Gritty, Realistic Mobster Game Boasts A 700 Page Script, Huge Sandbox World

Mafia II, developed by 2K Czech (a new acquisition of 2K and formerly known as Illusion Softworks) is shaping up to be a deep, involved story that is action packed and that takes place in a huge sandbox world.

Logging in with a script that’s over 700 pages long and more than 2 hours of cut scenes, Mafia II is aiming to focus on story above all else. And the story sounds incredible.

Vito is an immigrant from Italy who moved to the United States when he was young. Growing up in poverty, he vows to make a living for himself, and does so by becoming a foot soldier in the mob. Mafia II differs from many other titles in that it isn’t a story about rising through the ranks. Rather, the developers of Mafia II intend to craft a game that is realistic. So Vito won’t ever become Don, instead, he will simply follow orders to make a living.

The first Mafia told the story of Tommy Angelo, a cab driver who unwittingly enters the Mafia when he has to rush an injured member to a mob-friendly doctor. Throughout the game, Tommy rises to become a big fish in the Salieri family, only to regret what he’s done and bring down the Salieri’s. Though the game was action-packed, it didn’t offer a realistic vision of the Mafia life. It more closely resembled the Mafia of movies, in which, guns blazing, Tommy would take on a hundred enemies on his own.

Mafia II's game engine, developed in house, looks amazing

In Mafia II, the number of enemies will be much smaller and each mission will require more tactical consideration. In a reveal to Gamespot at E3 09, 2K Czech showed off a mission in which Vito and two accomplices had to kill “the fat man”. Hiding in a building across the street, they waited for his arrival and then attacked his bodyguards and cars, sending him running into a distillery where they cornered him. Whimpering, he begged for them not to kill him, and then, in a cut scene, a shot is heard and one of Vito’s accomplices, Henry, falls to the ground, shot by the fat man. After finishing off the fat man, Vito had to transport Henry to a mob-friendly doctor while evading the police. The scene sounds amazing and tense, and the approach to the mission and the story definitely seems to shift focus from unreality to reality. Being in the Mafia is not romantic and rising through the ranks is not a goal – survival is a goal. Mafia II focuses on the gritty reality of life in the mob, and it looks like that focus will make for an amazing story.

Mafia II’s story will take place in the 1940s and 1950s in Empire City, a fictional city which includes elements of New York and San Francisco. The game area will encompass ten square miles, and will include both city and countryside. 2K Czech is touting that there are over 20 distinct neighborhoods in Mafia II; but what intrigues me beyond the beautiful graphics and unique neighborhoods are the seemingly changing seasons in game.

Screenshots of the game show that there will be snow on the ground at points, and at other sections of the game it will be summer, with green trees and blue skies overhead. Though I doubt seasons will change in-game, but will more likely change in differing chapters, the variety of playing in different seasons is refreshing and should make for a more dynamic city and countryside environment. As an added bonus, there will be no restrictive barriers to exploration like in GTA – right from the beginning of the game you can go anywhere you want. And this is a big positive for me, as the first Mafia was huge, and I loved driving a car around the countryside, looking at farms and fields and then returning, slowly, into the city.

Empire City will combine elements of both New York and San Francisco to create a vibrant, realistic 1940s and 1950s era city

As in the original Mafia, Mafia II will feature realistic car physics, including realistic acceleration and braking. Cops will once again act realistically, chasing after you for speeding or running a light, though 2K Czech says the interaction between Vito and the cops won’t be the same as it was between Tommy and the police in the original Mafia. What that means is yet to be seen, but I imagine people complained about the cops being too strict regarding speed limits and I bet many gamers didn’t enjoy being pulled over while trying to run away from a murder scene. I personally thought that the realism in Mafia’s world – from the cops to the car physics – was welcome, and I look forward to seeing more of it in Mafia II.

Chapters of the game will take place both during the summer and the winter, making for great variation in the city's appearance

It’s been seven years since Mafia was released on the PC and five since it was released for the Xbox and Playstation 2, and I am already extremely excited to dive back into the world of the mob after a long absence.

Mafia II is expected to be released in the first quarter of 2010, expect more news as it becomes available about this awesome-looking game.

