Game Review: MAFIA 3

Here’s the thing, I played the game then finished it, then checked my personal trusted gaming media & review sources like the crew from N4G Radio Podcast, re-experienced the game then come to this point eager to share my thoughts.

It is not until several further observations that have put me into to reviewing this game.

But here we go, I spent a lot of hours in this game and the more I played the game then finished it the more I identify its strength and weaknesses especially after playing more hours of Shadow Warrior 2.

One of the most noticeable comparisons between Shadow Warrior 2 and Mafia 3 was the quick access to areas or some would call it fast travelling.

With simple commands, you will be able to fast travel from one area to another in Shadow Warrior 2 but in Mafia 3 you can't. You need to manually travel from one point to the next and does not have an option to at least teleport to discovered areas. I think had they made that fast travelling system in the game I would have seen the game a lot better than right now.

But that’s just one of its issues. However, I should acknowledge on where the game shines.

The presentations, music, dramatic acting performances, gunplay & stealth hit most of the spots in this game. Mafia 2 left me with strong storyline between Vito and his Best friend. Mafia 3 got me immersed the setting and I felt like I was there until the end. I was also amazed on how the actors performed excellently well on their assigned roles especially their dramatic pause effect in hopes that the audience would build some dread or some sort of impact between pauses. I love it!

However, I need to address the negative issues here but I hope I won’t disappoint the readers for these are all based on my experience with a help of other things that opened my mind to conclusion.

As mentioned, I didn’t like the feeling of driving myself all the way from point A to B in the game, had they at least give us the option to fast travel I would have viewed the game differently. I know that its predecessors also didn’t have the feature but it would have been a lot better that this instalment was the game to finally introduce it. I mean, the map is huge and at least they could have put that in the end just to keep me interested to play more and not waste additional time by traveling from multiple areas.

Knowing that I was expecting a story focused game just like Mafia 2 did when in fact it did but the balance between doing almost the same thing on missions to each district can get boring & the excellent experience on stealth and combat gameplay wasn’t enough to cover up the flaws. So, it can be a bit of a mixed bag there and to add on getting all the collectables in-game can fall into a chore especially when you discovered that you missed one all the way from where you are up north to the bayou down the south. Indeed that ZTGD from N4G Podcast said that it may take around 30 hours minus the side quests and extras you do in-game to finish it and that may very well be true because 50% or so from that game-time will contribute highly to travelling from one point to the other.

Okay, let’s go back to the good stuff, in terms of improvements from the last Mafia 2 there are a lot to mention. But to name the things I like the most is that they finally put a lot of things in the map than just typical traffic obstacles for you to avoid just like in Mafia 2. When we’re talking about conveniences, they nailed a lot of them down despite the travelling system as one of them.
Specifically, you can call in supports for a car or a caretaker to transfer your money to the bank so that you won’t lose 50% of them if ever you get killed…etc.

So I think that I know where the developers are coming from by putting that feature to call in supports anywhere and time.

The stealth mechanic works so well for me to the point that I don’t want to easily blaze myself towards enemies every time I go in mission areas. Plus the executions are brutal and satisfying especially when they’re done in stealth.

And one of the major things I really like in the game is that you’re not going to take over the place alone, you will need to work with three underbosses and each has perks to aid you in-game whenever you assign them to certain rackets or districts in the map to take over.  However, if you won’t balance their share, you may find yourself losing one or two of them and will end up being your enemies in the game and you will have to take that underboss down. But to ensure their loyalty towards you, you can optionally do their loyalty missions and even do side missions to other three underbosses who are loyal to corresponding three underbosses you mainly assign to. But however, that will cost extra travel time and that’s the only major issue with the game.

Conclusion

I think it helps to contain the excitements and truly understand the differences when identifying first impressions to a full-scale view.

I mean, it’s normal to get hyped on things but we should also acknowledge their faults especially when we discover them afterwards.

I really love this game regardless the imperfections it holds. However, only when passed my excitements I finally open myself to its obvious flaws and honestly, it needs to be addressed.

I personally love this over [url=http://store.steampowered.com/app/271590/]GTA5[/url] even though it’s not as “open world” as it is. It’s because of the story telling, the clear goal on what to do just to get there and the things you need to get there. It was a long but satisfying journey to me in the end but at the same time I cannot ignore nor welcome one of its major flaws that hinder my interest to do all the repetitive side quests at the end and that sadly killed my interest to go further and just get done with the game main campaign.

