No cg, sorry.

This might be one of the more what the hell’s I’ve done. A 2k game about mobsters? How is this ecchi you might ask. Well, there’s a few reasons. The biggest is the 50(19 more from dlc, no in game gallery for that though) Playboy images the game has as collectibles throughout the game. Plus pinups and a bit more and I figured why not.

Mafia 1 doesn’t have these to my knowledge, and Definitive Edition sucks. It’s a an almost unnoticeable graphic improvement for more bugs and 5 times the graphics size. Since buying Definitive gives you Classic with all the DLC I just went with Classic for this. I think that explains any big questions.

Now what is Mafia? A GTA set in the past instead of the present. A much more serious take on the open world car theft style.

Story- 5

Vito, the main character’s, up and downs from the life of crime. It’s essentially about Vito’s life as he enters the world of mobsters and he lives a great life for mere days and then everything falls apart. Multiple times. So the good and bad of the crime life.

It felt almost episodic, which is likely because of the chapter setup. Which led to most events not feeling connected. Some are, about half the missions aren’t. I also feel a few questions needed to be answered that weren’t, but I get why. It’s not Vito’ place to know those things.

Gameplay-6

While I called it similar to GTA, it’s really only that at a surface level. This games open world didn’t need to exist. It does for the driving gameplay, which makes up a bulk of the game time and I got really tired of that. You can go on shooting sprees and rob stores and buy things, but you lose everything you have multiple times, lose all your money multiple times only for the main story to hand you more of it and each chapter saves what you have so you reload to screw around, and you die really quickly so those shooting sprees are likely to be short lived.

Don’t play this expecting silly fun times like Saint’s Row or GTA. This is the serious take. That’s why cops pull you over for speeding and the speed limit mode all cars have to force you to drive at the speed limit is a god send for when I just wanted to get from point A to B.

So the game basically has three styles of gameplay. Driving, cover shooter, and fist fights. Driving is mostly point A to B. When its an actual mission thing you generally have to keep your car intact, which is either slow and boring or fun as you barely dodge the other cars and fail two steps from the goal. There’s a small amount of chases and timed stuffed, not really standout out other then the one time the person I was stealth driving behind got pulled over by a cop and I failed the mission becasue the AI drove into a cop car a minute from the goal.

Cover shooter is pretty basic. You get most of the famous guns of the time and you pop out of waist high cover and shoot. Duck back under to heal and repeat until everyone is dead. Rarely will the enemies actually approach you so for most fights it’s just a waiting game. This is helped by you often having other NPCs on your side so they can do a lot of the shooting for you.

Fist fights were the hardest mode in the game. You have light punches, heavy hits, and a dodge everything mode. At the start of the game this is the hardest mode as enemies will dodge you constantly and then lay one down as you go for the dodge button. Then you learn how to counter and there isn’t a hard fist fight for the rest of the game.

The actual point to the open world is the driving sections and the wanted posters are the only reason to explore that world. These are credits as a collectible, being mugshots of the creators of the game scattered through the world. I grabbed them all but really aren’t worth mentioning beyond they exist for an achievement and are saved globally.

Unlike those posters, the Playboy magazines are actually in specifics houses and areas you can usually only enter during specific chapters.Once you find one you get the image unlocked in the gallery, and there’s 50 of them, around 3-4 a chapter. There’s also posters, pinups and such you unlock via game progress, with I think the pinups being locked behind beating the game in hard mode.

Last thing, money is pointless. Often times in the story you will lose your guns only to recollect a new set so buying guns is only for running around town causing mayhem. Buying clothes sounds more permanent, but there is a story moment where you lose all of those, making them just a part of the lose wanted status as changing clothes makes cops ignore you if you they found you committing a crime, which is a cool thing. Your car and your person are separate for being wanted, so if speeding and you lose the cops for a bit just leave your car and find a new one. It’s as if you never broke the law.

Back to the money thing, you regen health so food isn’t needed unless you again are going on a ruckus. Car’s being upgraded is the best thing you can do, but often times story quests will force cars on you or put you in a situation were you make do with any vehicle around. Having a supped up car is nice for starting out most chapters to each your goal, which was the most boring part of the game. Basically money is pointless for everything except driving and the points in the story were you need money. Which is really only once and if you don’t spend anything you basically have enough cash.

Lewdness- 5

50 Playboy images. Honestly they remind me of ecchi galleries a lot with the poses and something blocking seeing crotches in each shot. Some are pretty creative. All of them are just poses. There’s also the pinups, though the situations are a bit weird, like girl showering but a guy with a gun is coming in. Then the next image is her still buck naked but the guy in the tub knocked out. Not really my kind of ecchi but I’m sure someone one enjoy these.

The female models should be mentioned as well. After the in game time skip the girls in town get some clothes that make their breast stand out, and there’s a reoccurring call girl with a bare bottom in a few cutscenes. The models aren’t great, but not terrible so I could see them being considered sexy when this came out.

Final Thoughts

Mediocre is my final thoughts on it. While I do like the use of historic stuff as collectables, like the Playboy images, the actual game is kind of meh. You drive A to B way to much and while I’m sure that’s just part of the genre, the world isn’t interesting enough for that to work. Getting pulled over for speeding just gets annoying, so I ended up driving slower which made the whole experience weaker. The gun play isn’t anything I haven’t seen better in other cover shooters and they make the fist fights irrelevant with the counter system.

The shops being pointless also just bothers me. I thought at the least buying all the clothing would be nice, but nope. Those all burn up and you have to get them again. This makes earning money feel pointless. Just load up a chapter that starts with around a few hundred dollars and run around, that’s it. Which makes the side activities pointless.

It’s a competent enough game, it just isn’t anything special without the collectable or the atmosphere. Its a good peek into that era of time, which is likely it’s strongest aspect. To bad the announced Mafia 4 is likely going to be made for modern sensibilities, which ruins one of the strongest points of the this game. A peek into the past as it was.

Save for Mafia 2 Classic

Save contains all unlockables. I didn’t play the dlcs since they just unlock achievements which I didn’t care about. Not even the Joe dlc with it’s own Playboys unlock anything in any menu I’m aware of.

Gameplay: 6/10 Eroticness: 5/10 Story: 5/10

Completion: Collect all posters and Playboy’s, beat game in hard mode.