I’ve been conflicted lately. Conflicted by a video game no less. That game is Mafia 3. Never has my opinion of a game changed so frequently during a play-through that I’m genuinely confused as to how I felt when it was all said and done. But now that I’ve had time to reflect I think I know how I stand with this game. I like it. Now it’s by no means an amazing game but we will get to that shortly.

Mafia 3 is the next iteration in the “Mafia” series and follows the story of Lincoln Clay. A soldier who has recently returned from the Vietnam war and set up shop back in his home town “New Bordeaux” a fictionalised representation of “New Orleans”. Lincoln quickly falls back into his previous lifestyle with his family in the black mafia and after a series of shocking events, Lincoln is set on a mission to destroy the Italian mob and take over every operation they own. So far, so Mafia. By assembling a team of under-bosses including Mafia 2’s Vito Scaletta you work your way through district after district dismantling each area’s business operations until you can get a chance to take out the owner of the district. Once the district is your’s, you claim it as your own and assign it to one of said under-bosses who offer you various favours in an attempt to sway your choice over who gets control of the area. Once the district is assigned you move onto the next district, and the next district, and the next, and the next. This is essentially all you do in Mafia 3 and it grows tiresome very quickly. What can only be imagined as a response to Mafia 2’s linear game-play complaints, Hangar 13 has decided to open up the world they created for Mafia 3 and let players tackle districts in any order they see fit, making this the most open a Mafia game has ever been. The problem with this though is that despite players being able to choose which district they want to take over first , the tasks you complete in each zone are the same throughout the entire game, kill this guy, break some products, steal some money. All that really changes is the setting in which you do these same tasks in which really doesn’t help relieve any of the boredom you get from doing the same things over and over again. It seriously pads the game out way longer than it has any right to go, this game feels like it lasted any eternity, I could only ever play in small chunks as I the repetition killed any sense of me wanting to play for any longer than two hours at a time. Occasionally, the game will throw in a set piece mission when you have to take out someone of high importance e.g. a shootout at an abandoned amusement park but there are simply not enough of these throughout the game to stop the repetition from setting in. But yet. I couldn’t stop booting up the game every time I turned on my PC and I’ll tell you why.

Despite the criminal amount of repetition and padding this game throws at you, the setting, soundtrack, characters and over-arching story is what kept me coming back for more and more. The setting of “New Bordeaux” in the 1960’s is one that enthralled me from beginning until the credits rolled, Hangar 13 certainly deserve serious commendation for the sheer amount of detail they have put into the world, the districts themselves and the other things that bind it all together. I never got tired of jumping into my all black muscle car and driving as fast as I could from one end of the map to the other whilst one of the many incredible tracks on the radio play. The world feels like a character itself and It’s one that I truly felt immersed in when the graphics weren’t bugging out on me or the game was running actually running at a smooth frame rate, but we’ll get to that. This city is full of personality and character, each district is easily identifiable from one another and due to the lack of no fast travel system, you are forced to really soak it all in and become familiar with your surroundings which in my opinion is not a negative. Not to mention the soundtrack is one of the best I’ve heard in a long while. If you are a big music fan i would recommend picking up the game for the soundtrack alone. But where this setting really shows it’s depth is in the way it handles America’s race relations in the deep south throughout the 1960’s. As Lincoln is a black man in a time where black people were still heavily segregated, Hangar 13 has made this a staple in how the open world game-play functions. For example, certain stores are for “whites only”. If you enter, the owner will call the cops. Certain areas in the city will dictate police presence and call out times. If you are in a black neighbourhood, the police can be called by civilians but it’s 50/50 if they show up at all, sometimes it takes them 2 minutes to send out one officer or others times they just no show the whole area, but in a rich white neighbourhood the police arrive pretty much instantly and in much higher numbers. While this may not seem like much it is a very important layer in making Mafia 3’s world seem that much more deep and real which is something Hangar 13 needs to be praised for.

The story on the other hand is one that I found kept me hooked and interested when it was actually around and developing. This story of revenge is a classic narrative trope but yet Mafia 3 throws in enough variation to make it worthwhile to the player to stick around for the long haul. The characters in this game are fantastic, each major character comes to life due in no small part by the incredible, top notch voice acting and motion capture in cut-scenes. I liked and cared about Lincoln and his associates and the game made sure I had every reason to hate the people Lincoln is going after. The only negative about this is that due to how much padding is in this title you often forget about the story and what you are working towards as the cut-scenes, character and story development are stretched far too thin over the duration of the game, but whenever they did appear, I was reminded of why i was invested in the story to begin with. it almost feels as if the developers knew that people would start getting bored and strategically placed these cut-scenes in at certain times to keep them just motivated enough to keep playing.

The core game-play is your bog standard 3rd person, open world, action/adventure fair. You drive cars and you shoot things. The gun play is basic, you jump from cover to cover, taking out enemies in your path before moving up to the next set of cover and shooting more enemies. The game gives you a nice selection of weapons to choose from along with a few select explosive equipment’s, but most of the weapons feel fairly similar so you often find yourself just buying the most powerful gun you can purchase at the time and using that for most of the game. Although the gun-play is quite basic it still remains fun even after hours of play due to how enemies react to your bullets. As fucked up as it sounds. It’s just fun to kill people in this game. You can also choose to take out your enemies using a very, and i mean, very, basic stealth system. It’s about as simple as it could possibly be without it being entirely pointless. But using the stealth system highlights one huge flaw in the game’s design. The A.I is absolutely dreadful. This is quite easily the dumbest A.I I have seen all of 2016. In stealth, enemies field of view is ridiculously short and narrow meaning you can get very close to them without them even noticing you or even better, you can kill one of their friends right in front of their eyes and they will not even react, it’s laughable. In gun fight’s the A.I fairs slightly better, they do flank and take cover most of the time but other times they will just blindly charge your position allowing you to easily make mince meat out of their bodies. Lincoln can only take a a few bullets before he hits the ground though so you can’t just blindly run and gun through each fight, which gives the gun fights a nice challenge to them.

By giving your under-bosses territory they grant you associates that you can use when you are out completing missions, from a mobile armoury in a van to a lady that will come stash all the money you have on you so you don’t loose it when you die these additions allow you to cut some of the tedium that other open world games suffer from, like going to a gun store to buy weaponry.

Driving however is a lot of fun. I feel the game creates a nice blend of arcade and realism on the default driving settings, allowing for cars to handle differently and realistically according to the type of car but also allowing you to drive at high speeds and still make turns without loosing to much speed in that classic arcade manner. Weather and terrain also play into how cars handle which is a nice touch. If you prefer a much more realist system of driving though the game offers a option that let’s you make it so. Sadly, bikes are no where to be found in the game. Couple the fun driving mechanics with the killer soundtrack and you, like me will have lots of fun times cruising through the city as you go from objective to objective.

One glaring omission is the lack of customisation in the game, from not being able to change the clothes or hairstyle that Lincoln has throughout the game to not even being able to customise vehicle appearances. It’s something that is considered a staple in open world games and it’s something that feels odd not being in this game, especially considering that Mafia 2 had these features back in 2010.

As seen in the image above, the game can look quite beautiful at times, with nice reflections and lighting systems being used in the open world, but on other times, time which are much more frequent than the good times, the game can look downright ugly with weird lighting effects and bloom making everything look like a game from last gen, and this was with the game’s video setting maxed out on PC. Lincoln’s character model and animations are very good but the same love wasn’t applied to the NPC’s of the world. It’s a mixed bag, sometimes I was impressed, others I was surprised with how shitty it looked. Performance on PC is below average to say the least. Frame-rates were unstable on PC even after the patch which unlocked the frame-rates. I was able to get a smooth 60 FPS most of the time on my rig, occasionally dropping to 45 and this is something that is happening to every PC player but has yet been patched. I suffered 3 hard-crashes during my play through and from what I hear from my mates on console, those versions don’t fair up much better either. With the game sometimes not being able to maintain 30FPS and more hard crashes than I had.

In conclusion. Mafia III, despite it’s padded out story and repetitive game-play was a title that I kept booting up day after day until i was done with it, It’s characters, story and setting is what will keep you coming back for more. Even if it’s game-play and repetitive missions infuriate you after a long play session.

I give Mafia III a 7/10.

Reviewed by Sean Sturzaker on PC for Some Dude’s Reviews. Mafia 3 is developed by Hangar 13 and published by 2K Games. The game is available on PC, Xbox One and PS4. Buy it when it’s on sale.