Mafia 3 - Review

I don't want to start off this review negatively (meaning I almost definitely am going to) but when Mafia 3 was announced I was not very excited.  Why?  Well, I was just not convinced Louisiana was a great setting for a Mafia game.  When I think of Louisiana, I think of the Dixie Mafia rather than the traditional Italian Mafia.  It's might sound strange I would dislike it for that especially considering I really like the TV show Justified which centres on exactly that.  Outside of that, the game was not exactly stunning looking for a Triple-A title,  based on all that information you might be wondering why I played it - I was waiting for Halo Wars 2 to arrive.


I like Chips but I am not as pushed on French Fries, depending on what country you are from & how you view each of those things it may sound confusing.  I see French Fries as potatoes cut into thin strips, fried lightly in oil & cooked with a lot of salt.  Chips are potatoes cut into chunky shapes & cooked heavily in oil.  While playing Mafia 3 I had to ask myself was eating French Fries or Chips?

The game is set in 1968, in a version of New Orleans.  You play as Lincoln Clay who has just returned from the Vietnam War.  Clay returns home to his adopted father Sammy & his brother Ellis.
Before Clay left for war he, along with his family were part of the Black Mob.  All Clay wants to do is be a good man, get a good job & leave his bad ways behind.  Unfortunately Clay is too loyal for his own good & quickly falls back into bad ways to help his family.


One of the strongest parts of the game is definitely the story.  It's not just simply the story but also the method used to tell it.  The introduction is told in flashback format which I really liked.  The part I really loved was the documentary style story telling.  I found it interesting listening to different people's take on Lincoln Clay,  the characters showed real emotion when speaking on camera.  I felt this, along with the story helped make the world & characters seem more real.


As always I won't spoil the story for you but I will say two things; first I was shocked & excited that there are multiple endings you can pick, two after the credits role this a little extra story which was just epic.

Visually speaking the game is very underwhelming especially for a Triple-A title,  I would not go as far to say it's awful but all the same it's not great.   While I know a game is a lot more than just what it looks like I do feel it let it's self down in a big way because of it.   When it came to look of the main characters they looked quite good but world itself seemed dull & almost out of focus. The documentary scenes looked quite well & I loved that it looked purposefully grainy to make it seem like old footage.  A friend described it best to me, the games looks like it is 8-10 years old.  If Mafia 3 was released back in 2007 visually it would have been considered to be really good but nowadays it just isn't really acceptable, especially from a bigger studio.  But I digress & will move onto some of the better aspects of the game.


The soundtrack in the game is split into two parts; the score & the music, both are equally brilliant. I will start by talking about the score, the two composers responsible for it are:


Jesse Harlin - who is a composer for Lucas Arts & has worked on; Star Wars Republic Commando, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith & Force Unleashed.

Jim Bonney - who worked on; BioShock Infinite, Mortal Kombat Armageddon & Perception.


The music is a blend of Cajun, Blues, Rhythm & Zydeco.  It fits the setting of the game well & I found it hard to pick any fault with it.  My favorite pieces included:

New Bordeaux
No One Is Untouchable
Boy Becomes A Man
Crush N Shuffle
Devil In The Woodpile
5 Years, 3 Months, 18 Days
Hard Fought & Hard Won


The second part of the soundtrack featured many great artists & songs from the era, some of my favorites were:

Animals - We Gotta Get Out of This Place
Canned Heat - On The Road Again
Creedence Clearwater Revival - Bad Moon Rising
Elvis - A Little Less Conversation
Johnny Cash - Folsom Prison Blues
Ottis Redding - Sitting on the Deck of the Bay
The Avengers - Paint It Black
The Rolling Stones - Sympathy for the Devil


Overall a pretty much flawless soundtrack featuring work from some great composers & artists.  Well worth a listen even if you don't plan on playing the game.

Right, on to the meat - the gameplay (also I really want some meat).  Lincoln Clay is a big guy & moves like one, this may come off sounding like a bad thing but it isn't.  By having him move realistically it makes him feel more powerful, you can really feel the benefits of this when using melee attacks.  The game may lack a few thing things but violence is not one of them, it is intense, frequent & awesome.  Taking down enemies feels good especially if you go for the more brutal attacks.  The guns for the most part felt good & the cover system worked well, some cover was also destructible which helped make the gameplay more intense.


There is good selection of cars & for the most part they behave as they should.  I generally found myself using a sports car to get around as they were fast & handle very well. The boats were okay but I tried to avoid using them most of the time as I found they did not handle very well.  Being honest though there is not a great need to use them if you focus on the main story.


Wiretapping is a feature in the game which was a cool idea but the novelty wore off quickly, the only real benefit of doing it is to find collectibles.  The collectibles include;  Album Covers, Communist Propaganda Posters, Hot Rod Magazines, Playboy Magazines, Repent Magazines & Vargas Paintings.


The city is vast & you can't take it all on by yourself so you need some help.  Enter Bourke, Cassandra & Vito.   Each time you take over a racket or district you get to pick who will run them.
Each character offers you something different for giving them a racket or district,  I found myself favoring Vito a lot of the time as I liked what he offered the best.  It is important to keep all three happy otherwise...well I will let you find out.  Each Under Boss provides you with kickbacks which you can increase further by performing some very repetitive missions.  Money as a whole seemed a little pointless in the game as once you had one or two good weapons & upgraded your car there was nothing else to really spend it on.  It would have been nice if you could have invested some of your earnings into something like real estate.


The story missions were often quite fun but the racket missions got old fast,  I wished there had been a little bit more variety with them. Some missions take place at night but if you are driving to the mission during the day the game quickly transitions to night & looks really cool - it's only something small but I liked it.  While the gameplay was pretty good I found that the game crashed way too often for my liking, the only bonus is that the games auto saves fairly regular so I never really found myself losing much.





So how did I feel about the game overall?  I was going to say the game was meh because of the disappointing visuals & some of the missions were repetitive but after some contemplation I have decide to say it was a good game.  I still much prefer Mafia 2 overall but I feel both games shared the potential to be more if only they had just tried a little harder - maybe Mafia 4 will do the series the justice it deserves.