Mafia

[The Last Stand]

You can watch all the cutscenes as a sort of movie. You'll be missing out on some ingame dialogue that takes place while driving or walking during missions, but it should give you a decent picture of the differences.

The English dub in the original kinda sucks but what can ya do.

Edit: what the fuck, that one had the music cut out?! Travesty. Linked a different video that has music. Thumbnail shows Vito for some stupid reason but it's Mafia 1.

How did you get into the Mafia franchise? Specifically, your interest from the first game. Was it a gift? You saw a commercial?

 

[WTBOnlineFather]

How did you get into the Mafia franchise? Specifically, your interest from the first game. Was it a gift? You saw a commercial?

I'm a czechkiwi so it's a national cult classic. I played through the first game with my family at release.

 

[TheAmbiguousLurker]

Going through some of the DLC, since it doesn't seem like they're story sensitive ones.

Spoiler

The civil rights one was meh overall. Cutscenes are just a lot of 'we strong black folk, ya dig?'. It all centres around stealing a folder that proves how racist and corrupt sheriff's department is, but like... The corrupt sheriff just doesn't destroy the file for some reason? I did enjoy having missions focused on just tearing shit up in the car. Though somehow the game's bugs hit the hardest in the filler mission where the only objective for the player is to walk to point b and smoke weed.

The cult mission sounded interesting at first. It's introduced as Father James trying to get Lincoln some closure, then there's a weird cult that set up shop in Sammy's bar and it sounds like an interesting set up. From there, it's just kind of monotonous and feels like a really drawn out side quest. The cult isn't interesting, the shit with Anna is dark but kind of rushed, and this is where I'm introduced to the games investigation mechanic. I did not like slowly sauntering around the level, watching Lincoln slowly pick up bodies and objects and take pictures. And I felt my eyes roll into the back of my head when the game kept trying to make use that shitty black light. Like, it's never actually needed for puzzles or used in a cool way. It's just 'Oh wow, there's spoopy faces and shit smeared on the walls, I don't know how I'd get down all these one-way corridors without that!'. And then it ends with James trying to awkwardly hammer in shit about Anna being 'a light in Lincoln's life' so they can pretend this story ties in with the initial premise of Lincoln getting closure.

Also, I'm not fucking about with that Bar renovation bullshit.

This DLC also realized how wide-open spaces are my personal damn nightmare in this game. Like, Lincoln is a big fucking dude who'll get caught on everything, the lighting effects end up obscuring enemies if they're not dry humping you (it's especially bad in the cult DLC because they have that blurred drug effect in most of the levels), and in big spaces you're stuck firing at a distance (without a sniper rifle) where you'll at best hit tankiest parts of the enemy or bum rushing the horde of enemies across a long stretch without cover. I find is especially hard in this game in particular to actually find enemies, and I swear I'll get through a stand-off, only to lose because one shotgun bastard teleported to a door he couldn't possibly access behind me.

Also, it's probably because I'm early in the main story, but Lincoln seems kind of softer in these DLCs. Like, in the main game he's ruthless, doesn't need much justification to murder folks other than them being in his way and always seems like he'd on the edge of breaking something. In the DLC he acts much calmer, gets fucked over by opponents he could easily beat because he'd rather stand around and chat than attack, and is more couscous that innocent people could get caught in the crossfire. He even has comparably less brutal executions against the female enemies where he just chucks them to the floor, and the villain, despite being a heinous monster who basically helped rape and impregnate the vulnerable girl she preyed upon, still has to trip on her own knife and kill herself so Lincoln doesn't actually execute her.

Next DLC is a Donavan focused one, it seems.

 

[The Last Stand]

Going through some of the DLC, since it doesn't seem like they're story sensitive ones.

Spoiler

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I'd love to play though the DLC, but that means I'd have to push myself to grind through the MAIN game. Story is great, but mission progression is repetitive. Talk to one person, go to colored markets, destroy output, kill target, go BACK, repeat, THEN the boss comes out.