With Mafia II, developers 2K Czech are aiming for a grittier, more realistic gaming experience

Fallout 3 Is A Huge, Fascinating World

Fallout 3 arrived on the game scene with its share of controversy. Fallout purists complained that the game would be “Oblivion with guns,” and lamented the switch to a three-dimensional world. However, oblivion with guns this is not. Fallout 3 is huge – and it is gorgeous and enthralling and amazing in every way. It is not just one of the best games of 2008; it is one of the best games ever made.

The Fallout 3 game world is beautifully rendered

Fallout 3 begins when you are born. Coming into the light, you see your father’s face and hear him as he whispers, “Let’s see what you’ll look like,” at which point you get to customize your character through a computer that shows how you will look when you grow up. The facial customization isn’t all that great – you’ll generally look the same no matter what you do (and besides, you never really see yourself since you will most likely play in first person); but the other modes in which you create your character are fantastic. Right from the outset, you craft what type of character you will be. A book, entitled, “You’re SPECIAL,” will help you choose your primary attributes as you crawl around your small, in-vault, apartment as a toddler. Later, as a teenager, you will take the G.O.A.T. (Generalized Occupational Aptitude Test) that will determine your skills (sneak, big guns etcetera) heading into the wasteland.

It is this claustrophobic atmosphere in which the game begins that makes your eventual escape into the wasteland even more stunning. When events take place that precipitate your need to leave the vault in which you’ve grown up, you escape and are suddenly blinded. After a short period of time, the sun’s glare reduces, and before you is a gigantic, sprawling land of destroyed trees, desert, crumbling buildings and abandoned villages.

The sheer size of this wasteland is overwhelming at first. You have the left the vault, searching for your father, a scientist who has fled into the wasteland, and yet you have no directions to follow. Nothing points you towards any particular area of the world. Simply put, you feel as though you have truly emerged from the vault into a huge world that you know nothing about. Eventually though, you’ll find your way to Megaton, a small settlement surrounding an unexploded atomic bomb. And here, you’ll find the information you need to begin your quest, gain experience, and be able to explore the great expanse that is the wasteland of Washington, DC, and environs.

The wasteland in Fallout 3 is absolutely enormous

Fallout 3 is, beyond anything else, a stunning show of variety. There are a million quests that you can set out upon, and they wildly differ from each other. Some quests only take an hour or two, and some can take hours upon hours of effort. In fact, the amazing thing about Fallout 3 is just how short or long a game it can be. You could choose to simply follow the main quest line, and you might finish the game in 12 to 15 hours, but if you choose to pursue side quests, you can find yourself exploring post-apocalyptic Washington, DC for 100 hours or more.

The main questline is the story of the Lone Wanderer (you) as you pursue your father across the wasteland to find out why he’s left and what his goal is in crossing the dangerous wastes. The main story is wonderful and your father, voiced by Liam Neeson, is a character that you want to track down.

The side quests involve such varied tasks as tracking down a boy who’s gone missing with a group of humans who thirst for blood; finding an Oasis of green trees in the middle of the wasteland; freeing slaves and recovering artifacts from the United State’s past. The side quests are exciting and fun and alongside the main quest, make for an extensive journey.

The leveling system in Fallout 3 is excellent. The decisions you make regarding your skill set truly do matter. You can be a brute who specializes in heavy weaponry and who has an incredible amount of strength or you can be stealthy with small weapons skills, able to sneak up behind a super mutant and pop him in the head before he knows what hit him. No matter what you choose, Fallout 3 will provide a challenge.

In Fallout 3, Bethesda has also chosen to eschew the leveled enemies from Oblivion. In Oblivion, as your skill went up, the type of enemies you faced changed. Not so in Fallout 3. Wander into the wrong area and you could find yourself greatly outmatched by Super Mutants and Mutant Behemoths. Not so in Oblivion where a level I gamer wouldn’t run into anything more difficult than a rat. The leveled enemies were a common complaint in Oblivion, and Fallout 3 has seen this rectified.

