Mafia: boring popamole or brilliant driving sim?

[Sander]

i seen your post where you explained why your example's where bad and no one said you should take what said in wikipidea as granted or said by the critics (or by the 'herd' sorry but it sounds like you still in high school mentality, i want to be different from the 'herd' trying to prove something)

Yes, that must be it, I don't want to be like everyone else and that's why I don't think a fairly niche and cult game like Mafia is like GTA.
Do you have any actual arguments instead of personal attacks?

Also, you have trouble reading. I did not show that my examples poor. Again: all the games I mentioned had better voice acting. Mafia suffers from the fact that the actors they hired aren't actually voice actors, they're TV actors who once played mafia characters.
And as I also said, both the GTA games and the Max Payne games had much better voice acting and felt much more like actual conversations.

it was just another hint that the game has more in common with GTA then with max pain, without really getting into pointless argument.

"The argument is pointless but I'm right anyway".

Okay, good luck with that. Except you're now ignoring everything that's been said about the game in this thread while you haven't been able to make any counter-argument.

The game is set in a big city. You can drive around this city in missions. But, all you can do is go linearly from mission to mission. You never get the chance to actually interact with it in sandbox-style. Moreover, the interaction you can have with this so-called sandbox is extremely limited.

That doesn't make it a bad game. It makes it a different game from GTA.

 

[mor]

The game is set in a big city. You can drive around this city in missions. But, all you can do is go linearly from mission to mission. You never get the chance to actually interact with it in sandbox-style.

i dont know what is this 'sandbox-style' style of yours... but from what i gathered you can say fuck it and just drive around see the sights, kick ass, try to take on the police trying your new weapons, steal cars and sell them to the scrap yard or the docs, visit some shops and bars go to your house, buy cloth, get wanted posters or playboy magz or collectibles, etc...


which sounds very much like GTA just less content and interaction...


as for the voice acting, you cannot appease everyone, try to get authentic actors from the tv and they suck try to get real voice actors and they are not authentic...

 

[Sander]

i dont know what is this 'sandbox-style' style of yours... but from what i gathered you can say fuck it and just drive around see the sights, kick ass, try to take on the police trying your new weapons, steal cars and sell them to the scrap yard or the docs, visit some shops and bars go to your house, buy cloth, get wanted posters or playboy magz or collectibles, etc...

You couldn't do any of that in the original game. At least not that I'm aware of.

If Mafia II is allowing you to do that and not rigidly railroading, then yes it's much more of a sandbox game. But that doesn't make the original game any more like a sandbox game, which is what we were talking about.

as for the voice acting, you cannot appease everyone, try to get authentic actors from the tv and they suck try to get real voice actors and they are not authentic...

Real voice actors aren't 'authentic'? What idiot thinks that? And how are actors from a TV series more 'authentic'? They're all actors.

The point is that voice actors are specialised in acting with their voice, which is what you need when you use voice acting. TV actors often aren't good at that. As you can hear in Mafia, or in Fallout 3, or in any of Bethesda's games.

 

[AskWazzup]

Yes, and I was giving examples of how the concept of "dumbing down" can be misapplied when it's simply about finding the mechanic that works best for the genre. As with driving.

And how is that making the driving more interesting, as you implied in your initial post.

...so?

You said "When I play Mafia I get the feeling this is what they set out to do, and it's why it doesn't work.". If they would have opted for realism, they would have easily done that. What they have done, is put a few "realistic restrictions" to make it more believable, while not making it too bothersome.

Yes, it reminds you of it. Where in that sentence did I say I spent my entire plathrough stopping for traffic lights?

Ok, so how does it actually remind you of it, if it never even comes to a point of it being tedious?

Uh, actually, yes, significantly worse than any GTA. In the rooftop cop sequence I could actually keeping popping them in the head and they wouldn't react. They'd bunch up on the fire escape and never go up. The AI is terrible.

Can't argue with that, but the actual shooting, punching etc. in GTA, felt much more clumsy than in Mafia. For me personally, the shooting in Mafia felt more satisfying

I'm sorry AW but what the hell was the point of that response? Please think before you reply to a message, that was a really annoying waste of time.

You're not obliged to respond to my posts and i'm trying to demote you, or prove that you're wrong just for my personal gratification. I just though i would join the discusion, though if i missinterpreted your points - i'm sorry.

 

[Ratty Sr.]

That's an awfully narrow band of games there, Ratty. Many games had far superior voice acting to Mafia, and while they may not have been early 2000s shooters, early '90s adventure games or late '90s RPGs had far superior voice acting.

