Mafia

Roody_Yogurt · Post by **Roody_Yogurt** » Mon Dec 30, 2002 12:41 am

Alright, I bought Mafia last week and finished it today. What can I say... the opening blew me away, there were a couple of great cinematic scenes, the sky was incredibly beautiful at times...
In the end, this game, while good, isn't quite as good as it could be. Granted, this game is addictive; I'm happy to find a game that makes me want to play it through because these days, I usually think that I'm not really a gamer anymore and just buy games out of some fucked up nostalgia/consumerism thing. The game has its problems, though... Way too much driving all across the city just for the sake of extending the game length... how lame that you pretty much have to use the speed limiter most of the time, too. Most of the extra side missions that the mechanic gives you involve even more driving, and had I known that there was no payoff other than getting new cars (which I couldn't keep track of, anyways) that I may later use on the Free Ride option (which I really doubt I'll ever use), I probably would have avoided it altogether.
Still, those skies were pretty cool. Makes me think that soon enough I'll play a game that has moments so serenely beautiful that'll cause a serious sort of zen moment.

And oh yeah, Mafia marks the first game that I was honestly annoyed by the installation process, which is probably mainly due to the fact that each of the four or so cds was in a sealed envelope.

Ben · Post by **Ben** » Mon Dec 30, 2002 1:37 am

I stopped playing after I got to the scene in the Church.

I started losing interest shortly after (or perhaps during) the "quick, drive our race car to victory!" mission, because that's about the point where the plot got ridiculous.

I don't mind a ridiculous plot, unless you're trying (as the game appeared to be doing up until that point) to tell a reasonable story with a reasonable plot.

Well done, though. Still, I'd rather be playing GTA3.

Kay'l 669 · Post by **Kay'l 669** » Mon Dec 30, 2002 1:58 am

Why don't you play Outcast or Omikron. I'd me more than willing to make you CD images of them if you want to play them.

Worm · Post by **Worm** » Mon Dec 30, 2002 1:59 am

me=be
I've been thinking about picking up a new FPS but I want some other decent things to do in it rather than just shoot.

Protagonist X · Post by **Protagonist X** » Mon Dec 30, 2002 3:43 am

Worm wrote:me=be
I've been thinking about picking up a new FPS but I want some other decent things to do in it rather than just shoot.

I heard Anochronox was really really good in this regard. I also heard the reason that it got dissed had nothing to do with the gameplay and everything to do with eye-candy-hungry people who refused to accept anything based on the Quake II engine.

Anyone played it or heard other news? I was considering picking it up.

----------------
Protagonist X

Lex · Post by **Lex** » Mon Dec 30, 2002 9:55 am

Good game. I can even say now "Made by a friend of mine", since I started up an e-mail conversation with Tom Hall on the matter. It's a very good game, but don't make the mistake I did: If you treat it like a Q2 Addon, and play through it, completing it with the crappest weapons and no idea how the spell-system works, then you're missing a lot. Only after I completed it and looked at a demo video made a year earlier did I realise this: It looks incredible if you really play it properly. It's just the mistake of treating it like a TC Pak.

Soem beautifully directed scenes in there, though. Seriously, like "Whoa." good scenes. Some brilliant camera-angles.

And a really, really great song called "Stiletto Anyway". It's worth it for that.

Also: It's worth taking different people with you at different times: I found 3 different versions of the same cutscenes when you go on a certain mission: Each one amusing on it's own way, depending on who you took to the planet with you. It was cool.

ICJ · Post by **ICJ** » Mon Dec 30, 2002 12:05 pm

Ben wrote:I started losing interest shortly after (or perhaps during) the "quick, drive our race car to victory!" mission, because that's about the point where the plot got ridiculous.

After I bought it, my brother installed it on his computer and got quite a ways through it.

He *could not* get past the racing level there. I had to find a level warp or a save game or whatever it was for him. I fully admit (in this thread) that I am pretty goddamn bad at playing video and computer games, but my brother has real reflexes, a talent for pattern recognition, and actual problem-solving ability. He couldn't figure out any way to beat that race. Who the hell thought racing a go-kart at 25 miles per hour would be fun in a game called MAFIA??! It would barely be fun in a game called HEADBOB'S BLOWJOB KART RACER IV. I really need to experience it for myself, because I am thinking that it may very well go down in Game Level History as one of the world's worst.