How does endgame work with Mafia III if you beat the game and want to play though the DLC? At least the DLC is free now with any copy. Also, I'd need another copy so I won't have to open up my collector's edition to GET the game out.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

There are four settings outside of that most tired and worn out of all, Prohibitiongangsterflappertommygunland, that I would like to see. From highest to lowest:

CUBA AND MIAMI
The Mob saga of Cuba is one of the most fascinating parts of Mafia history. If it was set in 1950s Cuba it could be heavily tied to real history with Batista, Lansky and Castro (or their fictionalizations). It's Mafia II in terms of cars but with way more Latin music and the warm freewheeling Las Vegas of the Caribbean theming, and lots of exciting Communist and Cold War themes to tie in. This is the perfect setting for a Mafia game.

SICILY
They claim Mafia IV is going to be in 1920s Sicily. I don't know if that means during Mussolini's war on the Cosa Nostra; I would prefer Sicily with a campaign running up into Operation Husky and the Mafia's collaboration with the US (the other great story of the Mob). I was kind of hoping/expecting Sniper Elite 4 to be that, but it wasn't and it was also kind of sucky overall.

LAS VEGAS
The birth of Las Vegas with the Jews (also Lansky?). Admittedly, I think Vegas was supposed to be like a neutral ground or something, but it's still a colorful setting with desert landscapes, the flashy carnival-like casino atmosphere, and all that. 50s, I believe. Or 60s? Also has interesting ties to the Mormons.

HOLLYWOOD
Not much to say about this, other than just that the Mafia did run Hollywood. But I'm also tired of seeing Los Angeles in everything.

TAKING DOWN THE MAFIA
I don't remember much of this, but there was some period, I think maybe in the 1980s, when the US finally took the Mafia seriously and did a huge amount of damage to it. Basically gutted it. I think that the take-down-the-Mafia perspective of Mafia III could be done but with a story about being a detective investigating and dismantling it bit by bit.

 

[DeadwastePrime]

LAS VEGAS

they planned this initially as the follow up for 3, but got carried away with another property they were working on at the time, trying to brainstorm ideas for what it'd be. also layoffs. they eventually did the remake of 1 and only now are they properly working on mafia 4.

 

[eatler]

SICILY
They claim Mafia IV is going to be in 1920s Sicily. I don't know if that means during Mussolini's war on the Cosa Nostra; I would prefer Sicily with a campaign running up into Operation Husky and the Mafia's collaboration with the US (the other great story of the Mob). I was kind of hoping/expecting Sniper Elite 4 to be that, but it wasn't and it was also kind of sucky overall.

This one does sound pretty likely it would be pretty easy to reuse some of the assets of the latest re-make to make the new game. I could also see them capturing the other Southern styled stories like Bonnie and Clyde (to kind of compete with gta 6) and John Dillinger.

This probibly wont at all happen but it would be really cool if they tackled other subjects like Yakuza (like an actual serious story) or like an IRA story where you have to use modified WW2 jakem weapons and have to fight British soldiers.

I'd love to play though the DLC, but that means I'd have to push myself to grind through the MAIN game. Story is great, but mission progression is repetitive. Talk to one person, go to colored markets, destroy output, kill target, go BACK, repeat, THEN the boss comes out.

How does endgame work with Mafia III if you beat the game and want to play though the DLC? At least the DLC is free now with any copy. Also, I'd need another copy so I won't have to open up my collector's edition to GET the game out.

I found it doesn't really matter I usually played till I meet all the bosses (Vito, Cassandra and Burke) then recommend you start with Donavans mission first because you can easily acquire an assault rifle. Put a bunch of cash into the rifle upgrades if you can and that will help during said missions I found the cult mission the hardest so its best to save that one last. I'd also recommend do one DLC do some main story approach but I'm going to be real with you if you don't like the regular gameplay of the game you wont like the DLCs.

 

[TheAmbiguousLurker]

Finally finished the game: God damn does everything go to shit after the first act.