The V.A.T.S. system in Fallout 3 is excellent and fun as well. Allowing you to pause the action and choose an area of an enemy’s body to target specifically, the V.A.T.S. system provides not only an interesting tactical addition to what would otherwise be a shooter, but it also provides for a slow-motion capture of the bullet’s trajectory, which is especially satisfying when it hits home and sends a mutant sprawling to the ground.

The story and the side quests are intriguing and deep

The graphics in Fallout 3 are nothing short of amazing. Covering a gigantic gaming area, the Wasteland feels truly apocalyptic. The old suburban neighborhoods and crumbling city center feel like abandoned and destroyed vestiges of an older time, and the sky is appropriately filled with haze from the hot sun. There is such a variety of landscapes and areas in Fallout 3 that you’ll find yourself simply wanting to explore the wasteland; which, at a high level, is relatively easily done, but at a low level, is not recommended.

The sound is fantastic – robots crackle radio messages across the land, a DJ’s voice delivers the latest wasteland news from a secret hideout in satisfying, growling pitch, and weapons crack and pop realistically.

The few flaws in Fallout 3 are very minor. I would like to have seen a few more enemy types and also would have liked for the opportunity to continue exploring after the end of the main quest. Unlike in Oblivion, where after finishing the main quest, you were free to continue exploring the world of Cyrodill, in Fallout 3, once you finish the main quest, the game is over. When I finished the game I wanted to explore more. A flaw, but a minor one at best.

Fallout 3 is a world that needs to be explored. It is a game that has few drawbacks and provides incredible returns on the $60 investment. Buy it now if you haven’t already.

Final Score: 95%

+ Huge world to explore                                 – When the main quest is finished, the

+ Amazing variety of quests                              game is over

+ Beautiful graphics                                         – Greater variety of enemies needed

+ Hours of entertainment

In an interview last month with G4TV at E3 09, Valve’s Gabe Newell and Doug Lombardi discussed Left4Dead, Left4Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, DLC, and chose not to discuss Portal 2 or Half Life 2: Episode 3.

But over the course of the interview it became readily apparent that Valve is having a lot of issues with Microsoft over DLC. Throughout the interview, Gabe Newell discussed the benefits of delivering content over Steam to PC users. Laying the cards on the table, he said that essentially, Valve is being handcuffed by A) the fact that DLC isn’t free, and B) some users won’t have the same content.

Left4Dead 2 is the result of the Valve team's desire to improve upon Left4Dead from their own playing experiences

He reiterated over and over again that on the PC, the owner’s have the space, and every piece of DLC is free, and so, every single player of Team Fortress 2 or Left4Dead has the exact same updates across the board. But, he makes the point that on the Xbox, because content isn’t free, some players may choose to not download an update and that causes a problem wherein Valve has to figure out how to make sure that if there is a level with a new weapon available, that only people who have access to that weapon can use it. So, Valve has a two-fold job in which not only do they have to try and convince Microsoft to allow free content upgrades, but on the reverse side of that, they have to figure out a way for their system to sort through people who have upgrades, those who don’t, and those who don’t even have a hard drive. Essentially, even if they manage to be able to deliver free upgrades to everyone, people with a 360 Arcade won’t be able to download those upgrades and thus will have to play against each other.

Team Fortress 2's PC users are constantly updated with new content, and universally have the content because it's free. The Xbox requires DLC to cost money, which creates a massive problem for Valve

The interview, which can be found here, is fascinating and quite extensive. It gives lots of insight into why Left4Dead 2 is in production, and into the workings of Valve. It’s also fascinating because it raises the question of: how does a great game company that wants to continuously improve its games and provide lasting value to its customers work with a company that requires users to pay for said upgrades, leaving levels of inequality within the playing base?

How can Microsoft change their next Xbox to make DLC more accessible and more open to the community?

Half Life 2: Episode Two Is Thrilling, Awe-Inspiring

Half Life 2: Episode Two begins right where Episode 1 left off. The Citadel has come crashing to the ground, City 17 is in ruins, and your train out of dodge has derailed. You awake to find Alyx outside, thankful you’re alive. She helps you out using the Gravity Gun, and thus begins your mission.

Host to a data card that the Combine desperately wants and needs, Alyx and Gordon must rush to White Forest, the resistance’s new base in the wake of City 17’s destruction. The game follows Gordon and Alyx as they make their way across the countryside that surrounds City 17 and to White Forest, where Doctor’s Vance, Kleiner, and Magnusson  are waiting for their arrival with the data, which is needed to launch a missile that will close the Combine portal, leaving the Combine trapped on earth without reinforcements.

Half Life 2: Episode Two is an epic journey.

The story is fantastic. The characters are well known by now, as is the struggle, and never does that struggle seem more important than in the final hours of the game, when the portal can be seen looming in the dark sky and striders are flooding the forest towards the resistance base and the missile silos.

Combine convoy en route to White Forest

The story is excellent, but, the journey to get to White Forest begins a little too slowly. After leaving the train we are treated to a stunning view of City 17 and the outdoor environment of Episode 2. However, the game quickly leads you underground, into Antlion nests where you feel confined and frankly, a bit bored. Antlions just aren’t fun. And tight spaces aren’t a whole lot of fun either when there beckons an entire world of forest and mountains above.

Nonetheless, Episode 2 throws you into the outdoors after about an hour and a half of crawling in Antlion tunnels, and you rarely venture back in. The huge difference in this game is the size of the environment. You are surrounded by wilderness, small towns, farmhouses and lone radio towers. There are rivers and stunning mountains rising in the distance. It’s liberating and it creates a feeling that the Half Life world is truly real. While playing, I was left with a very certain impression that the world had been abandoned with the Combine invasion fifteen years earlier. Everything was falling apart, buildings left to rot, and it was overwhelmingly awe-inspiring to see the world as a place where humans had been shepherded into ghettos and where the Combine used the earth as a mine, taking natural resources over time.

The storyline is enthralling.

One of the main questions surrounding the game was the introduction of a new enemy: the hunter, which is a difficult foe in the different gaming environment. Episode 2, however, also introduces three more enemies as well: an acid-spitting Antlion, an Antlion guardian, and the Combine Advisor. While serviceable enemies, the Hunter steals the show. A vicious, fast-moving, and deadly adversary that stands about eight feet tall; the Hunter seems to travel in packs and it shoots electrical bolts that stick to surfaces and explode, zapping health and energy. It is a welcome addition the Half Life story, and I expect that we’ll see more of it in Episode 3.

The lighting and other graphical qualities are fantastic, and even though better graphics can be found across current-gen consoles, Valve enlisted such incredible art direction that the Source Engine’s age is barely showing. The environments look wonderful, the spaces feel appropriately vast, and the character models still look amazingly realistic. They display emotions on a level I’ve never seen before in a game, and I still don’t think any graphical engines model human characters so well.

The White Forest setting is expansive and the graphics have held up well over time.

Sound use is excellent in Episode 2. The music kicks in at the right moments and serves to inspire fear, excitement, or manic abandon. The weapons sound appropriately tuned, and the voice acting is fantastic as usual. And of course, the screaming of headcrab zombies is utterly terrifying and spine-tingle inducing.

There was some criticism of the length of Episode 1, and that has been rectified in Episode 2. Episode 2 offers a range of diversity that is unrivaled in gaming and is quite long. From the driving segments to the use of the Gravity Gun, to physics puzzles to shotgun diplomacy to huge battles from underground lairs to shaking valleys full of striders, Episode 2 is amazing. It is roughly six hours long, and it is well worth the journey (and the price).

The character models look fantastic.

Episode 2 isn’t perfect. Though the opening sections of the game make the eventual arrival in the forest seem incredibly liberating, they are a bit of a slog and they make it tough to begin the adventure. And though the story is enthralling, I still want to know more about the G Man and the seven hour war. Looking beyond those minor faults, Episode 2 is at least every bit as strong a Half Life experience as the game’s that came before it and has me excited for the final episode. No other game offers such a diverse, fantastic, and entertaining variety of puzzles, strategy, excitement, and story. Episode 2 is well worth adding to your game collection.

Final Score: 93%

+ Great gameplay                                                   – Opening section of game is a bit slow

+ Wonderful art direction                                    – Story could still use some insight

+ Pulse poundingly exciting