Of course voice acting in Mafia doesn't compare to bloody adventure games. It would be pretty goddamn unusual if it did, considering that good cinematic presentation is a much more indispensable element in adventure games that it is in shooters. However, Mafia is probably the first shooter to even have proper cinematic presentation (I'm purposefully not counting those dull mid-'90s rail shooters with their hours of horrible FMV), which made it groundbreaking and deserving of praise, even there was still room for improvement.

Also: What voice acting in late '90s RPGs? Pre-KotOR RPGs had like three voiced NPCs at best, and in all but a few isolated examples (Fallout) the acting was really amateurish.

superior voice acting... Half-Life

You are... joking, right?

Mafia's voice acting is stilted and nothing feels like an actual conversation, especially because there's often a 2 second pause between one person saying something and the other reacting.

Maybe that's how real gangsters talk.

The game is fairly buggy

No. In fact, I'd say Mafia is one of the most stable and polished games I have ever played.

especially with regard to the police (oh hey, I'm standing right in front of them and they can't find me)

Never had that happen.

The world is very poorly used - it's just a backdrop for a very linear game, and the environment never gets lifted beyond that.

How should it have been "used", exactly? Because as I recall, a good half of the game (perhaps more) was spent in the open world. By the end of the game I had explored the world quite thoroughly and become acquainted with most of its sights. Just because all these experiences in the world took place as part of story missions rather than insipid, repetitive minigames, doesn't mean the world was "poorly used".

Yes, it's pretty detailed (though I don't see how it's really any more detailed than, say, the GTA games)

Depends on which GTA games you are talking about. I'd say San Andreas was the first GTA game to surpass Mafia in terms of how detailed the world was (though not in terms of visual details, obviously).

And what do you base this amazing generalization on? Your own experience with this game or some form of psychic polling? Will some people play GTA like that? Undoubtedly. But every GTA game makes it clear that you're supposed to go out and explore this world and have fun in it beyond the missions. That's the real core of every GTA game.

Is it? Because out of all the GTAs I played, only San Andreas and (maybe) Vice City - both of which Mafia predates - put more emphasis on the sandbox than the story. GTA IV is heavily story-driven, while in GTA III there really wasn't all that much to do in the world outside story missions.

When I can hit a bump at 80mph and go flying up in the air some 15 meters

Never had that happen, either.

when I can hit a wall head on with 50

I'm pretty sure a crash like that would kill you in Mafia, or at the very least take down your health to some low number.

Anyway, in my opinion, driving mechanics in Mafia strike a near-perfect balance between realism and fun. Only Carmageddon did it better.

That's not a relevant standard.

It's the only relevant standard. You are aware that Mafia was released in 2002, right? As in, one year before KotOR, six years before GTA IV, eight years before Mass Effect 2. Maybe I should also pick on one of the choices from your favorite games list and rail against it on the basis that some of its elements are inferior to games made years later.

It's not relevant what people play GTA as, it's relevant what GTA is. It's not trying to be a story-driven TPS, so saying it does that less well than Mafia is asinine, and that's exactly what people do.

Actually, I was just talking to Sander and we came to the conclusion that Vice City and San Andreas are the only GTA games where the sandbox aspect is clearly emphasized over the story-driven TPS aspect. In other GTAs the story-driven TPS aspect takes precedence, either because the game is designed that way (GTA IV) or because the sandbox is rather barren (GTA III).

Ok. I wasn't aware I was still typing in those paragraphs but thanks for telling me to stop.

NVM, you can continue now.

Yeah, unlike "great story and superb, unmatched, jizz-worthy atmosphere, and you may come close to describing the magnificence that is Mafia", which is totally not a subjective qualification stated as fact.

Nope, that is objective fact stated as fact. Seriously, how the hell can anyone disagree with me that Mafia has a great story and superb atmosphere? It's self-evident, FFS.

A fairly gameplay-less driving sim as it does not pose any challenges to you, unless you self-impose them by switching off the speed limiter and putting the car on manual. It's fairly flacid otherwise, which is why it's boring.

GTA jettisons most sims aspects in favour of actually making the driving interesting. Mafia doesn't, it reminds you of the tedium of waiting for traffic lights every opportunity it gets.

The problem is not that I disagree that there are people to whom this tedium will appeal. In fact, I recognized as much in saying that if being immersed in boredom is your thing then that's fine, so I'm not sure what people are getting their panties up in a bunch for.

The problem is that Mafia forces you through these gameplay-lite, tedious segments. It also forces people who love this driving into shooting segments, which have really shitty shooting mechanics (nice challenge level though). Why? What did the developer actually think to accomplish by putting "drive back to Salieri's" at the end of every mission? What's wrong with just letting me zap back if that's how I prefer it.

Did it occur to you that maybe Mafia targets an audience of people who enjoy both driving and shooting? In that respect it is no different from a shitload of other games, from GTA to Interstate. The only difference is that Mafia makes driving mechanics more realistic and introduces traffic rules. Some people find that unappealing. Some find it enjoyable. Others don't care one way or the other.

