Mafia 3 Video Game Review (About In Description)
0A fantastic story and cast of characters are held down by some familiar, uninspired gameplay.
My 30 hours with Mafia 3 were filled with fantastic highs and baffling lows. Its writing and performances are some of the best of this entire generation, and it isn’t pulling punches with the themes it tackles. But the minute-to-minute gameplay between the story segments rarely broke the open-world mold, and it recycled its few tricks far too often.
Lincoln Clay’s story could’ve unfolded as a cliche tale of revenge, but developer Hangar 13 dove past the superficial level to deliver a story rife with social commentary on post-Vietnam America and filled it with three-dimensional characters who I’ve grown to either genuinely care about or really want to see dead. I loved the way the story hops between the events you play, a deposition centered around the ramifications of your actions, and a faux-documentary where the incredibly well written and acted Father James talks about his time with Lincoln.
New Bordeaux, a fictionalized take on New Orleans in 1968, is full of diverse architecture and nature. From Mardi Gras parades and above-ground cemeteries to bayous filled with gators and riverboat gambling tours, it took me to some settings I can’t recall ever exploring in a video game before. Along with this are some pretty heavy themes consistent with the era: Mafia 3 does not shy away from dealing with racism and what America was like in the fallout of the Vietnam War, but all of it is done smartly with tact and in ways that affect gameplay. For example, if you steal a car in an affluent neighborhood, cops will show up quickly and in full force. Steal a car in a poor neighborhood, and the cops might not even show up at all.
All of this is only heightened by the fantastic soundtrack, which does as good of a job at delivering a sense of time and place as Grand Theft Auto: Vice City did for the ‘80s. The Rolling Stones, Sam Cooke, and Creedence Clearwater Revival all add to Mafia’s already incredible atmosphere.
Bad Moon Rising
In between the chunks of plot is the familiar open-world infrastructure that Grand Theft Auto 3 set in place 15 years ago. You drive around New Bordeaux, get missions from various characters, reap your rewards, and occasionally get sidetracked along the way. I really love the big, story-driven missions set in unique, well-designed locations. Making my way through a creepy abandoned amusement park, escaping a bank vault after a heist, and sneaking aboard a sinking riverboat all provided some awesome, memorable action.
That being said, the path to these big encounters isn’t nearly as exciting. Taking over parts of the city involves repeating the same handful of tasks like simple assassinations, destroying some sort of cargo, or stealing something from a well-guarded compound. The first time I did each one of these was great; the literal 20th time, not so much. What’s even worse is that a lot of locations are used as the setting for multiple missions, meaning I had to clear out the exact same bath house filled with enemies twice in a row, which is pretty nonsensical.
Even that wouldn't be a big deal if Mafia 3’s combat were interesting enough to make each encounter feel different, but instead it definitely falls into the realm of “familiar, but functional.” The cover system is adequate when it works, but it occasionally wonked out and wouldn’t let me hide behind something, which led to a handful of frustrating deaths. And while there’s a standard array of weapons at your disposal, I’ve found that the most useful ways to kill enemies are whistling to get their attention while I’m in stealth and silently stabbing them or just using my basic pistol. Enemies don’t really get any stronger or learn any new tricks as you progress, so my tactics in hour two were pretty much the same as they were in hour 20. Also, the enemy AI lacks any sense of self-preservation, so many missions just turned into bland shooting galleries in forgettable locations.
At least the consequences of all of these raids play out in a super cool way in Mafia 3’s lieutenant system. Once you own a neighborhood you assign it to one of your three partners, which gives you new abilities and weapons specific to your choice. However, if you neglect one of them enough they’ll turn on you. This led to some genuinely tough decisions, and even impacted how the ending of my game played out. I really dug having to balance wanting to help out Cassandra as a character with the desire to get Vito’s health perks. While the upgrades aren’t really different enough to get me to play through again, the story changes that come directly from my decisions were hugely varied (I viewed the alternate paths on YouTube) and lend to a sense that your actions actually do matter.
Born on the Bayou
While Mafia 3's design generally checks all of the GTA-style boxes, it completely drops the ball on certain features that are all but ubiquitous in open-world games