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They are, in fact, a bit less aggressive than in the original Mafia. You can soup up the cars at a body shop to give them more pep, except the police will try to pull you over if you drive at speeds over 55 or so, always ready to stamp out any marginal excitement that might occur. Vito mostly finds himself behind the wheel of lumbering saloons, whose slowness exacerbates the game's boredom. You hit the asphalt for meeting after meeting, with the occasional fight tossed in whenever the developers felt the need to make something actually happen (a relatively rare impulse). Whenever a capo needs someone to drive from point A to point B, Scaletta's their man. Given that he's such an unimpressive recruit, it figures that the mob enlists Vito to do their most mundane errands. He's the one that hatches the plans and lays the groundwork for Vito's career our hero simply follows Joe's lead. At least Joe has some sense of self-agency, though. Vito's buddy Joe is supposed to be the dumb one, and indeed, like most of the characters in Mafia II, he is a detestable cretin. May Games with Gold titles include Mafia 2, F1 2013 He does have occasional moments of rebellion, but because of the character's general vapidity, they ring false. Likewise, there's nothing behind the pretty face of protagonist Vito Scaletta, a charmless zero who does whatever he is told to do no matter who asks, obliging all corners of the Empire Bay organised-crime machine with his robotic smile. The map's points of interest are almost useless, like clothing stores that feature a handful of drab outfits. You can sometimes ignore your current objective and drive around, but why would you? There's nowhere to go. But the reality is that Mafia II strings the player through a couple of dozen mandatory missions, all of them straight out of the Grand Theft Auto reject pile, and the potential for exploration is nil. Mafia II was having me play stamp salesman, and it wasn't even kidding.ĢK Czech's developers have dressed up their latest title to masquerade as a vast, Rockstar-style open world, and a pretty masquerade it is, too. Even after four hours of play, I told myself, "Once I get past these boring tutorial stages, the actual game is going to be great." As I slogged through a mission to canvass Empire Bay's local gas stations and sell off extra fuel stamps, the truth dawned on me: This was the actual game. Mafia II puts up such a convincing facade that it's hard to believe Empire Bay is, in fact, practically empty. Playing this Potemkin village of a game is an eerie experience. Mafia II has the production values that players interpret as signs of quality. The nicely curated oldies soundtrack promises to immerse us in the culture and spirit of the period. The game opens with striking visuals: the backdrop of Empire Bay (Mafia's stand-in for New York City) is packed with World War II-era details, and the characters are authentic-looking, with a veneer of humanity. The remarkable thing about Mafia II is not that it's bad, but that it masks its awfulness so well.