My main beef is that you present Mafia's peculiar design of driving and shooting mechanics as inherently inferior to the more popular GTA-style design simply because you are in the first group. Not only is that fallacious, but your group may not even represent the majority view. After all, Mafia was a great critical and commercial success on its main platform and hardly a niche title with minority appeal as you imply.

Oh, and:

really shitty shooting mechanics

No.

Another problem is that it isn't very good.

Compared to what?

The AI of other drivers is terrible, I see traffic accidents all the time.

You mean AI in Mafia doesn't drive as well as people in the real world? *gasp* Unthinkable!

Or maybe you mean it is terrible in comparison to other driving games. In which case - you are wrong. Compared to other similar games, vehicle AI in Mafia is quite solid, mostly because it always adheres to the rules and has a large margin of error due to low speeds. Contrast that with GTA, which may not have inferior vehicle AI, but since a good number of AI vehicles employ a lunacy script (including the cops!), you can't drive for thirty seconds without encountering a pile-up or traffic jam which never gets cleared up, unless you go elsewhere in the gameworld and let the traffic reseed itself in that sector... and that happens in all GTA games, even GTA IV.

Not to mention many violations from me are fine, like hitting the sidewalk or driving in the wrong lane. It's about as good a simulator as you'd like in a sandbox game, only it's not in a sandbox game.

Yes, and?

I came to Mafia expecting a good game, and got a decent enough one with a load of flaws. If I expected a sandbox, it's only because ignorant people keep comparing it to GTA. That said, when I say "it promises", I'm referring in fact to what happens when I boot up the game. I see a wide-open world, I find myself hoping there's interesting stuff in there. There isn't, there's a big load of nothing.

Then maybe your definition of "interesting stuff" doesn't overlap with mine, or that of other Mafia fans. For example, my definition of "interesting stuff" includes well-designed story missions, but it excludes pizza delivery and bowling minigames. Even if the world in Mafia included all that sandboxy content, my experience of the game would not have been any better for it, and it would still remain firmly planted on the 11th place of my awesome favorite games list.

Bottom line: I think Illusion made the correct decision when they chose not to implement a sandbox (assuming that was ever considered). I know that if they had focused on the sandbox at the expense of some other aspect, the game would not have been inherently better for it.

Yes, your lack of taste has been well-established by now, Ratty.

You know, I'd like to make a snide comment about some of the games from your own list, but funny thing is, I can't remember a single entry. I guess it's just that good.

Bullshit. The reviewer can note it's not for him but he's reviewing for a wide audience who also think this is boring shit. Maybe because it is. Especially since Mafia does in fact target the GTA-audience, which is disingenuous, no matter how much you'd like to stand on your head to deny it.

Back in my day we had reviewers who specialized in specific genres. Some reviewers liked shooters, so they reviewed shooters. Some liked RPGs, so they reviewed RPGs. Some liked sports, so they reviewed sports sims. What we did not have were reviewers who liked shooters and hated RPGs, but nonetheless reviewed System Shock 2 and Deus Ex.

It's perfectly fine for a reviewer to criticize some element of Mafia's game mechanics as badly executed - e.g. cars are too slow, AI drivers make too many mistakes, whatever. It is not fine for a reviewer to categorically dismiss one of the two intrinsic aspects of Mafia's design as "boring shit". If he really thinks of driving sims as boring shit, he should have asked the editor to hand the game to a reviewer who finds them more appealing. That would have been the professional thing to do.

Also, are we talking about some specific Mafia review or just in general terms? If it's the former, link pls.

Especially since Mafia does in fact target the GTA-audience, which is disingenuous, no matter how much you'd like to stand on your head to deny it.

It is not disingenuous. You are forgetting that many of us Mafia fans were GTA fans (or Driver fans... never forget the original Driver!) before we became Mafia fans. No matter how much you'd like to stand on your head to deny, GTA and Mafia overlap significantly in terms of design and there is nothing unreasonable in expecting that someone who enjoyed GTA might also enjoy Mafia... enjoy it more than GTA, even.

Uh, actually, yes, significantly worse than any GTA. In the rooftop cop sequence I could actually keeping popping them in the head and they wouldn't react. They'd bunch up on the fire escape and never go up. The AI is terrible.

Nope, that never happened to me. What I do recall is that the AI in Mafia was surprisingly competent in using cover, which made gunfights protracted and thrilling. I can't say for sure how good Mafia's shooting mechanics were compared to other third-person shooters of the era (even though I did play both Max Payne games), but I know for certain that GTA was not better in that respect until GTA IV came along six years later.

Also, I agree with AskWazzup that guns in Mafia feel much more satisfying than in GTA. Two against one; you are outnumbered, so give up.

