I have always said nothing but kind words about the original Mafia. In many ways I found it to be way ahead of its time.
The story was fantastic, the game itself (although really difficult) was great fun and it really flew under a lot of peoples radars. Well Mafia II has just been released in the US and will be available in our regions this Friday, so let’s take a look at what the scores are looking like.
So, a quick look at Metacritic shows that Mafia II is currently scoring a less than spectacular score of 75 on the Xbox 360, 74 on the Playstation 3 and a bit of a higher score on PC, with 79.
Main gripes with the game seem to come from some weak gameplay combined with an open world that isn’t as open as most people would have wanted it to be. The game relies heavily on its story to drive the 11 – 12 hour game time, and it seems like this part specifically was a bit hit and miss with most reviewers.
The reviews span from Gamespot saying:
“Mafia II’s exciting action and uncompromising mob story make for an impressive and violent adventure.”
and awarding it an 85, to Eurogamer slapping a very low 40 on the game saying:
“Mafia II gets the last word by destroying the myth that the mafia is interesting at all. It contends that the mob world is a hell of boredom populated by aggressively stupid automatons. These drones wake up each morning, carry out a series of repetitious tasks, and return home.”
So at the moment, Mafia II is looking like a real Marmite game, some of you will love it while others might hate it. We hope to have our own review out as soon as we receive a review copy, so stay tuned to find out what we think of it.
You can check out all of the scores at Metacritic.
Last Updated: August 24, 2010
Bobby Kotick
August 24, 2010 at 16:04
I’ll just say, I prefer bovril, because a real man requires extract of horse hoof on his bread.
As for the review scores: I was expecting slightly higher scores, although Eurogamer is notorious though. :ninja:
GooseZA
August 25, 2010 at 10:06
Ouch… Geoff must be crushed…
Geoffrey Tim
August 25, 2010 at 10:07
Crushed? no…
Somewhat saddened? Most assuredly.
Bobby Kotick
August 25, 2010 at 11:37
There.. There Geoff, you can make yourself feel better by watching the first season of Sopranos and then finishing the evening with the Godfather 1.
Bobby Kotick
August 25, 2010 at 12:25
I enjoyed reading the Eurogamer review because if a game is reviewed as being below-average chicken scratch, than it has to score below 5. (Kudos to the reviewer)
I really tire of reviewers who’ll mention that a game is below average yet scores it 6/10 (as if 6 and 7 are average).
Blah von Blahvenstein
August 25, 2010 at 18:23
I played the demo on Xbox, I was seriously not impressed at all! Mafia 1 is still one of my all time favourite games, so I am somewhat saddened as well.
Sighness….
Sir James of the Cape
August 25, 2010 at 18:28
As am I. I was really looking forward to it as well. :cwy: