As Mafia II sets to drop this Tuesday, we attended a developer conference call last Friday to see what Jack Scalici, director of creative production for 2K Games, had to say about the upcoming crime drama and follow up to the critically-acclaimed Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven.
Here’s a bit about what we found out:
With a heavy emphasis on presentation, there has clearly been an intense focus on creating an incredibly atmospheric experience. From the period-specific music featuring 122 tracks to the 700 page script, it’s clear the great lengths that developer 2K Czech went in order to deliver a genuine experience.
As time progresses from the 1940s to the 1950s, players will experience a living, vibrant, and dynamic Empire City, sprawling over a ten square mile area. As time progresses, fashions and hairstyles will change, war propaganda will be replaced with the advertisements of the booming economy, and the types of automobiles will update with the times.
Fans of the original Mafia game wanted an intense story again in the sequel, and it seems that is what they’ll get. Scalici mentioned that initial drafts of the script hit 800 pages at one point; of course, this had to be tightened because Mafia II is in fact, a game after all. The game should clock in at around fifteen to twenty hours.
With such a tightly wound story, progression through the campaign will essentially be linear with one, unified ending. While we do know that the entire city will be available from the start, it is unclear how the game’s side missions are structured, and what, if any, impact they will have on the main game. Also mentioned was the fact that the police will be a bit more forgiving this time around, though they’ll still react to different crimes with varying levels of aggression.
Based on impressions from the demo, Mafia II will feature a great deal of cover-based shooting. Destructible environments and a solid array of weaponry look to add to the intensity of the gunfights. Melee combat (think of it as ‘put up your dukes’ style boxing) is available as well, including some brutal, contextual finishers thrown in the mix. With polish and variation of the mission structure combined with a high degree of immersion, Mafia II looks to please.
Scalici stated that he saw no noticeable differences between the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the game; however, forum users started to see a few differences. It was later revealed on the 2K forums that the PS3 version is lacking in certain areas. 2K’s statement on the forums is as follows:
“When designing Mafia II, we optimized for each of the three different systems the game would run on to make sure the core experience was the best it could be. Because of this, there are some differences from one platform to the next. In terms of the PS3 version, I wanted to clarify a couple points you have been asking about: There will not be highly detailed grass or large pools of blood, the cloth movement is less noticeable than, for example, the PC version, and the visual fidelity in the demo is generally representative of what you’ll see in the full game.
Our aim is to make a cohesive and immersive experience and optimize the game for each platform so that it could run its best. And while there are some differences between each version, I’m sure you’ll find that the core gameplay and the heart of Mafia II remains no matter whether you play on PS3, 360, or PC.”
It would be rather nitpicky to get uptight about something as minor as blood pools and grass, as long as it doesn’t detract from the level of immersion that 2K Czech is attempting to attain. If the experience as a whole stays consistent across platforms, there’s little to complain about at this point. I will be withholding judgment until the game is released.
We’ll find out if Mafia II lives up to its promise on August 24. Expect a full review.