ICJ · Post by **ICJ** » Mon Dec 30, 2002 12:17 pm

Anachronox was really solid. Though, I did intend to temporarily quit playing at one point and haven't made it back to the game yet, so take that for what it's worth. I'll probably attempt to finish it at some point. The graphics looked good enough to me as far as I can remember. Certainly they didn't distract, like (I don't know) Ultima V tends to do when you want to go back and finish that one.

There was some decent characterization there too, from what I experienced. The Fling-bot is right up there with the Orcish Suicide Bomber from the Two Towers movie in terms of best supporting character in the greater realm of late 20th Century / Early 21st Century Fiction that absolutely no interest in self-preservation. The characters look alittle blocky (but, hey, so does mankind as a whole, really), but at the same time a ninja PC in circa 2003 is so far over the thing's original specs that you can run it in 1600x1200 mode and not see any slowdown.

The only thing I do not like about it is the Final Fantasy-style combat. But that was a genre choice, so it's like saying that the only thing you didn't like about the movie "Brain Dead" was the pus, zombies and gore.

Roody_Yogurt · Post by **Roody_Yogurt** » Mon Dec 30, 2002 2:21 pm

Mafia: Yeah, that race was hard. I went to www.gamefaqs.com to see if there was some sort of special trick to it but didn't really find anything. There's really a weird learning curve, though. Once you get it down, it really isn't too bad. Just try to get in front right away... keeping the lead is a lot easier than trying to catch up, and figure out which turns it's really best to slow down for.

Anachronox: One of the best console-style RPGs I've ever played, but yeah, there was at least one part for me where I thought, eh, maybe I'm done playing this. When I came back to it like a month later and forced myself forward, I came upon a lot of cool things that I'm glad I didn't miss out on. The combat was a bit weird, because to some extent it was a bit easy (on normal difficulty level). Later on in the game, there's a somewhat complicated way to augment your spellz and create some mad destructive attacks, but I found that I really only had to use the simple stuff to get things done... so it's 'well, here's something cool for you to do if you care enough.'

But yeah, the Flingbot rules. Just showed my older brother that part just a couple weeks ago as my demonstration for why the game is so cool.

Debaser · Post by **Debaser** » Mon Dec 30, 2002 9:20 pm

Ben wrote:I stopped playing after I got to the scene in the Church.

I started losing interest shortly after (or perhaps during) the "quick, drive our race car to victory!" mission, because that's about the point where the plot got ridiculous.

I don't mind a ridiculous plot, unless you're trying (as the game appeared to be doing up until that point) to tell a reasonable story with a reasonable plot.

Ditto. Actually, I got moderately annoyed starting with the scene in the hotel where you (a cabbie up until a week ago) wind up offing several dozen enemy thugs all by your lonesome. I understand this sort of thing is probably par for the course for FPS's, but I don't play nearly enough of them to be "used" to it, I guess.

It is too fucking late · Tue Dec 31, 2002 4:18 am

Worm: ICJ can't their be a password box under username? ... ack probably not.

Well, I am going to pick up your reccomendation Anchraohxon or what ever it is.

I suggest you guys give Outcast a whirl ... and speaking of First Person games ... Daggerfall doesn't work. I downloaded a pirate copy (I guess it would be. Beth doesn't have to be angry I bought the right to copy copy copy and copy that data a million times for ten bucks back in EB)

I haven't tested Omikron ... I almost am afraid to finish that game expected some let down. I really love that game and never finished it the first time through just because I got distracted (Literally "Oh shiny" then a format happened). After I got rid of FLCSS and that OPASERV Worm I tried it again got to the end and fell asleep on my second disc and broke it in half. I can't wait to finish that.

So back on mark ... Mafia worth the Fifty bucks, the download, or niether?

Roody_Yogurt · Post by **Roody_Yogurt** » Sat Apr 05, 2003 8:37 pm

Even though I get the impression that most people who gave up on the game gave up for good (and it really does pretty much reach a climax early on), I just installed the game again so my little brother can play it and notice that there's a patch at http://mafia.gtacenter.com/. Among other things, I guess it makes the race easier.