Am I recommending the game? Yes, especially when you’re a Mafia 2 fan but it’s true that you don’t need to know much about Vito to play this game because he felt more like a supporting character and seems to aged a lot because of how powerful the protagonist is but all characters were great.
You know what? I like Vito more than Lincoln, it’s sad that they didn’t put enough details for Vito and what happened after the ending of Mafia 2. I guess we’ll never know…
The story and setup of the game is actually very sensitive and tackles racism in the United States of America with racial wars, the Vietnam War and assassinations of actual personalities like JFK and Martin Luther King.

However, I won’t recommend this game if you’re not willing to spend some half of the game-time travelling from one point to another.

But I thank the ones who made this game possible; it’s indeed a huge step up from the previous game despite the imperfections and lack of wide customization on cars and apparel.

Replayability? Possibly especially if you want to see different outcome of the game like killing some of your underbosses and take over their territories or check different endings.

In the end, I enjoyed the game but I guess that it's not going to be one of my personal GOTY contenders because the mechanic and technicalities of the game killed the concept and awesome idea of this game. It’s a shame that I didn’t end up loving the game more but maybe, just maybe if the devs would tweak at least the travelling issues I just might get back to it and who know, I would probably do all those fetch quests in the game.

Game Review: Saints Row 4

Developer:      Deep Silver Volition
Publisher:        Deep Silver
Platforms:       PS3, Xbox 360 and PC

When I first heard that SR4 is coming out i was all over it, building my expectations every time I see the details and crazy trailers because I told myself that i'm going to have some fun playing yet another crazy fun game.

Now that i finally played the game I can finally give share my thoughts

Presentation

It takes place not too long after SR3 where your avatar (yes you can also carry over your R3 avatar given if you saved them in the saints row site) Pierce & Shaundi were called by MI-6 (Asha & Matt Miller) to infiltrate an enemy base led by Cyrus Temple who is planning to launch a nuclear missile to Washington. After the assault, the rocket was launched leaving you no choice but to ride on the rocket and diffuse it while playing on the background "I don't wanna miss a thing" by Aerosmith and hearing dramatic complements from your crew. And i thought that was crazy enough, you survived the launched and landed right on the President's chair of United States! After that you got elected as the new president and all sorts of craziness went in my mind. shortly your country and the planet is under attack by Aliens. Abducted and thrown in a simulation, you fight your way out from the virtual prison and form whats left of your crew to fight back, pretty standard stuffs but the journey is even crazier and funnier once i got into the game.

                                                                 Yup, you can carry over your SR3 avatar to the game

Gameplay

The gameplay is simply a third person sandbox game. You roam around the world and do main  side quests although its gameplay can sometimes be tricky, in some occasions the game will throw in some mini games out from the ordinary like a 2D sprite retro game what is close to Battle City. That's actually good every once in a while just to get out from the ordinary. One of the new things to do in the game is the superpowers, at first it can be cool but when I use it too much just to travel from point A to B it gets tedious, on the flip side however, collecting clusters which are scattered throughout the map can be addicting, the clusters are like small glowing lights that you need to collect in order to gain new special abilities within each special powers (telekinesis, elemental blast, super sprint, super jump & stomp). Like the previous SR, you can also customize your avatar's clothes, vehicles, put/remove tattoo and re-edit your avatar's appearance.

                                                                    Some funny dialogue you encounter each NPCs

Graphics

There nothing much to be impressed in this category but with a little improvements here and there. But that doesn't mean it's bad, its just good.

Audio

A couple of good signature songs here and there in the radio plus two new channels. voice acting has gotten crazier specially after adding Kieth David in the crew as your Vice President and a couple of reprising characters from the previous game. pretty cool and nothing to complain about. its that feeling i get every time they have their own dialogue that creates their individual character which makes me love them even more.

Yup and their also back! 

Overall

SR4 is back for more pounding murder time fun time experience, its still hilarious, still funny, fun and its a sandbox game. however i personally do not like being overpowered by having super powers but its not a game breaker to be perfectly honest. it gets the job done and that is me having a great time playing a video game. so kudos for this. its a good buy.

Score 8.5/10

Pro(s)
Fun, funny, hilarious and all out crazy
Weapon cuatomization
Some mini games
(More) Memorable Characters
Being able to carry over your SR3 avatar to the game
The super powers can also be "useful" on certain matters and missions
More hilarious arsenals like the dub step weapon

Con(s)
Hacking every store in the area (without an option to buy them out instead) is a hindrance
The super powers can get boring overtime
Character customization feels like almost the same as the previous one