Game review: Mafia 2.

Hello there dear readers, today I'll be reviewing one great story-based sandbox game called Mafia II!

A bit about the game and developers.
Mafia II was made by a Czech developing company called 2K Czech.They are same guys behind Mafia and Vietcong series.

About Gameplay. 

Mafia II is a sandbox third person shooter game. It is, though, heavily focused onto the story. There is no free roam option as in Saints Row or GTA. You are on one mission and you must do it. You can drive around, shoot people and so on and on but you have to do the mission sooner or later.

With that said, it's understandable that the game has amazing story. I won't give out spoilers, but the story is great. It's amazing how a small and not so known country (except when it comes to beers) is able to make so amazing game. Mafia II is one of those games which you want to play two or three times after you finish it! And the story is very long. It took me 12 hours to finally finish it. And I didn't do anything except the missions. I didn't go on even one short drive around.

In Mafia II you can wear as many weapons as you want which make the game slightly unrealistic. That kind of makes me sad because you can have very few bullets (150 for that Tommy gun with a huge round magazine) and it takes you about 2-3 shots to die. The aiming is slightly hard at first because crosshair is not in the middle of the screen. It's actually close to the top so it's very weird. User controls are slightly weird as well. Picking up items and using some items is done with pressing E, while entering and leaving car is done with F. Holding F allows you to lockpick a car, while Q lets you brake the window and steal it. Q is also a stealth kill. The buttons are kind of tricky but you learn them fast so it's not a problem.

Funny thing about this game is that once police reports your look over the radio, you're wanted by everyone. And therefore you need to either hide from every police officer or go to nearest shop and buy a new clothing. There aren't many things to chose from though. The main thing that changes through the shops is the clothing color. But that's about it.

There are various different weapons which you can find or buy. I usually just grab new weapons off my dead enemies, therefore I don't know if you can buy something new in the shop. I suggest you not to be picky with weapons. Pick every weapon you can find, because extra bullets are always welcome. Especially if you're trigger happy and you're using a Tommy gun. Waste of bullets everywhere, hehe.

You can also tune up your car. You can change it's color and so on and on. There aren't many customization options, but the cool thing is that you can write what ever you want on the plate. Each car you steal must be put into your garage or you'll never see it again. Also, if you ruin your car while driving, you'll need to repair it or it will keep looking bad and crushed. I ain't 100% sure about this because it happened to me only once, but I think that even if you store the car into a garage once, and then forget to store it into garage the next time, the car ain't in your garage anymore and you need to find a new one. You can have up to 10 cars in a garage at the moment, and you can take your cars from any garage that you / Joe / your bosses own.

Graphic and Audio

Graphic, for the game from 2009 is amazing. In my opinion, Mafia II is a game that has the best graphic from all modern sandbox games. It even has slightly better graphic than Saints Row The Third.  All the visual effects are nice. Though, car explosions should be bigger. The cars just go "poof" and that's it. Everything else is awesome.
Songs on the radio are the ones from 1940's and slightly later, so you really get the feeling like you're there. But there are only 3 different radios and not many songs, therefore, it gets very repeatable and annoying. But background songs in crucial missions and in cinematics of the game are amazing.


Pros, cons and final grade.
Pros:
- Great graphic and audio.
- Lots of different weapons.
- Decent customization in cars and from clothing shops.
- Amazing story.
- Big map and lots of different cars.

Cons:
- No free roam.
- The game has some video issues on different computers ( lots of weird lights and what not. )
- Too many useless DLCs.

Final Grade: 8/10

Estra info: I  had tones of fun when playing this game, and I really hope that everyone will have it too!