Spoiler

The Open World structure killed this game, putting you on the same repetetive list of tasks for hours on end with virtually no story to break up the monotony until the final mission. Your underbosses basically stop existing and have no further scenes unless you go out of your way to fuck them over and get the betrayal scene. Every character outside of Donnavan and Father James are just quest givers, there to point you at who you need to kill and fuck off. The cappos we're going after have nothing going for them, we just occasionally cut to them so we can hear them say 'We gotta go kill dat Licon Clay, here's the building we're gonna be in.'. The interview segments feel ike they're just there because the other mafia games had the framing of a character being interviewed.

I hated the missions where I had to wonder through the city until I get ambushed. I can't do shit without the police coming to support my attackers, I can't run back to a better position because the enemies despawn, I can't lure them back to one of my rackets to get back up from my boys because the mission resets if I'm not the one who kills them, so I'm forced to sit out in the open with no cover and surrounded on all sides and try to kill the fuckers before the police get too numerous. Even worse, I then have to run the fuck away and wait for the police to call off their search, and hope the guy I need to interrogate/cutscene kill doesn't despawn, because I can't trigger a cutscene while I have heat. I was initially hyped for a mission that had the set up of dosing the KKK with pcp and letting chaos ensue, but then I realized that, gameplay-wise, that meant slowly trudging back and forth through this mansion to serve drinks.

Any story potential the game has is hampered by the structure, that every scene has to take into account that the player might not have done the other missions yet, that the framing of Lincoln hasn't been decided yet. No one can react to the other districts being taken, the thread bare story can't take into account the moving pieces, there's no sense of an escalating conflict. Everything has to be treated in a vacuum, thus the ending has many characters' attitudes just kind of turning on a dime because the final choice is what decides how Lincoln is perceived. Like, we have the FBI guy whose dialogue is always neutral, he gives exposition, even sometimes comes off as either justifying or just admiring Lincoln... Only after I chose the 'Rule Together' ending, suddenly he's very vocal about his hatred for Lincoln and how he's doing this interview just to show the world how much of a piece of shit Lincoln is, and how none of the crimes he committed in the game were justified. Or Father James suddenly breaking down when he's been pretty measured about talking about Lincoln's activities because only now have I chosen Lincoln to replace Marcano instead of walking away.

I really like Sal Marcano's death, I wish it was the payoff to a much better story. I love how he basically accepts that, with his son dead, he has no reason to do any of this. I like how he's unapologetic about what he's done, even if he's cordial, that this isn't a matter of morals, just him and Lincoln being in each other's way. I like how Lincoln actually sits down and talks with him and the two swap simmilar nightmares that have been plauging them, even if it does kind of clash with all the other confrontations he had with people he had less of a grudge against. I like how Lincon accepts that he's probably gonna be joining Sal in hell. I didn't get Burke's death, but seeing it on youtube, it was a really good scene. The fucking acting in this game is pretty damn good. I loved some of the set pieces like the boat mission, where you have to contend with the boat shaking throughout the level which can throw off your aim and interrupt either side's attacks.

I feel like the game was at it's best with the Donavan DLC mission. The level design plays to the game's strengths, tightly packed, plenty of changing elements, keeps the pace up and never keeps you in one place too long. There's no monotonous side shit we have to deal with that's only there to pad the play time. Donnavan is already the only real character we have in the game, so a whole story with him by our side, helping us out and talking shit with Lincon, makes the story (even if I had to do a double take when I realized that we suddenly upped the stakes to stopping a nuclear war) more engaging.

I can see what the story was going for, but at every turn they fuck it over, leaving it far behind the other three games' stories despite technically being more complex and having more going on.

 

[eatler]

I shit you not, if you want to get through some of the levels easier. Some of the assassinations I got away but finding out where the the route was. Finding a squeeze between two buildings and parking a car between them this making a impromptu explosive barricade. The ai usually doesn’t have a back up route so if you blow up the car fast enough you can bolt before the police arrive.

Edit: But yeah I’ll give the summary of your paragraph.

 

[TheAmbiguousLurker]

I shit you not, if you want to get through some of the levels easier. Some of the assassinations I got away but finding out where the the route was. Finding a squeeze between two buildings and parking a car between them this making a impromptu explosive barricade. The ai usually doesn’t have a back up route so if you blow up the car fast enough you can bolt before the police arrive.

