Mafia 2

The first game was an incredible experience on Pc. Way better than the original GTA III in graphics, physics, and the creation of an "alive" city.

I need quality PC games.

The first was indeed excellent, aside from the incredibly difficult race car mission. I am definitely looking forward to this, but it's going to really need something special to take me away from GTA.

That's a helluva trailer. I liked it.

Isn't this the exact same trailer, just with the new bit tacked on at the end? And I love that they want to expand the storytelling, but I hope it's a lot better than the dialogue from the trailer represents. "How about the human animal" was painful.

Can't watch the video at work, unfortunately work put us behind a proxy that blocks just about every video site around. Last night at home someone sent me the "new trailer" and it was the diner scene again. I'll watch your video tonight Alex.

The Christmas trailer is up on live too (probably PSN, but I ain't got a ps3)

Thats the Graphics for ingame on the PC?

jaw = drop

The interiors look great, especially for a sandbox game. That church.

What's the deal with that woman's ass at 0:44? It's shrouded in what looks like some sort of quickening.

Looks great, no question. Way too easy to get psyched for something like this (tommy guns, vintage wheels, 'Images Of America' settings!). Liked the first one, but sadly my memory of it is saddled with the drawbacks of a compromised PS2 port and it's dreadful interboro loads. Having learned the hard way, I'll just have to see how it actually plays on the machine. Nowadays, even gameplay footage can be deceptive.

Still, like I said, hard not to be excited for this.

This is up there with Alpha Protocol as my most anticipated game of the year. Love the setting (I even liked the two Godfather games largely due to the setting) and they look like they've gone to great lengths to make not only a living breathing city, but to also make it a practical playground. So many sandbox games have massive land masses to negotiate with NOTHING in them.

Can't wait for this. The first one was a blast and there's absolutely nothing else on the horizon that I can think of (except for the new Deus Ex) that piques my interest

I didn't realize this was so close to being released. Good news about the demo coming. Hype +1

I've almost pre-ordered this about half a dozen times, but figured I better wait on the demo. However, that is one shit-hot trailer.

Work be damned I downloaded and played the demo off steam.

A really short, but fucking sweet, demo. Really, the demo is way too short, but at least the wait till the game ships isn't that far off.

Gun/cover mechanics feel right. I'm not fighting the interface or camera system. And the character work and overall world is fleshed out and feels real.

I can only hope the final pc build is just as optimized as the demo (hopefully not as abysmal as the mad doc ports done for Rockstar's games).

Loved it.

Gameplay seems very traditional, but I need to point out how wonderful it is to play a modern sandbox action game that isn't so CPU-dependent as to totally cripple my mid-range PC (can't say the same about GTA IV, Saints Row 2, The Saboteur, you name it). That combined with the fact that the mechanics seem perfectly sound is enough to assure a day one purchase from me.

Forgot a demo was coming. Downloading right now.

There's a lot of character here. The interiors are amazing, and the lighting is some of the best I've seen in a sandbox. The rags-to-riches gangster storyline probably won't win any awards for originality, but the demo dialogue is snappy. I will get this.

The thing that impressed me was the sense of verisimilitude to the game.

Even if it the combat is heightend there's something very weighty and grounded about the way the way firefights occured. Just seeing concrete pillars getting shredded by gunfire, watching the light source from a lamp swing from left to right due to a stray bullet clipping it, even the very unforgiving health system, makes it feel very much 'alive'. Gotta love the radio stations too.

The radio commercials were a fun touch, as were the collectibles. I appreciate historical documents.

I take it I wasn't the only one who had to play through the gunfight section more than once. "YOU'RE THE WAH HERO!" Man, do I hope they include more checkpoints in the final game.

I actually didn't complete the mission, I actually did progressively worse each time I retried it.

First time I got to the second floor and got shotgunned in the heart, second time I got killed by the guy with the shotgun on the stairs, third time I got killed in the first bit of the warehouse, fourth time the goddamn car exploded as I ran past it.

It took me something like four tries. Mafia II makes cover essential, which is good, because it actually works (although I wish you could vault over furniture, but oh well).

