I've long been a fan of the Mafia series of games, and I've had been saving up the 3rd installment of the Mafia games (cunningly named, Mafia 3 or Mafia III) for a special moment when I had time to just savour a game rather than running through game loops to finish a game. I've really tried to spend quality time with quality games, and dump the ones that I just don't find enticing...
So, Mafia 3 was developed by Hanger 13 and published in 2016 by 2K Games. As the name suggests, it is the 3rd in the Mafia series of games. The Mafia series is a GTA style game, of over the shoulder third person perspective for the exploration and combat with a healthy dose of semi open world driving and boating.
It's a much less known than the GTA and Saint's Row franchises which have a similar style of gameplay. I have been much more attracted to the Mafia games for their tight storylines and development. I do find the GTA games to be unfocused in their open world aspect, and the Saint's Row games to be a bit too ludicrously comical. For me, the Mafia series really hits the sweet spot between tight narrative control and player exploration of an open world in an believable world.
Mafia 3 is pretty heavy on long narrative story setting cutscenes. These cutscenes tell the story of the protagonist and player character, Lincoln Clay in the years following the events in the game. In many ways, it is constructed like a backwards looking documentary with central characters telling of their experiences with the main character via interview and recorded public government testimonies.
It's a really great way to reveal slowly the events of the story, a nice touch to the always in the present style of storytelling that most games have. But it definitely tightens the amount of player agency by adhering to a tight overall story line.
There are many characters telling the story from multiple angles... some of the are FBI agents, friends, foes and survivors. There are hints of Lincoln Clay turning from a wronged returned war hero into a juggernaut of criminal destruction.
Many of the previous Mafia games have the main character set as a wronged hero, or a flawed hero. One who is trapped in a life of crime, but is somehow seeking redemption. In previous games, that redemption trigger could have come in the form of love, but in this game... it appears that it is societal mores that trigger the "morality" of Clay to look beyond simple revenge.
The game is set in the American Deep South of Louisiana in the years just following the Vietnam War. Racism and sexism are very thinly veiled, and there is a strange twisted morality to the way that Lincoln Clay conducts himself. At times it can be a bit confronting, and there is a warning at the start of the game to lay out the fact that it will pull no punches in regards to the portrayal of the society at the time.
To complete his initial goal of simple revenge, Lincoln recruits a former CIA colleague from Vietnam. Together, they move to destroy the Mafia network in the South... importing their experience from the Vietnam battlefield, with very little in the way of a moral compass! Brutal is understating it...
The game plays out as a third-person cover shooter for most of the "mission" based areas of the game. Staying in stealth as long as possible, and then going loud and sticking to cover is the name of the game. The combat is pretty satisfying, and relatively realistic. Both Lincoln and his foes will take very few hits before going down... and a headshot is a definite single shot kill.
Combat sense is an important part of the game. With such a fragile health bar, it is important to be hyper-aware of your situation to able to get the jump on enemies and not get flanked in turn. Triggering the Combat Sense gives you a black and white outlook with objects of interest being highlighted. It can only be used when still, so you will be toggling this sense on and off as a sort of "radar"!
Combat is pretty easy... take your time, move from cover to cover and snipe headshots from afar. Most of the weapons are hip shot (no zoom), but they have a crosshair with very little deviation from the aim... so, it is pretty easy to land your shots even at a distance. I think that the game would have benefited from a iron sights sort of aiming style, instead of the gamified cross hairs with perfect accuracy!
One little gripe that I do have is that there is a crazy amount of different modes and inputs (keys) for such a relatively simple game mechanic. Most of the options, you won't use... especially if you are tactical and don't get stuck in the middle of a firefight alone. I find the number of mechanics to be a bit overwhelming... or maybe I'm just getting old!
One more little gripe with an otherwise robust combat mechanic... if there are stealth sections, and you can carry bodies away... you should be able to dump and hide them in a sort of Hitman/DeusEx style. The art assets are there (cupboards, bins...)... but the best that you can do is to dump them in a river.
The driving is adequate, with a nice array of different types of vehicles that you can "commandeer" and drive around. The road rules are bit more enforced than in other games of this ilk... well, not so much the driving rules... just the running over of pedestrians and hitting of other cars. The police don't like that sort of thing!
As you climb your way up the criminal hierarchy by knocking off Mafia bosses, you replace each boss with your own Under boss. This serves as a sort of leveling system for your character, as each different under boss opens up different upgrades to your crime syndicate and the resources that you can call upon in combat.
The story missions are tightly scripted and there is very little in the way of emergent tasks to fill your game with busy work. This does appeal to me, there is nothing more annoying than having an endless list of randomly generated meaningless cookie cutter missions that need completing! Each set of missions advances the story line and you are rewarded with a new set of cutscenes to further draw you into the story of Clay.
... many of the missions have little flavour notes to add a bit of interest to the mission. However, most of these are pretty trite and don't add much to the story or the mission interest. Still, you pick them up... in the hope that there will be something of interest or use!
On the larger open world map, there starts to be a bit of the dreaded busy-work dropping in. The missions are not the problem... but the issue of collectibles, and the wiretapping that reveals the map in a small area. The wiretapping requires you to collect lots of wiretapping parts that are just scattered around the city.... which means travelling to a location, and picking it up. Exciting...
... meanwhile, the collectibles have no in game impact. But are annoying little dots on the map that scream to be removed! Sadly, they aren't that interesting either... Playboy magazine excerpts and some other materials (music, photos, magazines...) from the 1960-70s era. Incredibly dated stuff... you read them for the articles...
One the review hardware, the game runs nice and smoothly on High settings with very little in the way of stutters or video buffering. Combat is smooth, as is the driving (even if I insist on driving with a keyboard!). The game itself looks decent, but the cut scenes deserve as special mention... there are many that look like old news-reels! I love the touch and the effort that they have put into these story devices.
Sound-wise, this is definitely a game that is worth experiencing with a decent pair of headphones. The combat is made better with the audio awareness, and the music from the radio and the background chatter of the city are really worth soaking up.
On the whole, it is a beautifully crafted game from the visual and audio perspective, something to savour!
This game has (like all the Mafia games) done a great job with the setting of the world. The game gives us an interesting insight into the Louisiana in the years after the Vietnam War, from the point of view of a returned black war hero (albeit a deniable black ops sort of hero with a horrible idea of morality...).
It has again taken the open world run and drive mechanic of the GTA series and focused it into an engaging and well told story. Each of the Mafia games has tackled a different era of the American Mafia, and this one has really done a great job on the 60-70s era of racial strife. I love this game, and am definitely looking forward to another installment of the series in Mafia 4 and what setting that they might choose for that one... if it ever comes!
Played at 1080p (144Hz) on:
XMG Fusion 15
CPU: Intel Core i7-9750H
RAM: 16 GB
Storage: SSD (SATA/Nvme)
GPU: Nvidia GTX 2070 Max-Q
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