REVIEW

Mafia III Review

by Ford James, October 26th, 2016

1960’s America is an era full of iconic moments, yet rarely explored by video games. President Kennedy was assassinated, man landed on the moon, and Martin Luther King was at the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement. It’s a period we can look back on with pride and regret and at the time, was highly controversial. Mafia III endeavours to highlight the racism through the revenge story of Lincoln Clay; a Vietnam war vet who had just returned to his family when they were subsequently killed by another crime family in the city.

There’s a few aspects that are vital to the success of an open world game like this: A fleshed out narrative with impressive character design is one, and it’s safe to say this is where Mafia III truly excels. Clay is likeable; his no-nonsense manner and the trauma he’s been through means the player can truly understand his motivations and actions. Sal Marcano, the boss of the Marcano crime family, is manipulative and ruthless and after he double crosses Clay and his family early on, the rest of the game is set: Sal Marcano needs to die. Narratively, this is where the story becomes predictable, but not boring.

Cutscenes are where the game shines in terms of visual fidelity. Expressions on characters’ faces look amazingly realistic; quivering lips, drawn out breaths, and beads of sweat slowly rolling down the forehead are three examples of just how detailed it is. Only one game comes close to the facial animations and that’s Uncharted 4. It’s supplemented by the utterly incredible voice acting too – real emotion and passion comes through, especially for the characters of Cassandra and Thomas Burke. That consistency carries across to minor characters too; the detail isn’t saved just for the main cast. There’s also flash-forward-esque interviews with living characters years into the future that fill in details, give background information to various people, and set the scene after notable moments in the story.

New Bordeaux is a sprawling city with multiple districts and suburbs, with so much to see and explore. Speeding down the highway at dawn rewards you with a beautiful sunrise, and if you take your time to explore alleyways and buildings you’ll encounter some interesting environments. Up close though, the game loses its grandeur; there’s a lot of shoddy textures and visual glitches such as an NPC leant halfway inside a wall or pulling a door open, only for the door to open the opposite way as if it was pushed.

Those who played Mafia II will recall the Playboy magazines featuring various pinup girls as the games main collectibles – they’re back in the form of posters, with a certain amount to each area and 50 in total across New Bordeaux. There’s also 47 other types of items to collect, dotted across the city, ranging from alleyways to behind bars to gas station shelves. But that’s it: Despite having such a large and often beautiful open world, there is no other reason to venture off the beaten path other than to search for trivial objects that have no bearing on the rest of the game.

This comes as even more of a shame given how enjoyable the driving is. You’re given two options in the settings; normal mode or simulation. I’d highly recommend simulation because as you’d expect, it makes the driving more realistic. The cars feel weightier and you can’t take corners at high speed as cars back in the 60’s weren’t particularly tight when it comes to handling. If you crash, you can’t recover straight away like you can in Grand Theft Auto, it actually feels like you’ve just crashed a two-tonne heap of metal. With such a refined driving mechanic, the lack of races becomes even more apparent. Even though it makes sense in the time period, the lack of unique vehicles is a shame; there only seems to be four or five different models on the road.

Hangar 13 have managed to capture the elements that made racial discrimination so prevalent in this era and implement them into ways that make sense in-game. One example would be when I stole a car in The Hollow, a predominantly African American neighbourhood, and a witness called the police. Thanks to Lincoln’s supernatural ability to listen in to any police radio chatter about him, you hear the police dispatcher offhandedly mention the crime and that if there’s any nearby officers with nothing better to do, they could check it out if they wanted. Commit the same crime in an upmarket white district? Cops will be riding your arse in no time. Push your luck and enter a white’s only restaurant? You’ll be told to leave and if you refuse, the cops will be called. Combined with the non-excessive usage of the racist language and insults that were around back then, you start to get a picture and understanding of just how different life was if you weren’t white, rich or both.

The main problem with Mafia III isn’t the linearity hidden behind an open world, it’s not the endless number of visual glitches and rare game breaking bugs, and it’s not the fact the AI is as dumb as a sack of spuds (seriously, they were throwing Molotov Cocktails at me while I was in water). It’s the lack of innovation. From the unimaginative cover shooting mechanics that we saw in games two console generations ago, to the endlessly mundane side missions that have you doing the same thing over, and over, and over again. Nothing in the game is actually enjoyable. There’s only so many times I can sneak inside a warehouse, stealthily kill a few guys, shotgun the rest then put my knife to the bossman’s throat. Clay’s story is engaging and I want to know what happens next, but that is the only reason I will continue to play – doing anything other than the main story missions feels like a chore.

There’s small additions that make you realise the game is likely half-finished and Hangar 13 were rushed to release a playable product, rather than a refined one. When you drive through a tunnel, whatever classic 60’s era tune was playing will distort until you come out of the other end. When you die, there’s a flash-forward documentary interview where John Donovan, one of Clay’s associates in game, insists that’s not how the story played out and that it must’ve happened a different way. Finer details that show a lot of love went into creating the game, but they forgot to answer the one question that every video game should be able to answer yes to; is it fun?

Other giveaways that the devs were rushed toward the end are the smaller details that sway the opposite direction. A prompt appears near the start of the game saying the police will react if you break traffic laws within their eyesight, such as speeding or running a red light, but I’ve done both of those while directly next to a police car and nothing has happened so far. They seem incredibly oblivious, which is likely down to the abysmal nature of the AI in general. There’s also no jump button, at all. You can mantle walls and climb, but there’s no simple jump. The world seems made for one, like there was an opening at the bottom of a fire escape staircase that you’d think Clay would be able to fit through, but standing on the box below yielded no results. If he could jump and climb like in GTA, there would be plenty more routes and options to explore and approach objectives.

Grand Theft Auto V truly set the precedent for open world games like this, and Mafia III gives the impression that it wanted to follow suit and do everything just as well, if not better. Alas, the lack of polish and finesse means it’s nothing more than a painfully average cover based shooter with an impressive story. And at the end of the day, the impressive story is what will keep a lot of players coming back, including myself. Despite it being so predictable, I want to experience Lincoln Clay’s journey for myself and see him overthrow the Marcano crime family and get vengeance for the atrocities they’ve committed to Clay’s family and friends. It’s like a horror game; I’m not enjoying it, but I still want to know what happens next.