Mafia 2's story and presentation elevates the rest of the game's shortcomings, making for a solid experience.
It's a little deceiving, but not really a bad thing. The original Mafia was like this as well, and was the reason why it stood out tall when it first released on the PC. That said Mafia 2 is one that reassures authenticity. It captures the vibrancy of the times, yet still keeps the cold tone of the mobster life. It captures the setting with its well-crafted world, and it's backed by an exceptional presentation and storyline that flows nicely, taking you into interesting territories, keeping you engaged and involved.
The game has a very nice blueprint. It's just that some parts of this blueprint were not carried out well.
The storyline takes you from the end of World War II to the booming era of the 1950s. You assume the role of Vito Scaletta, who immigrated to Empire Bay (which is mainly based on New York) as a child with his family to obtain a better life. His American childhood consisted of him living life in an Italian ghetto, and eventually getting on the wrong side of the law with his friend and partner-in-crime, Joey Barbaro. One incident in their youth has Vito conscripted into the army, fighting in Sicily in World War II. He comes back home after about a year, but only on leave for one month. But from there on Vito slowly but surely gets drawn into the mafia and its inner circle.
Mafia 2's storyline is one that lacks a bit of identity on its own, and it pales in comparison to the original. But it's still exceptional. It squeezes out a couple of nice surprises, and a fair amount of characters come off as surprisingly likable, especially Joey.
The way Mafia 2 is designed has you on a mission all the time, every time. The options such as gun stores, clothes shops, and body shops are mainly diverted into help for your missions. You're given other options as well like filling up gas in your car, robbing stores, or delivering cars to make some extra cash. But you're likely never going to have to fill up gas during your playthough, and the other two are just a means of filler. Clothes shops serve as a way to change your description so that cops don't recognize you if you committed a crime beforehand. Body shops serve a similar purpose: Changing the license plate on the car so that the police don't recognize you. There's also the option to repair and modify the car to improve speed and handling, however the modification options are limited to two.
Despite it looking and feeling open, it's almost as linear as any standard third person shooter you've played in the past few years. There's nothing wrong with linearity in Mafia 2's case, but the game has you doing more than a fair share of menial and boring tasks. Some of these tasks include picking up and placing crates, scrubbing urinals, and selling cigarettes. A fair amount of time consists of you driving home just to start the next chapter. For a game that can be finished around 10-12 hours, these tasks take up too much time.
The vehicles in the game look very reminiscent to the actual cars in the era, and handle realistically. Like in the original game, the police will fine you if you speed, and the police are shown on the game's map as blue icons. The speed limiter option keeps the speed at a non-offensive rate, but it's nice to rip the road whenever you're driving the vehicle reminiscent of a Thunderbird. Unfortunately, there's only a couple of chase scenes in the game's story, and a couple of time sensitive ones as well, making you rarely have to turn the speed limiter off whenever doing an objective.
You can also steal cars of course, with a choice to either smash the window or pick the lock to get in. It's likely that you'll rarely use the former, as picking the lock wouldn't draw as much attention to the cops. It's easy to do, and a refreshing option to have.
The game's action consists of a series of fist fights and gun fights. With the fist fights it's one person at a time. It has solid control, and gives you basic enjoyment. But they're very easy, as everyone you fight has the same style, and holding the dodge button makes it very difficult to lose.
Obviously the gun fights will have you going against more than one person at a time. Most of the time, Joey will be accompanying you during gunfights, and sometimes more. You have the usual weapons at your disposal: Different sets of pistols, a shotgun, sub-machine guns, and grenades.
While the gunplay has improved over the original game, remind yourself that the original game came out in 2002. By today's standards, Mafia 2 has poor gunplay, and poor action sequences. The only thing worth noting is how realistically objects and the environment suffer damage in the gunfights. Most of the guns fire fine, but lack the feeling of stopping power. There's no room to be strategic, as they're very tightly linear sequences. Enemy AI can be lackluster, the cover system feels stripped, and the level design is basic, and at times confusing. Lastly the checkpoint system is horrid, and it can be very frustrating having to re-do the same chucks of action over and over again, especially when it's the game itself that screws up and not you. The action sequences greatly tarnish the overall game, as it just feels like playing a bad third person shooter.
Visually it retains the charm of the times. It really captured the vibrant, cool times of the 1950s, and has great model detail, and overall great damage modeling. However, the game (on 360 anyway) suffers from a wildly inconsistent, but at least playable framerate, as well as fairly significant pop-in and other technical issues and glitches. The sound is excellent, from the voice acting to the sound effects, and has an amazing soundtrack that changes up as the storyline and time progresses.
Mafia 2 is incomparable to a game like Grand Theft Auto 4 because it's obvious that they don't have similar direction. The problem isn't its design specifically, but the aspects that lay within. Overall it feels like a wasted opportunity to make a finely crafted linear experience. Too much time is taken on boring, meaningless tasks. The gunfights are lousy and frustrating, and it simply ends all too soon for what it offers. The storyline and presentation acts as the game's one and only driving force, giving you a desire to see the game to the end. With that, Mafia 2 is well worth playing. But not worth keeping.