I dont know what is this 'sandbox-style' style of yours... but from what i gathered you can say fuck it and just drive around see the sights, kick ass, try to take on the police trying your new weapons, steal cars and sell them to the scrap yard or the docs, visit some shops and bars go to your house, buy cloth, get wanted posters or playboy magz or collectibles, etc...

You couldn't do any of that in the original game. At least not that I'm aware of.

Actually, in the original game you could:

- cruise around the city in one of the cars from your garage
- buy weapons
- steal cars
- get in car chases with the police
- possibly other stuff that I can't recall right now

That's not much less than what you could do in GTA III, and certainly more than you could do in Driver series.

 

[SkuLL]

Ah, the debate continues!

So, is Mafia sandbox or not?

 

[Sander]

Of course voice acting in Mafia doesn't compare to bloody adventure games. It would be pretty goddamn unusual if it did, considering that good cinematic presentation is a much more indispensable element in adventure games that it is in shooters. However, Mafia is probably the first shooter to even have proper cinematic presentation (I'm purposefully not counting those dull mid-'90s rail shooters with their hours of horrible FMV), which made it groundbreaking and deserving of praise, even there was still room for improvement.

So the voice-acting was shit, but it's okay because it...relies on a cinematic feel a lot? What?ally amateurish.

No. In fact, I'd say Mafia is one of the most stable and polished games I have ever played.

Not for me it isn't.

Never had that happen.

I have. More than once. I know BN had too.

How should it have been "used", exactly? Because as I recall, a good half of the game (perhaps more) was spent in the open world. By the end of the game I had explored the world quite thoroughly and become acquainted with most of its sights. Just because all these experiences in the world took place as part of story missions rather than insipid, repetitive minigames, doesn't mean the world was "poorly used".

Yes, actually, it was poorly used. Because the game let you do very little with the world: it was there as a background for your missions. They could've done so much more with the world.

Depends on which GTA games you are talking about. I'd say San Andreas was the first GTA game to surpass Mafia in terms of how detailed the world was (though not in terms of visual details, obviously).

Well, what do you mean by 'detailed'? Because I'm a bit unclear on how you're defining this 'detailed'.

Is it? Because out of all the GTAs I played, only San Andreas and (maybe) Vice City - both of which Mafia predates - put more emphasis on the sandbox than the story. GTA IV is heavily story-driven, while in GTA III there really wasn't all that much to do in the world outside story missions.

There was a lot more to do in GTA III than there was in Mafia. Like the taxi missions, for instance. And while GTA IV is story-driven, there's a whole lot you can do while largely ignoring the storyline.

Never had that happen, either.

Try driving recklessly in the track-racing mission near the beginning.
It happened a couple times for me.

I'm pretty sure a crash like that would kill you in Mafia, or at the very least take down your health to some low number.

It would take your health down a bit, yes. That's all, though.

Anyway, in my opinion, driving mechanics in Mafia strike a near-perfect balance between realism and fun.

I never found it particularly fun, but that's just opinion.

Nope, that is objective fact stated as fact. Seriously, how the hell can anyone disagree with me that Mafia has a great story and superb atmosphere? It's self-evident, FFS.

The voice-acting killed it for me a bunch of times. Also some of the stupider parts of the storyline like "Oh hi girl I just met an hour ago, you're the woman I'm going to spend the rest of my life with!"

Did it occur to you that maybe Mafia targets an audience of people who enjoy both driving and shooting? In that respect it is no different from a shitload of other games, from GTA to Interstate. The only difference is that Mafia makes driving mechanics more realistic and introduces traffic rules. Some people find that unappealing. Some find it enjoyable. Others don't care one way or the other.

My main beef is that you present Mafia's peculiar design of driving and shooting mechanics as inherently inferior to the more popular GTA-style design simply because you are in the first group. Not only is that fallacious, but your group may not even represent the majority view. After all, Mafia was a great critical and commercial success on its main platform and hardly a niche title with minority appeal as you imply.

It was a lot less succesfull than the GTA games.

Not to mention many violations from me are fine, like hitting the sidewalk or driving in the wrong lane. It's about as good a simulator as you'd like in a sandbox game, only it's not in a sandbox game.

Yes, and?

What's the point of adding only a speed limit and traffic limits as traffic rules, but ignoring all others? Makes the world seem farcical. If traffic rules aren't enforced the world at least feels consistent.

It is not disingenuous. You are forgetting that many of us Mafia fans were GTA fans (or Driver fans... never forget the original Driver!) before we became Mafia fans. No matter how much you'd like to stand on your head to deny, GTA and Mafia overlap significantly in terms of design and there is nothing unreasonable in expecting that someone who enjoyed GTA might also enjoy Mafia... enjoy it more than GTA, even.