I'm gonna check the demo out, but the dev diary videos sold me on the game a bit so I might buy it. Need a fix after RDR. Speaking of which, I've heard some buzz about The Saboteur being really and unexpectedly good. Can anyone corroborate that? I saw the game in a bargain bin for like 20 bucks!

Easily worth 20 bucks. It's not ground breaking, but it is fun.

Seconded, here and in several other threads.

Well I may buy one or both. Both might be excessive. We'll try us the demo and then see, thanks guys.

The demo was pretty sweet. The graphics and physics was great. The controls are spot on, and asides from the driving bit, they're far superior to GTA. The cover system, and the controls for gunplay are certainly much better than that of GTA. Its just the driving seemed to be a bit of a drag.

After hearing pretty positive stuff about this I put it in my queue on Gamefly.

Less than glowing review from Kotaku.

No side missions? WTF?

EDIT: And beware, there are mega-spoilers in one red-colored section of that review.

That's disappointing. I'm all for developers taking liberties with the sandbox formula, but it sounds like Mafia 2 is an on-rails game set in an underutilized world. IGN, Joystiq, and others are saying the same thing.

Wow, this game does not look very good on the PS3, at least in that IGN video review. Looks much, much better on the pc.

Finished the introductory levels. Wasn't expecting an actual military mission, that was pretty cool. And holy christ, does this city look awesome in the snow at twilight.

Yeah, those reviews all said that it was made to look like an open-world kinda thing...but it really actually wasnt.

Yep, this is NOT A SANDBOX GAME. Apparently the developers have been saying this all along, but it's never really registered in the public awareness for some reason.

It is an open world; it's just that the game tends to speed you around it on a fast track.

Mafia's character comes through in its details. Early on, there's a scene where Vito's walking up the street toward his Mom's apartment after coming back from the war, and an unrelated domestic fight breaks out five stories up. If you're watching, you can catch a pair of dishes falling out onto the sidewalk from up above.

There are lots of neat touches like this. I'm only a few hours in, but Mafia sets a definite tone, and connects it with a time and place better than most sandbox games. It looks very nice on the 360, too.

Hey, I don't disagree. I'm just barely into into it myself and I think it's fucking terrific. But I can see how the large city map with icons all over it could be misleading to some people.

I didn't see your post. I think it is a sandbox game, but one that's not concerned with driving you down side roads, minigames, or tangents. For someone who rarely finds sandbox minigames worth playing, I don't mind this style at all.

I'm digging the recent trend of games like this one and RDR inserting songs into their narratives as you play them, even if White Christmas was on the nose.

I've not got the game yet, but I've seen a fair few places dock points for the fact that it's not a sandbox game. I really couldn't be happier to be honest, I got my fill of that with Saints Row 2 and Just Cause. Really though what would they have done? Endless races and robbery missions probably. Unless you're going to offer the variety of stuff that SR2 did it's not worth it.

So no one else is playing this? I'm having a blast with it.

Assuming you're later/mid way through the game....at any point does a save anytime feature pop up?

I've done three chapters so far. I'd like to make some money working for Derek/Mike with their car requests, but not dive straight into a story mission...discovered last night I can't fuck around and then save my progress (unless I'm missing something) at the safehouse.

No, I haven't found any kind of save feature, but this isn't too big a deficiency considering the game's linearity. I don't know how badly you could fuck something up that just dying wouldn't fix instantly, although I'm only 20% done.

The wistful music that plays over the collectibles menu is sorta hilarious. If anything, I should be hearing go-go sax and horns at that point. And lol to the final stat listed on the stats menu.

Never. You're lucky if you get a checkpoint after you spend half an hour driving someone to an ambush! Welcome to the old school!

Don't. I don't want to give away story details, but let's just say money is mostly dictated by missions...

Mafia 2 is definitely not a sandbox game. It features a meticulously detailed open world that was slaved over simply to serve as a backdrop for a closed story. The amount of man-hours that must've gone into areas that most players will barely/never see is astounding.

The fact that it's not sandbox saved me from spending the flow. Thanks.