Been playing it for a couple hours now and loving it so far. The first few cases really are a case of holding your hand but once you're past that and put on the proper missions it's really good. It's extremely linear but that's what i expected after reading about it, it was never going to be a GTA style muck around kinda game. The best bit for me so far is the interviews with the suspects and when you get the questions wrong so they give you less. It made me start to question what i'd done wrong or what bit of evidence i should have shown them to prove my point. Driving the cars around is sound enough, nothing fancy about it but if you cause too much damage to your car or the environment around you it negatively affects your ranking come the end of the missions. Driving to and from missions isn't the pain in the arse it could be either, you can just get your partner to drive you there instead. If you do that though you miss out on the side missions that pop up over the car radio which are a fun distraction but usually involve a lengthy drive. And of course the facial animations still amaze me, even people walking along the street making random comments look fantastic. The one issue i have with the animations is that sometimes it seems as though the characters are looking through each other rather than at each other, hard to explain but you'll know what i mean when you play it.
On the negative side. Fist fights are unbelievably easy as you don't need to time your blocks and a couple of hits and it's over. Chase sequences on foot feel very hollow as you do nothing but point yourself into the right direction, no button to press to jump or climb over a fence or up a ladder makes it seem as though it might as well be a cutscene. I've had a few times where the framerate has suffered and it's been a little choppy, these have usually been when i'm in an area with a crowd of people nearby, ie outdoor crime scenes, but when you're driving around i've not noticed a problem.
Basically the world i'd hoped Mafia 2 was going to be with a great cop game in it. The side characters are very good (Stefan and the Irish chief the two stand outs atm) which helps as Phelps himself is a bit of a strange guy and is hard to like. I really like it so far (i'm just into homocide), the cases are getting more and more gruesome and gritty as i go and i'm loving the side story that only unfolds if you read the newspapers lying around. All in i'd say it's a great game, i think 8/10 is looking a fair score although i'd give it a 9 just for the facial technology.
On the negative side. Fist fights are unbelievably easy as you don't need to time your blocks and a couple of hits and it's over. Chase sequences on foot feel very hollow as you do nothing but point yourself into the right direction, no button to press to jump or climb over a fence or up a ladder makes it seem as though it might as well be a cutscene. I've had a few times where the framerate has suffered and it's been a little choppy, these have usually been when i'm in an area with a crowd of people nearby, ie outdoor crime scenes, but when you're driving around i've not noticed a problem.
Basically the world i'd hoped Mafia 2 was going to be with a great cop game in it. The side characters are very good (Stefan and the Irish chief the two stand outs atm) which helps as Phelps himself is a bit of a strange guy and is hard to like. I really like it so far (i'm just into homocide), the cases are getting more and more gruesome and gritty as i go and i'm loving the side story that only unfolds if you read the newspapers lying around. All in i'd say it's a great game, i think 8/10 is looking a fair score although i'd give it a 9 just for the facial technology.
