Mafia 2 is brilliant

User Rating: 9 | Mafia II PS3
Mafia 2 plays similar to GTA, but it is not really a sandbox game. Gameplay is heavily based on story, you will find yourself traveling a lot from point to point for just conversations. The big city is here to provide a sense of travel, distance, and a feeling for overall immersion, as well as for adding driving sequences to remove repetition from shootouts.

While driving, you have to keep an eye out on your speed, if you go above the limit and the cops see you, they will come after you. Thankfully there is a way to place and remove a speed limiter on your car so you don't have to manually slow down every time, and it will readjust on highways appropriately.

The story is great, good voice acting and a spot on atmosphere make you care about the characters and their involvement in their every day troubles. The plot is stretched across several years, so you will find yourself caring more for characters and what happens to them because you seem to have spend much time with them and got to know a lot about them. Sometimes it can get a little complicated to keep up with all the different Italian names being tossed around.

Gun play looks and feels great, much like Uncharted there is some terrific motion capture here. Every missions will have a few hidden magazines to find and collect, and certain alleys also have wanted posters to find, so if you feel like exploring there will be neat stuff to find.

The only bad thing I can say about Mafia 2 is the lack of an epilogue, when the game ends it will feel like an unfinished story, as it will leave you wanting even more.