Review by: William Abner

I don’t think it’s a stretch to assume that the developers at 2K Czech want to make mobster movies. You can also make the case they they’d like to try their hand at a racing game. What is not clear is whether they have any interest in making a videogame about mobsters.

Mafia II is the strangest game I have played in quite some time. It’s an open world game, but it isn’t. There isn’t anything to actually do in the meticulously constructed Empire Bay outside of the plot missions. No side missions, no mini games, just the option to buy gas, new clothes, and some guns. If you’re feeling particularly wild you can sell cars at an impound lot or knock over a store for money that you don't really need.

It makes mob life look shockingly tedious – like the bad episodes of The Sopranos. It focuses so much on driving around Empire Bay that you get to the point when you loathe the end of a mission because you’ll need to drive all the way home just to go to bed so you can start the next chapter. If you removed all of the back and forth driving this game would be five hours long, and a lot of that would be spent watching cut scenes. It’s a good enough mob yarn, a bit cliché, but for a videogame it’s actually quite good. The only problem is that there just isn’t any real gameplay here.

Remember the scene in The Godfather when Sonny is gunned down at the toll booth? It’s one of the most memorable scenes in movie history. It made you realize that in this world anyone could die. It’s the life they had chosen. What if you saw Sonny get in his car, obey the traffic signals, listen to some big band tunes and watch him drive quietly for five minutes of screen time as he neared the scene of his demise? That’s Mafia II. There’s more mundane driving in this game than in Driving Miss Daisy.

Even the missions can be a drag. I spent several minutes literally picking out various colored cartons of stolen cigarettes from the back of a truck during one mind numbing exchange. “Hey, I’d like a red one.” Kill me now. Another mission has you driving around (see, I told you) to various gas stations to sell gas stamps. The tedium knows no bounds and due to its strict linearity there’s nothing else you can do but go with the flow. How is it compelling to press the walk forward key on my keyboard and follow a guard through a hallway for a few minutes with no other option but to...follow the guard? If you stop, the guard quips, “I’ll throw you in the hole if you don’t get back in line.” No he won’t. I wish he would. But he won’t. It’s all talk. It’s Mafia II’s way of throwing you into this world and not letting you veer off course whatsoever; it’s also a conspicuous way to add length to the overall play time. This game, even at ten hours, is far too long because most of the game is spent not really doing anything.