I forgot to say, Mafia 4, if it comes out.
Mafia 2, I hated. Absolutely hated. I loved the demo because it had the sort of ultra-realistic, interactive world that I like later games like Red Dead Redemption 2 for (where you actually skin the animal instead of collecting a pelt from an inventory, where you watch your guy open his can of beans and eat it, etc.), but when I tried to play the game I found it so boring and juvenile that I couldn't stand it. I know that's a somewhat unpopular opinion because a lot of people loved it, but I really did just despise that game.
Mafia 3, on the other hand, I loved, it was a shitty open world game with a bad core gameplay loop. It was more like Far Cry (guerilla war over a large landscape) than GTA, but it didn't market itself that way and it didn't have interest features like a Far Cry. But what saved it was that while the progression was tedious and I had to take a long break from it before I could come back, the moment-to-moment shooting felt great, and the story was amazing, both interesting in plot and super slick in presentation, I like to compare it to watching a top quality Hollywood movie. It was wonderful with its grungy mixture of Rambo and old Civil Rights era Deep South setting.
So with Mafia 4, it's moving back to the Italian Mafia as the main focus, instead of the weird New Orleans Black stuff (though I'd say New Orleans' Italian experience IS an interesting part of Mob history not talked about enough, and I thought it was super cool how it tied it into the real life Santo Trafficante JFK assassination theory). But, moving it back into old Sicily is a great move in my opinion. I think classic Mafia stories - Prohibition Chicago and NYC - are done to death, and getting to see the early Mafia in that sort of Godfather setting is a fantastic idea. I think at some point they need to show us LA or Cuban Mafia, though, for a later installment. I also hope that they EITHER make the open world actually have content OR strip it down, like LA Noire where it takes place in one hub world, but you're always on the case.