That's how I accidentally assassinated the judge in his armoured car. I realized I didn't restock ammo before I started the mission, so quickly called the ammo guy, then realized I didn't have enough money after dying so many times during that last ambush, so I called in the kickback guy to give me my earnings. By complete accident, both cars had boxed in the judge's car and his police escort, so I just spammed frag grenades and launched his ass off into the water and fucking hoofed it with the cops unable to figure out how to drive around the barricade.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

I replayed Mafia III, gave up and uninstalled later in it. i will say, the story didn't hold up as well (whole districts feel like filler), the gameplay held up better than I remembered (just don't kill yourself doing every single thing, do what you need to and move on, it doesn't take that long), but what killed it was it was WAY more obnoxious about race and its anti-Southern slant than I remembered.

It's a plotpoint that was added to the remake explicitly so that the character rewritten into an obnoxious cunt can talk about mah wymnz right to vote in a scene that didn't exist in the original game.

It's as gay a virtue signal as it gets.

Did you somehow miss me saying she was an obnoxious cunt?

That does make it sound worse.

My only complaint about Sarah was that in the big race celebration she acts snooty/too busy to talk to the dude. Is it a playing hard to get thing? Genuine disinterest? I may be misremembering too. It just stuck out to me that it was clear, at the time, that it was setting her up as a love interest, but there was something about her I found distasteful compared to everyone else.

 

[eatler]

but what killed it was it was WAY more obnoxious about race and its anti-Southern slant than I remembered.

Oh man it sounds like you would like faster baby go, or whatever it’s called.

Also I will forever hate berk for the IRA mission.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Oh man it sounds like you would like faster baby go, or whatever it’s called.

Also I will forever hate berk for the IRA mission.

Meant sarcastic? I was genuinely interested in that one most - blaxploitation, cars, bayou, figured it’d be that swamp black Duke of hazard thing (I’ve never watched a second of that show on my life, but I know what it was about, it was about crackers driving muscle cars around in the woods).

But yeah, I knew however it would do it would revolt me.


In the end it actually is just like RDR2 to me. It was super entertaining at the time but the more I engage with it the worse a taste it leaves in my mouth.

 

[Caesare]

but what killed it was it was WAY more obnoxious about race and its anti-Southern slant than I remembered

You can tell that series is made by foreigners because didn't they set the third game in some wannabe New Orleans type city? I didn't play any of those games but I always heard the first one or two were pretty good. But that third one, I looked up a little bit about it since I heard about the setting and I didn't even have to play it to see how embarrassingly cringe it was.

Something about a black mobster.....in 60s wannabe NO.....when the real mafia was around in a huge way.... and he had to fight local yokels and klan members.... lmao.

And if you're going to make a corny ass, current year, downtrodden negro takes on the kkk type story, maybe pick an actual Southern city next time. New Orleans is what you'd call a coastal, European style, Mediterranean type city only on the Gulf of Mexico instead. That's why Americans refer to it as "the Northernmost Caribbean metropolis".

The kkk in NO, if they ever had a real one and not just some wannabes, spoke with a Brooklyn-like accent called Yat. It was a metropolis in the late 60s with over a million people full of French, Germans, Italians, and Isleno Spanish, not a backwoods town with hicks going around in coveralls and straw hats. The religious and ethnic makeup is completely different than the type of area they were trying to portray, yet decided to base it on some twisted, bizarro world New Orleans is something that only a foreigner who did zero research or a very sheltered, uninformed American who also did zero research, could have possibly fucked up so bad.

It's embarassing to use an important, well known city with a long history and a particularly unique culture as your basis and not do even the most rudimentary research on the place. RDR2 did it right. They did it rather excellently, IMO.

 

[eatler]

And if you're going to make a corny ass, current year, downtrodden negro takes on the kkk type story, maybe pick an actual Southern city next time.

I think it would of been better if they set it during the Detroit race riots

 

[Caesare]

I think it would of been better if they set it during the Detroit race riots

It would have at least made a bit of sense.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

You can tell that series is made by foreigners because didn't they set the third game in some wannabe New Orleans type city? I didn't play any of those games but I always heard the first one or two were pretty good. But that third one, I looked up a little bit about it since I heard about the setting and I didn't even have to play it to see how embarrassingly cringe it was.

Something about a black mobster.....in 60s wannabe NO.....when the real mafia was around in a huge way.... and he had to fight local yokels and klan members.... lmao.

And if you're going to make a corny ass, current year, downtrodden negro takes on the kkk type story, maybe pick an actual Southern city next time. New Orleans is what you'd call a coastal, European style, Mediterranean type city only on the Gulf of Mexico instead. That's why Americans refer to it as "the Northernmost Caribbean metropolis".

The kkk in NO, if they ever had a real one and not just some wannabes, spoke with a Brooklyn-like accent called Yat. It was a metropolis in the late 60s with over a million people full of French, Germans, Italians, and Isleno Spanish, not a backwoods town with hicks going around in coveralls and straw hats. The religious and ethnic makeup is completely different than the type of area they were trying to portray, yet decided to base it on some twisted, bizarro world New Orleans is something that only a foreigner who did zero research or a very sheltered, uninformed American who also did zero research, could have possibly fucked up so bad.

It's embarassing to use an important, well known city with a long history and a particularly unique culture as your basis and not do even the most rudimentary research on the place. RDR2 did it right. They did it rather excellently, IMO.

It's not as bad as you're making it out - many characters have French names, the Italians (including Mafia) being prominent in New Orleans is accurate - but I too found it very inauthentic. Some things are minor, like moonshining being a big racket. I won't say they don't moonshine in the bayou, I'm sure they moonshine everywhere, but while it's a "Southern" thing it's really an Appalachian thing, far from their swamp. But a lot of other things felt odd, like they were mashing up a very aggressively political Northern Black tone with this "country" vibe that's out of place. Like you said, overalls and straw hats, and for me, the country music (it gets a radio station, but jazz doesn't?) and the pickup trucks. It's mostly confined to specific parts of the map, but basically - I think you'd agree with this - it feels like they thought Southern = Country, their image of both of those was drawn half from modern touristy Nashville, and so it feels like this weird amalgamation of Nashville and New Orleans.

The Blacks don't feel right either, I can't speak for NO as much as the Anglo-South but across the South Black politics was much more based around religion and nonviolence. This shit with tearing up the cities, "Black Power" and what not was a NORTHERN thing. They didn't pull that shit in the South, in large part because they knew they would get slaughtered.

What really pissed me off is how it depicts the rural French folk, the Cajuns and others (not all Louisiana French are Cajuns).

To quote from my review in another thread (that no one asked for):

What ultimately killed it for me was just the depiction of the South. My position on it in the past is that it just portrays its race war matter-of-factly, it doesn't really have many or any good White Southern characters but it doesn't really demonize the area either, outside of two particularly stupid parts of the story. But I was missing a ton of environmental details, background stuff, stuff I did notice the first time but forgot. Obnoxious subtext about BLM and jabs at "privileged" Southerners.

The biggest elephant in the room is the Klan being allied with the Mafia. The game uses real Mafia lore (Santo Trafficante JFK assassination conspiracy theory) but it ahistorically depicts the CATHOLIC ITALIAN Mafia being on the Klan's side instead of, as they historically were, a proxy of the US government to UNDERMINE the Klan. The irony is that they could have had a Mafia game about dismantling the Klan and still had the character be Mafia, and had it be more accurate. Instead it's off in fantasyland. But whatever, let's say. These are the donut steal OC Southern Union, a Catholic Klan, and they're pro-Mafia. Well, they also run fucking slave trafficking rings in the 1960s, because that was how eeeeevil White Southerners were at that time, it's totally a thing that was a big deal in 19-goddamn-68. The Klan just makes my head hurt here, in real life they were obnoxious moralists who terrorized people that didn't fall in line with WASP morality. Their depiction as being in bed with these libertine guido degenerates strikes at the heart of everything the Klan was.