None of the GTA games feel remotely like Mafia. Because the GTA games don't expect you to take the world and its rules seriously - they present a sandbox and a storyline you can play through, but you have so much more freedom than Mafia.

Nope, that never happened to me.

...
Really? That shit happens constantly in the game. They get stuck, don't advance toward you.
Yes, sometimes they sit behind cover and pop up to shoot. That's not exactly awesome.

Also, I agree with AskWazzup that guns in Mafia feel much more satisfying than in GTA. Two against one; you are outnumbered, so give up.

I dislike Mafia's shooting mechanics compared to GTA's. Here's a key point though: GTA was very arcade-y, Mafia certainly wasn't.

Actually, in the original game you could:

- cruise around the city in one of the cars from your garage
- buy weapons
- steal cars
- get in car chases with the police
- possibly other stuff that I can't recall right now

That's not much less than what you could do in GTA III, and certainly more than you could do in Driver series.

That's a lot less than you could do in GTA III. For instance, in GTA you didn't need to learn how to open a car door before being capable of stealing it. That's particularly stupid when it comes to open-roof cars. It's a completely random constraint that exists only to insert a constant improvement in terms of the cars you get.

I never played Driver.

 

[Brother None]

You're slowly convincing me this is not a conversation worth having, but...

Never had that happen. (repeat) (repeat) (repeat)

C'mon, Ratty. I know you're a bit emotional right now, but that's not an argument, and you know it. I've had everything from ghost-cops to bouncing cars in this game. Using the Ostrich maneuver isn't really a good reply.

It's the only relevant standard.

No, it's not. Good voice acting is good voice acting, shitty voice acting is shitty. I've never understood this whole "but the voice acting is good for a video game" excuse that's been used for BioWare games forever. Poor performances are poor on any media, and Mafia is a poor game VA-wise.

That's why I don't have to make any excuses for, I dunno, Sanitarium or Fallout, because the performances hold up, because they're simply good. Not "for its time". Good.

Actually, I was just talking to Sander and we came to the conclusion that Vice City and San Andreas

Glad he signed your affidavit.

are the only GTA games where the sandbox aspect is clearly emphasized over the story-driven TPS aspect.

Yeah, I and II were so story-driven.

"Clearly emphasized" is a slippery slope anyway. They're sandbox games. You can de-emphasize the sandbox element but it's there. Unlike Mafia.

Nope, that is objective fact stated as fact. Seriously, how the hell can anyone disagree with me that Mafia has a great story and superb atmosphere?

Story and atmosphere are the games strong points. I suspect the unreasonable outpouring of love you have to said elements might be hiding the game's flaws from your eyes.

Did it occur to you that maybe Mafia targets an audience of people who enjoy both driving and shooting?

It would if both activities were in the same field. But the shooting is in a reactive environment (when the AI doesn't crap out), while driving really isn't. If it was speaking to people in the same format on both driving and shooting, the shooting would take place in a shooting range ("shooting sim") rather than actually against people.

The only difference is that Mafia makes driving mechanics more realistic and introduces traffic rules.

Actually, a bigger difference is the driving from and to missions is not the majority of the driving gameplay in GTA, whereas it is in Mafia. That's pretty significant.

My main beef is that you present Mafia's peculiar design of driving and shooting mechanics as inherently inferior to the more popular GTA-style design simply because you are in the first group.

Actually, no, you missed my point. I call it boring as it is for me, but that has nothing to do with comparing it to GTA. My beef with comparing it to GTA is that these games are in a different genre, and have different design goals. Even saying GTA's driving mechanics are "worse" is asinine because they do not serve the same function.

Hell, this whole turgid torrent started by a wish to clearly demarcate genres: Mafia is not a sandbox game. This is a simple statement that few would challenge. Yet it got drowned under by fanboys who wish to protect their game, and is now devolving into trying to "win" the debate, which I'm not really up for.

No.

Thanks for that eloquent rebuttal.

Compared to what?

Compared to my capability to enjoy games.

Yes, and?

Bringing your mechanics up to the standards expected in a game where they are of minor importance is hardly impressive. People always talk about the cops, yet they have such a limited range in the actual game.

Then maybe your definition of "interesting stuff" doesn't overlap with mine

Oh, gee, you think?

For example, my definition of "interesting stuff" includes well-designed story missions, but it excludes pizza delivery and bowling minigames.

And I prefer spending the majority of my game in actual gameplay rather than driving to and from missions.

See, I can ridicule a game by overstating its flaws too? Aren't we doing well.

You know, I'd like to make a snide comment about some of the games from your own list, but funny thing is, I can't remember a single entry. I guess it's just that good.

Heh, got your feelings hurt? No need to be so petulant, Ratty, it was only a joke. It's ok, you'll survive to continue your list.

