Mafia II Screens and hands-on

2K’s behind closed doors hands-on of Mafia II gave me about 30 minutes to try out the game. After all this time, what was Mafia II like so close to release date?

The first Mafia had one major flaw that made the game unplayable for me; bad car steering. Too unnatural, too little control and too frustrating. Driving cars in Mafia II … very smooth. A huge weight was lifted from my shoulders.

Those 30 minutes of Mafia II turned out to be very ad 30 minutes: I immediately knew that when this game comes out, I will buy it. Byebye money.

But with smooth game play like Mafia II, awesome shotguns (can blow two enemies off their socks at once!) and an authentic mafia vibe, I don’t really care about the money.

The playable mission entailed me killing a fat guy, by first shooting everyone who got in my way. Taking cover and uickly appearing from cover to shoot someone in the head was something that was easy to learn. Your enemies bend over as you hit them. If you hit them in the head, they’re immediate goners. Otherwise you have to shoot several times. Plenty of new weapons were provided to try out, amongst which a pistol, tommygun and a shotgun. The shotgun was especially fun from up close against multiple enemies. Blowing more than one to pieces was a breeze for the gun.

With nothing bad at all to say about this game, I leave you with a short summary and some cool screenshots. Enjoy!

Mafia II plusses:

• Great graphics
• Fitting atmosphere and characters (mafia style)
• Smooth handeling of combat:switching weapons, taking cover is easy and feels more natural as you progress
• Open world to explore, many different cars to steal
• Love: The tommy gun and the shot gun’s range.