If you were like me and were waiting for that awesome day that Mafia 2 would be coming out then wait no longer as Mafia 2 is out now and this is the official Twisted Junk review of the game.

Developed by 2K Games, Mafia 2 takes you through  the year of 1943 to 1957, where you get to see the changes between these times. Better looking cars and a more rock & roll style than in the early 40s, which had music that was kind of boring. Mafia 2 is the sequel to Mafia:The City Of Lost Heaven, and we first want tell you that there are a lot of differences between both these games and one that is obvious is the graphics. Being that the technology is far more superior now than it was back in 2002 when the first game came out and you will get to see the many changes of this game.

To better review this game, we first must tell you a little bit of the original game being that this was the game that got us to buy Mafia 2 in the first place. In the original title you play as Tommy Angelo, a Taxi driver that finds himself inside the Mafia kind of by accident and so the story goes on from there. We don’t want to spoil it for you so go out and get the game, being that the game is cheap now and well let’s face it you have no excuse.

In our opinion, we felt that Mafia 2 did not do as great of a job as Mafia number one and the reason for that is that in this game you do not feel the characters the same way that you felt them in the first game. The original game had a Godfather one feel to it and we got the feeling that the developers wanted us all to connect with  these characters as if they were actual people.

Unfortunately Mafia 2 failed to deliver that, but don’t let us discourage you as you may get a different experience than we have. This time the game is really short and in a world like Empire Bay, there are lots of stories that this game could of been brought to the table, but the writers failed to deliver and that felt disapointing. It might be that because of downlodable content (DLC) that these games are getting shorter, but still there is no excuse to make such a short game. There is particularly one mission where you have to “rob shops or bring cars to Bruski” and it seems like you have to steal a lot of cars to make that money, but as it turns out all you really need to do is go from $25.000 to 27.500, which is easy if you stick to stealing cars.

To continue with this review, Mafia 2 takes you into the life of Vito Scaletta, and Italian immigrant that was drafted to join the armed forces in the allied invasion of Sicily in 1943. After the invasion when the war was over, Vito is then brought back to the United States to the city of Empire Bay  a depressed world in the early 40s in what we would recognize as New York City today. Things escalate to the point where he ends up going to prison for a few years and life get’s complicated.

Because Vito ends up in prison, you have to do missions from there so that means no weapons, but your fist. You end up engaging into fights to the point where you meet the Consigliere of the Vinci Crime family, who helps you through your years there. When you get out of Prison, you are back to a completely changed Empire Bay and that means a whole city makeover, better cars, women, music, and better everything.

The gameplay feels better because the city becomes alive once Vito is out of the slammer. He has a friend in the game and that is Joe Barbaro, who get’s him into a lot of trouble and because of him Vito ended up in prison in the first place. Normally in our reviews of games, we try to tell you about the characters a little more, but being that the characters were so dry, we felt that you really do not want to read about all of them, being that they were not interesting at all.

Vito didn’t impress us at all in the way that Tommy Angelo did back in the days of Mafia: The city of Lost Heaven. In the future we hope that 2K Games does a better job with the personalities of these actors, because it all felt as boring as a racing game in the 1940’s. The game is also very realistic and with that realism comes with a prize as Vito can get killed by being shot 2 or 3 times, which makes the game less enjoyable as you have to find cover at all times. Some of the missions were annoying because, while playing you could go through half of a mission and get killed at around the end, but still end up going back to the beginning of that mission, which makes the game very repetitive.

If we had to give this game some credit, we would say that the graphics are what really impressed us, being that the game looks great especially as they have pretty much re built the Illusion engine for the game. The cars are great and as close as realistic to that era as it can be. The police are tough in Mafia 2 and that means that you could easily get killed. If you have a fast car you can speed and probably loose the cops, but sometimes they get you even while driving. A lot of times, while driving if you are going at a high speed and crash with something you will die.

The soundtrack was nice addition to the game as you will get to listen to music from Ritchie Valens, Barret Strong, Little Richard, Bing Crosby and many talents that bring that feel of the 40s and 50’s to the game. The folks over at 2K Games made a partnership with Playboy, which means that you will get to see about 50 Playboy bunnies if you unlock them. You can see them by clicking here.

In general we love games like Mafia 2 because of their sandbox style, but we are really disappointed at the story as we felt as if nothing was there and as we said earlier we felt the game was really dry.

Because of this and the fact that the game was really short, Mafia 2 gets a 4 out of 10.

Game Title: Mafia 2 – (360, PS3, PC)
Publisher: 2K Games
Developer: 2K Czech, Massive Bear Studios
Release Date: 8/24/ 2010 (NA) 8/26/2010 (AUS) 8/27/2010 (EUR)
Pricing: $59.99

Review Copy Info
A review copy of  Mafia 2 was purchased by  Twisted Junk for review purposes.