Back in my day we had reviewers who specialized in specific genres.

Cool. And do you realize that a specialized reviewer can still understand that the elements in the game are not for the majority of his readers even if he personally likes them? Any reviewer who reviewed Mafia for a non-driving-sims-site and failed to mention that driving slowly to and from missions is pretty damned borign failed to do his job.

Also, are we talking about some specific Mafia review or just in general terms?

I think this stems from the Mafia II review a few pages back.

You are forgetting that many of us Mafia fans were GTA fans

And I was a Sonic fan before becoming a Fallout fan. That really has nothing to do with one game's experiencing "replacing" the other, as they are in different genres.

GTA and Mafia overlap significantly in terms of design

They overlap, but not significantly. Saying a sandbox player is "likely" to enjoy a linear story-driven TPS is asinine.

Also, I agree with AskWazzup that guns in Mafia feel much more satisfying than in GTA. Two against one; you are outnumbered, so give up.

I know this is hard, Ratty, but do try to stay reasonable.

Actually, in the original game you could:

And in Max Payne I can run around in circles shooting trash cans!

It always amazes me how much people confuse LARPing with sandbox gameplay. Well, I say people but I mean Oblivion fans.

 

[Ratty Sr.]

So the voice-acting was shit, but it's okay because it...relies on a cinematic feel a lot? What?

What I'm saying is that the voice acting was up to the standards of the genre. It is also part of the game's cinematic presentation. It is not the strongest point of the game's cinematic presentation (that would be cutscenes and facial animation), but it serves its purpose successfully.

Yes, actually, it was poorly used. Because the game let you do very little with the world: it was there as a background for your missions. They could've done so much more with the world.

Like what, turned it into a sandbox? There is no objective reason why an open world without sandbox content should be regarded as "poorly used".

Look at it another way - if the open world was replaced by disjunct, linear levels, the game would be much weaker for it. Since the open world design substantially improves the game, clearly it is not poorly used.

Well, what do you mean by 'detailed'? Because I'm a bit unclear on how you're defining this 'detailed'.

I'm referring to everything from world design to associated simulation - architecture and layout, traffic, behavioral complexity of AI agents etc. By my estimate, San Andreas was the first GTA where these aspects were more advanced than in Mafia.

There was a lot more to do in GTA III than there was in Mafia. Like the taxi missions, for instance.

I thought those were introduced in Vice City? But I haven't played that GTA in aeons, so my memory is a bit fuzzy.

Did GTA III also have vigilante and ambulance mission, do you remember?

The voice-acting killed it for me a bunch of times. Also some of the stupider parts of the storyline like "Oh hi girl I just met an hour ago, you're the woman I'm going to spend the rest of my life with!"

IIRC Tommy didn't marry Sarah until a couple of in-game years after that mission. I thought that part of the story was pretty well-done, with Tommy wanting to pursue a relationship with Sarah but feeling too disgusted with himself and still struggling to find a way to reconcile his lifestyle with his moral principles.

It was a lot less succesfull than the GTA games.

Only because it had a poor console release (which is hardly surprising - after all, an outdated machine like the Xbox could hardly be expected to handle a game as technically advanced as Mafia ). I doubt GTA III outsold Mafia on the PC (by much).

What's the point of adding only a speed limit and traffic limits as traffic rules, but ignoring all others? Makes the world seem farcical. If traffic rules aren't enforced the world at least feels consistent.

Computer simulations are always abstractions of reality, duh. Designers chose to implement some rules and ignore others, drawing a line at traffic lights and collisions. Which is fine with me.

...
Really? That shit happens constantly in the game. They get stuck, don't advance toward you.
Yes, sometimes they sit behind cover and pop up to shoot. That's not exactly awesome.

It's call strategy. They don't advance because they wait for you to come to them. That doesn't mean they are stuck in geometry or anything.

I dislike Mafia's shooting mechanics compared to GTA's. Here's a key point though: GTA was very arcade-y, Mafia certainly wasn't.

That's the thing, then. I prefer Mafia's more realistic approach.

That's a lot less than you could do in GTA III. For instance, in GTA you didn't need to learn how to open a car door before being capable of stealing it. That's particularly stupid when it comes to open-roof cars. It's a completely random constraint that exists only to insert a constant improvement in terms of the cars you get.

Dude, that's like my favorite aspect of Mafia. It makes gaining a new car actually feel rewarding, as opposed to GTA, where you can carjack a supercar on day one and use it as your own without any consequences. This felt especially silly in later GTAs like San Andreas, where some scruffy negro who can't even afford a pair of sneakers can nonetheless cruise around the hood in a Ferrari look-alike.

I never played Driver.

It was a p. awesome game for its time. It wasn't a TPS, though, but a pure driving game in an open world.

