Cars, guns, money and pin-up girls
This year the long-awaited follow-up appeared and expectations was set high.
The game takes place in 1940´s and early 50´s USA, in the fictional town "Empire Bay". You play as Vito, a italian immigrant. He and his best friend Joe gets into shady business already when in their teens. Vito gets caught and ends up, unwillingly, in the army.
Back home after service he reunites with his old buddy Joe and together they start up where they left off. Only their crimes are getting more serious and soon you two are getting in touch with a bigger crime organisation, hence the games name.
The bullets are peppering flesh, wooden crates and cement pillars in all through this one. But you are also going to learn how to fight bare fisted. Some scenes are really gruesome, but mostly nothing a typical 15+ gamer haven´t seen before. The language is harsh and sometimes I wonder if they really talked like this back in those days or if the whole industry has been so extremely influenced by Tarantino that the past has been altered.
This is an action-game, not an shooter and also blessed with an rich and engaging story. The bosses are stone-faced, their henchmen ruthless and sociopaths. The life of an mafioso is an ever waiting experience of being back-stabbed at any time and you have to sleep with one eye open and your gun under the pillow. The life can change from day to day like this games story takes turns from chapter to chapter.
A big part of this game takes place on the roads of Empire Bay. You, Vito, driving around in cars. Sometimes a too big part according to me. The driving part is very similar to the GTA games. Myself I have only played GTA III and Vice City back in the days, but I remembered it being more fun back then.
The control of your vehicle is pretty shabby, but maybe you not can expect more - this is a action-game after all. But constant crashing into other cars and miscellaneous other stuff just because you did not take that turn at 2 miles per hour gets annoying.
At the beginning driving is a rather nice experience as you can look around the impressive work they done with building up the city. But it gets repetitive after a while and sometimes you have to go really great distances. Sometimes I have really wished for some kind of auto-drive function. At least between missions.
One other thing I don´t really like has nothing to do with the game itself. It´s about the mechanism behind this game and others that uses Steam. This modern day function that requires that you always have to be online to play. Yes, I know there is an choice to play offline, but I did not get it to work. And I had some issues with my broadband the time when I was playing this game, so that was really annoying. Why not just require internet to sign up and then choose to play either off- or online like with (for example) EA-games like Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age. I don´t care about achievements - I just want to play an excellent game.
Enough about that. To the games disadvantage are also some really nasty bugs that with an worthless save-system that reeks of console almost are game-breaking. I had to replay almost a whole chapter of the game because of a bug that made my partner freeze on spot.
I am playing a game on computer - I demand to save when I want and have different save-slots, to prevent stuff like this happening.
Despite some shortcomings I really enjoyed this game though. I liked the story (cliché-filled, but still) and its characters. Voice-acting is great and so are the sound effects. The collectibles containing of Playboy-girls are in truth totally unnecessary, but - hey- it is naked chicks for your eyes only.
The gaming industry is after all only a place for little boys with a bulge in their pants that wants to shoot at stuff and look at girls fruities.
Right!?