BinaryMessiah Mafia: The Old Country Review

Open-world games have become stale and boring. It appears that developers are merely creating open worlds without any enjoyable activities within them. Mafia's open world is deceptive but beautiful, refreshing but also sort of pointless. Mafia tries to go back to its roots, literally, by bringing us to the times before the Italian mafia came to the USA. The Old Country subtitle is exactly that. This is a prequel to the original game before any family made it to Empire Bay. We play as Enzo Favara. An orphan miner who has been enslaved by a mafia family to work until he seems like he will die. The first chapter of the game introduces us to various characters, combat, and essentially a tutorial area. You will notice the game is very cinematic, with a lot of dialogue and cut scenes and scripted gameplay. I hope you like scripted events because they are everywhere and there are a lot of them, and it's mostly that. I personally felt this was refreshing. There was less emphasis on pointless mind numbing fetch missions. However, the game was clearly incomplete and cut off at some point during development. The open world is nothing but a tease and a backdrop to go from mission to mission. There's nothing here. The world is literally empty of anything to do outside of a few missions, like finding new upgrades and upgrade statues. You can listen to dialogue with characters while riding in cars or on horses to missions, but after that you can just skip to the destination. This is one of the most pointless open worlds in any modern game. There's no traffic, no people, and no real towns outside the main town, San Celeste. I honestly didn't mind this. I was just surprised at how this game didn't really need an open world. This is a shame because the first generation of cars around is really cool, and the horse back riding works well too. With that said, the main attraction is the characters, and it's some of the best this year. Every character is full of life, and I really wanted to know more about them all thanks to the tight writing and amazing script. Enzo is a great character to get behind. He's humble, not perfect, but very loyal. His love interest ends up being the Don's daughter, Isabella. She's a great character to get behind too and ends up becoming the most important character in the game without giving spoilers away. The game's story flows similarly to other mob stories such as The Godfather and The Sopranos. There's a similar ebb and flow to everything and constant danger always being present and around every corner. Some might say that Mafia doesn't tread new ground, but that's okay. There are some stereotypical setups, like two rival mobs needing to make amends, love interests getting put on the back seat, the Don's blood relative being a total douche nozzle (Cesare), and so on. The gameplay features some excellent gunplay. There aren't many guns in the game, but you will constantly swap between them based on your situation. Additionally, the game includes effective stealth mechanics. You can hold two weapons at a time and always have a knife on hand. The knife is a more fleshed-out mechanic than in most games, as knife fights are a big part of the combat. Boss fights consist of one-on-one knife duels similar to a sword fight. You can parry, break blocks, and do heavy and light attacks. It seems simple at first and feels more like a whack-a-mole style system, but there are enough moves here that require you to use quick reflexes. When a red flash appears, you can dodge and then counterattack. Regular attacks can be parried, and of course you can slash to your heart's content. It's not overused and is mainly reserved for boss fights, so I never got tired of them. In the middle of the fight, a scripted cinematic will play out too. The main focus of the combat in this game is shooting. Shooting feels really good, which it didn't in previous Mafia games. You can hide behind cover and blind fire as well as pop out and shoot enemies. It's best to go for headshots here, as only a few shots will kill you. You can hold up to two bandages to heal, and you will chew through these fast. Weapons like revolvers, shotguns, and rifles are all on board, so nothing fancy or crazy. You can toss molotovs and grenades too. Once an enemy is down, you can loot their body for cash and ammo. Stealth gameplay works here because enemy placement isn't random and you can track patrol patterns. Many areas can be done without killing anyone, but the added addition of throwing your knife is a great feature. Only a specific type of knife can be thrown. When you select your arsenal layout, you can choose different knives that deteriorate slower than others. A thrown knife must be recovered, or you lose it for that mission. You can use sharpening stones to bring your deterioration bar back up. You also use your knife for opening doors, locks, and boxes full of loot, so you need to use it wisely. There are some minor RPG elements here. You can't level up or anything, but you can equip charms that add passive abilities such as carrying more ammo, reducing knife deterioration rates, making your footsteps less obvious, etc. You can equip up to six, but four need to be unlocked by buying slots at the store. There is only one store in the game, and you must drive there each time, which I find frustrating. Here you can unlock weapons, clothing, and customization items for your cars. I find this all pointless, as the story missions give you weapons when they are needed, and driving cars has a minimal impact on gameplay. One of the biggest gripes I have is that the story introduces these open-world concepts to you, but you can't drive around except during a few missions. This means you can only visit the store a few times during the game, and once the story is over, there's no point in continuing unless you want to get every achievement in the game. Despite the open-world portion of the game feeling half-baked, I enjoyed my 12 hours with Mafia. This may seem too short for some, but the story was satisfying, and I felt like I could go back and get the few collectibles that were left at a later time. For anyone wanting an authentic Mafia experience, they will be disappointed in everything but the story. The combat has undergone significant enhancements, and the visuals are outstanding. I also loved the authentic voice acting for the characters. They have weight and authenticity behind their roles. We don't get video game stories like this very often anymore.