Game Review: Mafia III
Updated: May 28, 2019
The long anticipated sequel in the Mafia series has finally been released. Now before I could even get my hands on a copy, the critics literally tore this game apart. Mainly because the amount of glitches in this game. It was compared to Fallout New Vegas as the level of glitches that would occur. Well, I decided to give it a shot anyways.
First thing, this game is very glitch. They were not kidding about that. But there was some positives with this game but they mainly revolve around the story of Lincoln Clay. The game takes place around the Vietnam war and deals with the racial tensions in the USA during that time. The game is extremely graphic and displays racism at the highest levels so you can experience what it was like to be a African American in that time period. The game provides a disclaimer stating that it will have tons of racism in it. That was a first.
The game follows Lincoln Clay, who was in special forces and recently came home from the war. He joined the military originally to find his place in the world, as he grew up in poverty and under oppression. Now home, he is quickly recruited to help out the neighborhood small time gangster and works a job. Upon working that job, Lincoln and his friends are quickly treated like loose ends to the mob and put down. Little did they know that Lincoln survived the shot to the head and would come back to haunt them.
The gameplay for the game is something to be desired. A lot of the controller scheme is kind of awkward and breaks away from the default controller scheme from GTA and other GTA type clones. Which IMO was a bad idea. You can get easily confused on what you want to do and end up pulling a mob of gangsters when you meant to swap your weapon. They also added in an “instinct” option where it helps you locate bad guys, trinkets and secrets. It is very spotty at best and as soon as you move it deactivates. Other games will either leave it on until you turn it off, have a set desired of time to use it so it can recharge or it even goes 5 – 6 seconds. Not this game, once u flinch it turns off and unless u spin the camera, it doesn’t register everyone in that area. There was multiple times where I walked into an ambush where the instinct did not pick up anyone. The driving mechanics were great, but they gave the car so much torque it would take 15 seconds to get going because the car kept constantly doing burn outs.
As I did like the story, the buildup took forever. A lot of annoying side quests and repetitive tasks were needed to be completed before you can move forward. Essentially, you needed to make your friends heads of a borough immediately otherwise the story does not continue. Each borough you are required to destroy XX amount of goods or kill XX amount of people which could take hours. By the time you finish, you forget where the story is. Plus, it is clearly New Orleans it takes place in. The Map, landmarks and layout were New Orleans. Trust me, I been there, I know.
I would have given this game a higher rating but it came out of the gates under water and never really surfaced for air. This is not a 79.99 purchase. Maybe a 20 dollar purchase if there is nothing else to play. I am happy I rented it instead of purchasing it.