C'mon, Ratty. I know you're a bit emotional right now, but that's not an argument, and you know it. I've had everything from ghost-cops to bouncing cars in this game. Using the Ostrich maneuver isn't really a good reply.

I'm sorry, but I really don't recall encountering any of those, even though I finished the game three times, and played it a lot more in the cruise mode. I'm not saying those glitches aren't in the game, but obviously they are minor in scale and rare in frequency. Certainly not enough to qualify the game as buggy or its mechanics as deficient.

No, it's not. Good voice acting is good voice acting, shitty voice acting is shitty. I've never understood this whole "but the voice acting is good for a video game" excuse that's been used for BioWare games forever. Poor performances are poor on any media, and Mafia is a poor game VA-wise.

That's why I don't have to make any excuses for, I dunno, Sanitarium or Fallout, because the performances hold up, because they're simply good. Not "for its time". Good.

Very well, though if we're going to use an absolute scale, then the number of games with good voice acting is extremely low.

Also, I don't see how a game like Fallout is a valid example of good voice acting - or bad voice acting, for that matter. It has only a handful voiced NPCs, no voiced dialogue (it isn't a voiced dialogue if only one party has a voice-actor behind it) and no voiced protagonist. If we are going to compare Mafia to other games on the criteria of voice acting, then let's at least compare it to other fully voiced games. FFS.

Yeah, I and II were so story-driven.

I'm purposefully not counting those. They are kind of old and dated, compared to both Mafia and GTA III.

Story and atmosphere are the games strong points. I suspect the unreasonable outpouring of love you have to said elements might be hiding the game's flaws from your eyes.

There is nothing unreasonable about love.

It would if both activities were in the same field. But the shooting is in a reactive environment (when the AI doesn't crap out), while driving really isn't.

What about car chases?

Actually, a bigger difference is the driving from and to missions is not the majority of the driving gameplay in GTA, whereas it is in Mafia. That's pretty significant.

Actually, you spend a shitload of time driving from point A to point B in GTA. In GTA IV it's especially bad, what with constant traffic jams, pile-ups in tunnels, and those horrific bridges in Bohan (ugh, how I fucking hated those bridges). The difference is, GTA doesn't penalize you for speeding and driving like a lunatic, while in Mafia such behavior has consequences (i.e. police going after you).

Hey, if you look at it that way, driving in Mafia is actually more fun and exciting than in GTA. /thread

Actually, no, you missed my point. I call it boring as it is for me, but that has nothing to do with comparing it to GTA.

Then maybe you should have chosen your wording better, because you were awfully dismissive of Mafia's design in your statements, going beyond simple "yeah, I find it boring, but I get that some people enjoy that kind of gameplay" and even calling it outright bad. I get that you were expressing an opinion in a strong manner, but this is the Internet and statements of that sort are inviting trouble.

In fact, you're lucky I got here when I did. If more hardcore fans of Mafia had entered the debate, it could have gotten ugly.

Compared to my capability to enjoy games.

You should work on that.

Bringing your mechanics up to the standards expected in a game where they are of minor importance is hardly impressive. People always talk about the cops, yet they have such a limited range in the actual game.

The mechanics in Mafia surpass those in other sandbox games. I thought we all agreed on that?

Heh, got your feelings hurt? No need to be so petulant, Ratty, it was only a joke.

I know, I was kidding as well.

Cool. And do you realize that a specialized reviewer can still understand that the elements in the game are not for the majority of his readers even if he personally likes them? Any reviewer who reviewed Mafia for a non-driving-sims-site and failed to mention that driving slowly to and from missions is pretty damned borign failed to do his job.

Mention that driving slowly to and from missions might be boring for people who are used to games like GTA? Absolutely. Outright dismiss the whole driving element as banal, boring shit? Absolutely not.

And I was a Sonic fan before becoming a Fallout fan. That really has nothing to do with one game's experiencing "replacing" the other, as they are in different genres.

They overlap, but not significantly. Saying a sandbox player is "likely" to enjoy a linear story-driven TPS is asinine.

Let me clarify, then. I played Mafia for the same reason I played GTA - to enjoy a well-designed driving 'n shooting game in a massive, open, believable world. Mafia, with its greater emphasis on realism, fulfilled that need better than GTA. I suspect it was the same for many other Mafia fans.

Now, maybe you are right. Maybe GTA is in a whole different genre from Mafia and I played it wrong all these years. But really, can you fault me? In most GTA games I've played the story and its missions figure far more prominently than the sandbox elements. If you disagree with me, consider this - it is certainly possible to play through any GTA except San Andreas (and maybe Vice City, though I'm not sure about that one) without touching any of the sandbox content and only doing story missions. There is nothing in the game to discourage you from doing so - the only repercussion is that you won't experience the entirety of the game's content. On the other hand, you can't fully experience the sandbox without playing the story missions, simply because huge chunks of the game world remain permanently inaccessible otherwise. To me, this is clear proof that GTA games are designed as story-driven shooters/driving games first and sandbox games second. If you have further arguments to dissuade me, I'm interested in hearing them.

