After completing a mission where you massacre a Chinese restaurant you gain an achievement called Chop Chop [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_stereotypes_in_comics#Chop-Chop]. These moments made me wince, and the knowledge that immature teenage boys will be reciting them on Xbox Live for years to come made me shudder. However in a game that takes place during Jim Crow, segregation, the height of Klan Power, the holocaust, the Red Scare a non-respectable portrayal is better than avoiding one.
......
But otherwise your points were...on point. The game is very linear and all the driving segments from mission to mission are boring. In the first game you had plenty of side missions and a free roam game, to pass time. Here driving is just a chore.
The first game received a share of criticism that the realistic depiction of the clunky cars made before power steering, fiberglass and polymers were introduced into car design made the driving no fun. Though I did not agree with that, I did see that having the speed limit at 40mph everywhere including on freeways, highways and uphills was indeed annoying. But at least the driving was easy to do. In Mafia 2, I don't know what happened. Getting from point A to point B without getting into a serious accident is next to impossible. Every car handles as if the tire treads have been scraped off, the road lubed with margarine and the airbrakes filled with water.
For those unfamiliar, the game first starts off in the winter, where the roads are slick with ice and sprinkled with generous servings of snow. I had first thought that the lousy driving was simply due to the loss of traction due to slick roads. But once that passed I was proven wrong. The driving experience never improved. The slight tap of the A or D key on the PC or the analog stick on the PS3 sent the car into a 90 degree angle.
The first Mafia's realistic but easy to handle car mechanics was a joy to an OCD inflicted person like me. I would follow all the rules of the road from following the speed limit, not tailgating, turning your wheels toward the curb when parking on a slope, parking eight inches from the curb, and using the turn signals (which sadly you can no longer do in Mafia 2. In the first game you could use the signals only by using your turn buttons. There was an actual push to add a dedicated turn signal buttons to the game, which I see was not only dismissed by the developers but opposed with the total removal of the player's turn signal. Drives then were then a breezy cruise, now they are a dreaded nuisance where I pray I won't wreck my ride and have to pay for damages or steal a new car then be chased by the coppers.
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The game's save system, is all sorts of fucked up. Instead of segmenting each gameplay change and location of a chapter the chapter selection features just one chapter as a whole, making you play the whole thing right from Vito waking up in the morning. And there were times where I did the tedious chore of driving from one side of town to another to reach objectives, completing said objective to drive to another side of town to complete another, wherein something pressing in reality comes up and I quit the game thinking I would start again in my current location. When I restart the game and click on "Continue Story" I see that it loads the very beginning of the chapter with Vito waking up.
If a game doesn't allow you to save on your own whim, they should autosave after the completion of an objective!
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Good review although it was cut ---