Our current console generation has become enamored with player control limitations, or rather the lack thereof. As a result, the free-roaming open-world genre has exploded in popularity. From new franchises such as Saints Row capitalizing on the ability to do anything to veteran series adopting the design thoery to liven up their formula (Red Faction: Guerilla). An unfortunate fact of the recent escapades through the free-form design philosophy  has been the lacking attention to detail of the world players roam within. Instead of successfully becoming a believable environment, these cities and landscapes serve as an excuse to backtrack across the map several times at a monotonous rate. How can developers possibly solve the complaints of “too much traveling?” By making the city more interesting to travel through.

Or at least, that’s the ideology developer 2k Czech has stuck with when creating Mafia II. The game may be free-roam, and detractors of the core idea might degrade to calling it “Grand Theft Auto: 1940.”  In reality, there are many levels of depth and detail present in the world of Mafia that other open-world games strive to achieve. I was able to personally play hands-on with Mafia II during E3 last week, and the title went from being off my radar to one of the more intriguing concepts I saw at the show.

My experience with Mafia II started in an undisclosed house that I could only assume belonged to my main character, Vito. After taking a quick peak around my surroundings, I decided to walk out the front door and see what adventure the developers had in store for me. I went from the highly-detailed indoor environment to street-side instantly, no load times or drop in frame rate (a small nuance in design that makes all the difference when remaining immersed). As I walked towards my car I was notified by a blip on my map on where to meet up with the other family members. Unfortunately, this demo also had a ten minute timer for me to spend in the city before I’d be forced into the mission, at little off-putting at first. I soon realized that without the timer, I would’ve been in front of that demo’s TV all day.

Vito starts off as a Sicilian immigrant, but gradually becomes involved with the Mafia

Mafia II is all about the city and how you interact with it. This immediately became clear when I began my commute to the destination predetermined for me. Typical of my reckless tendencies in game-worlds, I sped off on the opposite side of the road, slamming on the gas to cover the most amount of distance in the shortest amount of time possible. The local authorities didn’t take too kindly to this, as I was instantly pursued by a traffic cop police car. Road rules are not usually enforced in video games, so I was a little surprised by this first encounter with the law, but instead of being upset I decided to have some fun and kept the chase up.

However, I didn’t last very long since I had forgotten the laws of motion seconds prior to my car wrecking into a telephone pole. My car’s engine began to exude black smoke from its battered innards.  It was around this time that I chose to ditch the car and make off on foot. The officer in pursuit arrived at my accident and watched me duck into an alleyway; the chase immediately ensued. It was at this point I discovered how the “wanted” system operated in Mafia II. Instead of the Cop AI having Hive Mind intelligence where every officer is somehow telepathically connected, each individual person only knows what they can see. In this case, my pursuing officer couldn’t see where I went once I hid in the alley, breaking the line of sight, and my HUD notified me that he didn’t know where I was.

Your mini map illuminates blue when the police can see you

I decided to take advantage of my situation and chose to run to a nearby alley that double-backed towards where I just was, and from there I headed towards the clothing store across the street hoping to change my street appearance. This temporarily worked as a throw-off for my opponent, but his AI soon calculated that, at the speed I was running, he would have been able to see me unless I had used the alleyway that I did. This led to him pursuing my track that I had thought was so cleverly fool-proof. Luckily for me, his streak of brilliance mattered not, I had already changed clothes from a T-Shirt and pants to a decked out business man’s suit accompanied by a bowler’s hat.

With my new spiffy look, I walked around the corner towards an isolated vehicle and jacked it before anyone noticed. Without a stressful car chase occupying my attention I discovered another interesting factoid of my car’s condition: the gas meter. As it turns out, every car in Mafia II has a gas meter, a customized amount in the tank, and what the MPG is. The vehicle I had just commandeered had around 3/4s of its tank, but I decided to get a fill up anyway. There are numerous gas stations littered around the map in the event that you’re running low, but the process of refilling takes a decent amount of time. This of course means if you’re in the middle of a high octane car chase, you’re better off ditching whatever car you’re in instead of filling up.

If you can’t get away, you can always surrender peacefully by holstering weapons

After juicing up, I finally made my way to the mission marker. This particular mission was a few hours into the game, so the story wasn’t very coherent considering I just started playing. The basics were laid out in front of me before it started, we’d be assaulting a winery to kill a specific person who apparently screwed us over somehow. However, we had to make an impression on these rivals of ours, so instead of covertly entering the building, our contacts managed to set up an MG42 in the window across the parking lot, which allowed us to reign terror down on our arriving adversaries.

Once we finished recreating D-Day on a city street, it was time to assault the winery itself. For the most part the mission and its mechanics were straight forward and easy to grasp. Third person, cover based, featuring Tommy Guns and revolvers, what’s not to get? Our sledgehammer of force was felt on every floor as we eviscerated any opposition to our overwhelming power. The loud booming sounds of shotguns and strong cacophonies from Tommy Guns echoed in the cement-based structure, and despite the harsh frequencies being blown into my ears, I couldn’t help but be impressed by the sound design.