Dumb as that is, though, it's topped by the Dixie Mafia, who the big boss in town gives the Black neighborhood to for no fucking reason, then open up brothels specifically selling Black women to peckerwoods. Because that makes a lot of sense. Gangbangers always gangbang in OTHER ETHNIC GROUP'S neighborhoods. Having the equivalent of an occupying army that has to commute from the bayou to do this around a hostile population makes a ton of sense. And who winds up in charge after you lynch chief peckerwood? A sassy Haitian revolutionary woman that constantly bitches about everything. Burke and Vito feel like real people. Cassandra feels like something a retarded Millennial would come up with. She feels like something that should have been in Wolfenstein: The New Colossus. And of course after getting rid of the racist jungle-themed bar they turn it into a classy jazz club, and instead of selling heroin to the Negro they sell heckin' wholesome weed.

Because Haitians, of all the people in this world, are the most known for their deep sense of civic responsibility and taste.

There are other aspects of it that just feel inauthentic. I could be wrong on this, but the Irish seem totally out of place. Was being Irish something people actually gave a shit about in New Orleans, especially when it was a Catholic city? It feels like the Czechs making this game - Czechs adopting stereotypes, visions of the area, from Yankees who are already ignorant of it - were just copying shit from the Northeast, from the generic Godfather type crap they had already adapted, without thinking if it made sense. This also goes for the tone of revolution. I could be totally wrong on this, but my impression is that the Black Power shit, the radicalism, was a Northern and West Coast phenomenon. You did not see crap like that in the Civil Rights South, SDS and what not came in to stir shit up but the Blacks were largely a religious church crowd and didn't try to start shit with the Whites like Panthers, BLA and what not did elsewhere.

You've got a lot of stuff with these racist restaurants and stores and stuff, things that Blacks themselves would have probably liked back then (a soul food diner called the Briar Patch; Br'er Rabbit tales are something Blacks told their children), things that are so absurdly touristy that you could only really imagine them being marketed to Yankees or being located in the North in real life.

One thing that disappointed me was that it always seems to characterize the country/bayou people as worse than the city people. I don't know enough about Cajuns to say what their view of Blacks was, but they owned few slaves, were largely neutral in the Civil War, were discriminated against in their own state. Like Appalachians but in an even worse position. This was also about the start of the era when Cajuns began to develop a racial consciousness. And they weren't fucking Klansmen. It would have gone a long ways if Burke's Irishmen had been replaced with a Cajun ally gang, either in the bayou or the city or both, but instead the "coonasses" seem to always be played off negatively. And it saddens me because I've made it a big part of my life (outside of my actual job) to study this history and culture, and it feels like a slap in the face to the rural French folk of Louisiana.

That's the same kind of vibe I'd get from RDR2's Lemoyne (and to a lesser extent Roanoke Ridge, but Roanoke Ridge isn't near as lopsided; the people of Butcher's Creek and the Murfrees are horror movie stereotypes, but Annesburg is a normal company town). You have a wonderful, colorful little world to explore, and then the characters spit so much venom about it, like having someone else along on a vacation that hates it and bitches about it the whole time.

Very disappointed. I think Hangar 13 will make a great Mafia 4 one day, and if a person doesn't give a shit about all I just said Mafia 3 can still be really fun, but for me personally it felt insulting and ignorant.

 

[Caesare]

What really pissed me off is how it depicts the rural French folk, the Cajuns and others (not all Louisiana French are Cajuns).

I agree with most of what you said, but I'll give a more full response when I'm on my computer, but yeah, that's a super common bit of idiocy that even Americans and American movies make. New Orleans is Creole French. It has nothing to do with Cajun French. To get to the nearest large community of Cajuns from New Orleans, you'd have to drive around 2 hours or more.

 

[Miller]

You can tell that series is made by foreigners because didn't they set the third game in some wannabe New Orleans type city?

While the studio isn't american, the writer (some failed comic book writer) and the director of Mafia 3 were both Hollywood types.

 

[Caesare]

While the studio isn't american, the writer (some failed comic book writer) and the director of Mafia 3 were both Hollywood types.

That certainly doesn't help the situation.