Edit: After writing this, I did go back and play the game to completion. Through bugs I lost about two hours of progress and the prevalence of bugs got worse as I got closer to the end. Nothing I experienced invalidated what is written below.

I have to admit that I came to Mafia 2: Definitive Edition with a fair amount of bias in tow. This is a game that I hold near and dear to my heart for a number of reasons. Firstly, and most obviously, I have fond memories of it. The story suckered me in pretty hard back in 2010 and although a little hyperbolic by today’s standards, I remember thinking it was like the video game version of ‘Goodfellas’. Primarily though, my main fondness from this game comes because it’s the first game I remember covering for my first ever video game blog ‘A Winner Is You’. 

At University, our class was told to create and write a blog for writing practice and a friend and I decided to get together and write a video game blog. Although this didn’t turn into a career for me, it led to being invited to industry events as press, to making podcasts and eventually a trip to Germany to cover GamesCom which was a  real bucket list achievement and one I am still very proud of. I have over a decade of memories covering video games in some shape or form and Mafia 2, at least in my memory, is the very beginning of that. Re-reading this, bias is perhaps the wrong word. Video games is a lifelong passion of mine and Mafia 2 is inextricably wound up in that, so obsession may be a more apt word. It pains me to say this then, but it’s a shame that 2K doesn’t feel the same passion for this series as I do… if they did, there is no way that they would have allowed this game to market in the sorry state that it finds itself, it’s a buggy mess which at best will force players to replay entire missions numerous times in an attempt to luck their way through a particularly buggy section and at worst, completely broken and unplayable, stopping players from progressing at all, no matter what they do. 

Before we get into that though, let’s talk about the game proper. In many ways, this is a faithful re-release of the game players may or may not know from their time playing it on either Xbox 360 or Playstation 3. It looks the same and feels the same. What that gives us then is a game that looks and pays like the original release… because that’s exactly what it is, warts and all. Visually, it’s far from ugly, but it will be obvious to anyone that it is a game from 2010, lacking the super fine detail and visual effects that the modern gamer has come to expect. The streets feel strangely empty and that ethereal feeling of moving around a real and lived in space is also absent. In fairness to the game, this was never there, even in 2010, it’s just that in 2020 given the advances that we have seen over the years, it’s painfully obvious. I think that bugs aside, in essence this is the biggest takeaway people should get from reading reviews about Mafia 2. It’s a game that is very of its time. Visually, it’s now looking a little rough around the edges and there are one or two idiosyncrasies in the control scheme that make the manoeuvring feel ever so slightly off, again, lacking the modern layout that would make the game feel intuitive. An example of a controller quirk that threw me off time and time again is that once you are hugging a wall, you can’t just move away from it by pressing forward. Instead players must press the action button to allow the character to move away from the wall. It sounds like a tiny thing (and it is), but being used to something very different took a little bit of relearning. I guess what I’m saying is, if you want to play this game, then it’s absolutely playable. Just know that you are picking up a game without the modern trappings you might expect. This game should be viewed and played with the knowledge that it’s now 10 years old and shows its age.

Story wise, the game is also showing the same signs of age as the gameplay and visuals. Groundbreaking for its time, the game did an excellent job of spanning decades and making the player feel like genuine time had passed between certain sections of the game. Today though, that all feels a little bland, when married with the sterility of the city it will likely leave players feeling a little underwhelmed, and it wasn’t until perhaps the latter third of the game that I really found myself becoming interested in the story. It’s clear to anyone that will take the time to look, that this is from a time when stories in games were only just starting to dabble with the possibilities that they could be so much more than they had been to that point. Mafia 2 is a straddling point in this, in that the developers have clearly tried to do something more with the story they are telling, but they are also constrained by the tendency towards traditional gameplay trappings. There’s a section of the game that is for all intents and purposes an extended cut-scene, but to give the player something to do, the story constantly finds more and more contrived ways to put the player into a position where they have to have a solo punch up with someone. It’s not a deal breaker, but it is a little jarring. The jarring nature of the story is also extended into later sections of the game. If the player is willing to look, there are side missions available, but at no point are you really pushed towards them and to be honest, players should generally just leave them alone and instead view the open world as an environment building technique rather than something that should be explored. The problem with this though, is that later in the game the side mission quest givers return and act like you have been working with them throughout the game. There was one such character that I hadn’t seen since the opening hour or so, but he acted like we were old friends with a big relationship and felt ever so slightly off. Like the world the characters were living in isn’t quite the one that has existed over the course of the game. A well built world with rounded believable characters should immerse a player completely. It’s why stories can get away with fantastical elements, because as long as it’s in keeping with the universe it exists, it feels grounded and believable. It’s unfortunate then that the world of Mafia 2 falls just short of that. All too often players will be aware that they are moving around a simulated space, which is a real shame, but one that can be forgiven given that this title is actually 10 years old. Forgiven that is until the bugs start. Make no mistake, this game is a buggy mess that will not only forcibly prevent players from getting lost in what this game has to offer, but at times utterly ruin the experience.

The bugs are the real crux of the problem with Mafia 2 that will mar the experience for players who encounter issues. Most of those coming to the game will be aware of its age and aware of the issues that might come as a result, but over the course of the game, I ran into several bugs that prevented me from progressing, culminating with the result that at the time of writing this, I’m still stuck on the second to last mission because an NPC character needed to trigger the next cut scene has vanished. Reloading doesn’t solve the issue, so it seems like I am now unable to progress and for all intents and purposes the save is now broken. Game breaking bugs are unacceptable at the best of times, but in a game that is a decade old, this is not only embarrassing, but feels like the publisher holds the player in utter contempt and don’t value anything other than getting them to part with their money. Thankfully, a cursory search on the internet suggests that this bug, although known, is fairly rare, so most people will be limited to buggy police behaviour that will see them getting lost during chases on foot or becoming trapped in the walls as they try to hunt you down. On at least three occasions I was forced to retrace my steps through a mission to locate a police officer that had become stuck or lost so that I could deal with them and allow the  next section of a mission to begin. Unfortunately this has left a bad taste in the mouth that still remains.

This game does have something to offer. For those that were fond of the game during its initial release, it provides a nice jaunt down memory lane. It’s probably even useful for those interested in playing older games to know how they feel and to see the progression that the industry has undergone over the last decade. For those passionate about the industry, it’s a worthwhile exercise to play through older games to get a feel of how things have developed and Mafia 2 is a great example of a game that helped move narrative forward, coming at a time that the quality in video game storytelling was about to undergo a dramatic coming of age.. It is however hard to recommend this game to anyone else. It’s an old game, make no mistake, but worse than that, are the bugs. Slowed or locked progress because of confused NPC’s is all too common. Bugs are a fact of video game life, but game ending or breaking experiences should be ironed out before release. As a community, we should expect better from games and based on this, Mafia 2 falls sadly short.

Release Date: 19th May 2020

Platform Played On: Xbox One X

Developer: 2K Czech

Publisher: 2K Games

Score 6/10