Gunplay in Mafia II is straight-forward.  To truly understand the appeal of participating in these vicious and destructive battles, they have to be experienced firsthand. Dynamic shadows change the shading of nearby objects with each burst of muzzle flash. Physics are directly affected when bottles or weak pieces of concrete are broken up by bullets whizzing past and through every piece of terrain. Each individual element helps build a spectacle that’s pleasing to the eye and adds to the tension and excitement of gunfights.

Screenshots are nice, but the game in motion is infinitely more impressive looking

By the end of our mission in the winery, it was revealed that one of our members had been shot and must be rushed to the hospital. Life as a gangster was proven to be difficult on route to our destination and countless squad cars harassed our goal with aggressive ramming and tactical PIT maneuver attempts (My awesome driving skills kept them at bay). Eventually we reached a police road block as a cutscene played to show us our out-matched odds and the reliance on quick-second thinking. The demo ended with the question, what would I do next?

Although I never mentioned it in any official form, I saw Mafia II at PAX East back in March and walked away somewhat unimpressed. Looking back on my two experiences with the game, I noticed the first demonstration had no open-world interaction at all, where as this latest presentation allowed some freedom on the order which I’d do things. It seems obvious that the main drawing point for Mafia II is the city it takes place in, similar to the first Mafia game where the single player was compelling, but players decided to spend countless hours roaming around because of the detailed world. It’s for that same exact reason that I eagerly await the full release of Mafia II on August 24th, later this year.

What do you see in this picture? Is it a 60″ Sony Television with a signed copy of Mafia II? Because if that’s what you see you might want to get your eyes checked out. Really what’s pictured is a screenshot from Mafia II’s “Frankie Motts” interactive web game. You’re tasked with discovering information and tid bits about the three mafias in Mafia II, do a good job and you’ll get to see exclusive screenshots, character histories, and in-game information. Do a REALLY GOOD job and you can win some sweet prizes. Check out the official release:

At first glance, this game may just seem like another GTA3 ripoff, which is not true for many reasons, but mainly due to the fact that Mafia was in development before GTA3 was, but quality takes time and it took Mafia a lot longer to come out, and although the wait sucked, the quality made up for it in the long run, as I found it to be superior to GTA3 in all ways. So far, the only information available about the Xbox version is that the realistic (slow) driving will be “adjusted”, and from the first screenshots of the game, it doesn’t look as good as the PC version, but that will probably change as it did with Max Payne 2, as there is still development time left.

Mafia takes place in the 1930’s, and the whole game is actually a series of flashback events. You are Tommy, a former mafia member, and you are telling a detective the events of your mafia career, which is how the game takes place. The mood and environment in the game is definitely an excellent representation of the 30’s, as the style of the clothes, the cars, and even the soundtrack are old fashioned.

The game is more linear than GTA3, but I think that works in its favor. Mafia delivers its story in a superb fashion and that is one of the reasons that makes the game so playable. Most missions have you going back to the bar, which is your main base in order to find out what you have to do, and that is where you will “suit up”, which is getting guns, a car, and companions, if applicable. There is a radar which will guide you to your objective, and you will get instructions on what to do. You can do free roaming before or after you finish your mission, but there is an entirely separate mode devoted to that, if you want the best free roam experience possible.

The free ride mode is a separate mode that focuses on what the name implies, free riding. There are no objectives, and the purpose is for you to explore things, learn new things about the maps, and basically do what you choose. Though there are no written objectives, you can earn money in free roam mode in order to buy guns or health. The most entertaining thing in free roam is to travel down an evil path and cause as much destruction as you can, it’s a rush and also hilarious when you’re riding away on a trolley, throwing Molotov cocktails and shooting at gangster and police cars which are chasing you. There is also an objective based free ride extreme, which you must unlock, and it’s worth it, because of all the goofy and obscure objectives that you must complete, which will unlock new things for you in free ride mode. Free ride and the main game are different, and they do not have any real direct correlation with each other.

Mafia does a great job at telling a story, and even if it comes to Xbox unchanged it would be worth it, because of the immense amount of fun and replay value it offers. The main complaint by some people about the PC version was that the cars moved too slow, and things were just too realistic. I did not find these things problems as the game is realistic and takes place more than 70 years ago. You cannot expect to have 80mph speed machines in the time before World War II. Since the game is more realistic, you do not have as much life, do not run as fast, and cannot carry many weapons like you can in GTA3. You can only carry a few weapons, and if a firefight ensues and you are out in the open, you can easily be killed in a few shots. Being realistic does not ruin a game, as many people enjoy Tom Clancy games as well as the ability to carry only two weapons in Halo. Even, if you’re not a fan of realistic games and a die-hard GTA fan, give Mafia a chance, the excellent story telling and atmosphere, as well as spot on gameplay make Mafia in a league of its own, with GTA3 and even GTA: Vice City trailing behind.