Mafia II Updated Exclusive Hands-On - Vito's New Life
The point of Mafia II, says producer Alex Cox, is to make you feel like the lead in a mobster movie--to be the video game equivalent of The Godfather or Goodfellas. That makes classy cinematic presentation and musical score; "mature, believable" narrative; and meticulous period details the order of the day: all the trappings of a classic gangster flick wrapped around an urban driving and shooting sandbox. For our preview, we played four chapters of the game; one of these included the consumer demo, which will be available two weeks ahead of the game and is described in our Mafia II hands-on from the Electronic Entertainment Expo.
Mafia II comes from studio 2K Czech, formerly Illusion Softworks, which brought out the first Mafia game back in 2002. The game is set in Empire Bay, which, at 10 square miles in area, feels like a miniature New York. 2K Czech splits the action between two distinct periods: an icy winter in the mid-1940s set against a World War II backdrop and a brighter, more colourful summer in the mid-1950s as Vito Scaletta, the star of the show, rises through the ranks as a Mafioso.
Vito is an Italian immigrant, a US soldier, and the only son of a deceased father who has left his mother and sister with debts they can't hope to repay. We get introduced to Vito in Home Sweet Home, the game's opening chapter, in which he arrives back in Empire Bay for a month's leave after recovering from being wounded in battle. It's February 1945, Empire Bay is snowbound, and Vito is met at the train station by Joe, a tubby hustler and Vito's old buddy, who later passes on his best pick-up lines in a way reminiscent of Roman, the cousin of Grand Theft Auto IV's Nico.
Now is the winter of our discontent. What we really need here are some Tommy guns, am I right?
As Joe drove us away from the station, Empire Bay revealed itself as an attractive wintry cityscape. Attention to detail, especially period detail, abounds in Mafia II, right down to the clothing on passers-by and the wartime posters on the walls. The frozen streets produce a moody, austere atmosphere that fits nicely with the World War II backdrop. The convincing 1940's setting is completed by period-style, snow-topped cars (not real licensed models but inspired by iconic vehicles of the time) with contemporary news and authentic music on their radios. There are about 120 licensed songs, we're told, with "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" and Vera Lynn numbers for the 1940's era and rock and roll for the 1950s. Vito arrived home in Little Italy to the sound of "Let It Snow."
The apartment where Vito's mother and sister live is lavishly detailed too, as are the interiors throughout the demo, with care given to even grubby stairwell textures and mundane domestic details--saucepans in the kitchen, for instance, and health-giving beers and sandwiches in the fridge. After a rest in Vito's childhood bedroom and a change of costume out of his GI uniform and into a leather jacket, it was back out onto the streets, where we found Vito's sister being threatened by a loan shark. Cue a hand-to-hand combat tutorial and Vito's motivation: He needs a lot of money to get his family out of trouble--and soon. The melee combat is simple but handsomely animated, allowing light and heavy hits and a couple of basic combos. Holding down the A button (in the Xbox 360 version) has Vito nimbly dodge whatever punches come his way, and when an opponent is near defeat, a button prompt lets you trigger a knockout final blow.
Vito's buddy Joe can get him set up with a new life. But it does involve some dirty work.
Lucky for Vito, Joe is well connected. He's made a call to get Vito out of returning to the battlefield, promising some forged discharge papers, and, better still, he is Vito's first step into a life of organised crime. We're told to drive him to locksmith and apparent counterfeiter Giuseppe to pick up Vito's papers and a set of lock picks, putting us behind the wheel of a car for the first time. The car we drove, a close imitation of a wartime Ford model, seemed to handle authentically for a 1940s vehicle on treacherously icy streets. It skidded around corners and slid to a halt when we put on the brakes. A 1950s convertible we extracted from Vito's garage later in the game was punchier and louder. And though the cars are authentic, the minimap comes with all the modern conveniences--that is to say, a GPS-like route finder and objective markers.
