MAFIA
Why It Isn’t Working So Well
The Mafia series has arguably had only one truly great game. The very first game in the series has become a bit of a cult classic by now, but unfortunately enough, its sequels have barely been up to the mark. Last year’s Mafia III had the potential to be the push into mainstream that the series needed- it had an excellent story and had some of the best writing you will ever see in a video game, but in almost every other area that counts, the game fell short. It’s gameplay was derivative and unimaginative, it had a bland, empty open world, and it also had a number of performance issues. The Mafia series has always been one that keeps taking one step forward, while also taking two steps backwards. There’s a lot of potential here, but sadly enough, the series just hasn’t been able to maximize that potential so far.
How It Could Be Better
WITH ROCKSTAR GAMES
Imagine a Mafia game made by the kings of the open world genre- no, not Bethesda. The other kings. Games made by Rockstar are basically everything that Mafia wants to be. Red Dead Redemption and Grand Theft Auto not only excel at throwing players into vast, diverse, living and breathing game worlds, but also populate those worlds with tons of personality and engrossing, well-written stories. Grand Theft Auto illustrates that Rockstar can do a much better job than anyone else of making a densely populated urban game world, while Red Dead Redemption proves that they are also more than capable of telling an excellent, well-written story with an extremely likeable protagonist. These are all things that you want and expect from a Mafia game, things that we haven’t, unfortunately, been able to see in one game all at the same time.
