If you reflect on the games that made your jaw drop, something you just couldn't stop raving about, Mafia is most certainly one game that comes to mind.
For its time, it was the best crime/gangster game there was with amazing graphics. Mafia, till date features one of the best stories in a game with the whole immersive experience. The attention to detail coupled with the amazing background score and ambiance of the 1930s is brilliantly pulled off.
Even after finishing the game, you just had to visit the city of Lost Heaven again for another round, that's how good it was.
Apart from Starcraft II, this has got to be the second most anticipated sequel in gaming. Mafia II finally launches on August 27 (24th in the US) and we can't wait to get our hands on the copy. For now though you can download the demo which is available for all three platforms. Today we bring you a small peak into Empire Bay and your protagonist, Vito Scaletta.
For the PC you can download the game through Steam, which is about 1GB. The system we used consisted of an Athlon X2 4400+, 2GB RAM and an HD4830. Mafia II is using a completely new engine built specifically for this game by 2K Czech called the Illusion Engine. The game also seems optimized for Nvidia cards, as it makes use of Apex Physics that doesn't seem to run well on ATI cards.
We set the in game settings to 1366x768 res, everything Medium, Apex Physics - Off, AA - Off. Despite this, the game crawled badly. This seems to be mostly due to the new physics system in the engine that doesn't seem to play well with ATI cards at the moment. We do hope 2K games fix this problem in time or else the entire experience will be ruined.
There is a work around for this if you search a bit, but honestly it's not worth the effort given the game play in the demo is hardly 10 minutes. I will say this though, during our slow motion tour of Mafia II, you just couldn't help but notice how amazing it looked. The attention to detail is really good, especially the interiors.
We finally ditched the PC demo and downloaded the PS3 one, and hoped there wouldn't be any issue. Thankfully, there wasn't. The mission in the demo is not part of the final game but it packs in a little bit of everything like, shooting, driving and more shooting.
The demo begins with you in your apartment and the phone ringing. One of your buddies tells you to get down to a warehouse quickly. Once you exit your house, you can go to your garage and choose any one of your rides or you could also steal a parked car. This is similar to GTA where Vito will smash the window and hotwire the car. The problem is that there is a timer within which you need to get to the warehouse so there isn't much time for exploration. Once you get there, all hell breaks loose and you fight your way through the warehouse while the place is burning down.
The cover system works well and you can duck behind almost anything, then L2 to aim and R2 to fire. Meanwhile, the cops are alerted so its time to make a run, which is where you get a little exposure to the driving. The cars are easy to drive and really fun. Just like last time you can enable or disable the speed limiter. The map on the bottom right shows the enemies around you as well as other landmarks which you can interact with, but demo is built in such a way it doesn't really give you time to explore and gets over just at the climax (they copied that from Chris Nolan).
Whatever little you get to play, be rest assured that you will thoroughly enjoy it, which makes the wait for the full version even more painful. Mafia II takes place 10 years after Mafia and this time you'll actually play through different eras from the 1940s to the 1950s. As you progress the environment and characteristics of the game change accordingly. All in all, Mafia II seems destined for greatness and I know it's a bit early to say this but the excitement we felt years ago when we played the first game is all back and we cant wait for August 27.
[via techtree]
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