 

[Sander]

What I'm saying is that the voice acting was up to the standards of the genre. It is also part of the game's cinematic presentation. It is not the strongest point of the game's cinematic presentation (that would be cutscenes and facial animation), but it serves its purpose successfully.

If you classify the genre as "shooter", yes. If you classify it as "story driven game", then no it was not up the genre. The voice acting, in fact, was shit when compared to basically any genre except shooters.

Like what, turned it into a sandbox? There is no objective reason why an open world without sandbox content should be regarded as "poorly used".

Look at it another way - if the open world was replaced by disjunct, linear levels, the game would be much weaker for it. Since the open world design substantially improves the game, clearly it is not poorly used.

I disagree. I think the game would've benefited greatly from cutting out all the superfluous driving to and fro.

I'm referring to everything from world design to associated simulation - architecture and layout, traffic, behavioral complexity of AI agents etc. By my estimate, San Andreas was the first GTA where these aspects were more advanced than in Mafia.

Yeah, that doesn't make it clearer. I don't think Mafia was any more detailed in a noticeable manner (note this) than GTA III.

I thought those were introduced in Vice City? But I haven't played that GTA in aeons, so my memory is a bit fuzzy.

Did GTA III also have vigilante and ambulance mission, do you remember?

From what I remember, yes.

IIRC Tommy didn't marry Sarah until a couple of in-game years after that mission. I thought that part of the story was pretty well-done, with Tommy wanting to pursue a relationship with Sarah but feeling too disgusted with himself and still struggling to find a way to reconcile his lifestyle with his moral principles.

First thing he says after fucking her: "I knew that if I was ever going to spend my life with anyone, it would be this girl" (paraphrased)

Only because it had a poor console release (which is hardly surprising - after all, an outdated machine like the Xbox could hardly be expected to handle a game as technically advanced as Mafia ). I doubt GTA III outsold Mafia on the PC (by much).

I'm too lazy to look up the numbers, but I think GTA III outsold Mafia on PC.

Computer simulations are always abstractions of reality, duh. Designers chose to implement some rules and ignore others, drawing a line at traffic lights and collisions. Which is fine with me.

Not my point. I don't mind GTA's lack of traffic rules because it's consistent. Mafia's traffic rules just seem arbitrary and annoying to me because I can easily subvert them.

It's call strategy. They don't advance because they wait for you to come to them. That doesn't mean they are stuck in geometry or anything.

EHm, yeah, I know the difference between 'stuck' and 'strategically not moving'. Characters get stuck.

That's the thing, then. I prefer Mafia's more realistic approach.

That's fine. I'm not arguing you shouldn't. Just that it has very little to do with GTA.

Dude, that's like my favorite aspect of Mafia. It makes gaining a new car actually feel rewarding, as opposed to GTA, where you can carjack a supercar on day one and use it as your own without any consequences. This felt especially silly in later GTAs like San Andreas, where some scruffy negro who can't even afford a pair of sneakers can nonetheless cruise around the hood in a Ferrari look-alike.

Well, to me those constant missions for Bertone felt like a chore to just let you get new cars. Like the designers thought "well we can't just give him new cars, let's insert some pointless missions for him!"

Actually, you spend a shitload of time driving from point A to point B in GTA. In GTA IV it's especially bad, what with constant traffic jams, pile-ups in tunnels, and those horrific bridges in Bohan (ugh, how I fucking hated those bridges). The difference is, GTA doesn't penalize you for speeding and driving like a lunatic, while in Mafia such behavior has consequences (i.e. police going after you).

There are two differences though: for me (so far) Mafia's driving never felt like anything other than a chore, while the opposite is true for GTA. That's just opinion, though.
More importantly: you can skip that shit in GTA 4.

Mention that driving slowly to and from missions might be boring for people who are used to games like GTA? Absolutely. Outright dismiss the whole driving element as banal, boring shit? Absolutely not.

I'm not sure they even did that. I haven't read the actual review, but the summary makes it seem like they mentioned them as downsides and explained why.

Let me clarify, then. I played Mafia for the same reason I played GTA - to enjoy a well-designed driving 'n shooting game in a massive, open, believable world. Mafia, with its greater emphasis on realism, fulfilled that need better than GTA. I suspect it was the same for many other Mafia fans.

Now, maybe you are right. Maybe GTA is in a whole different genre from Mafia and I played it wrong all these years. But really, can you fault me? In most GTA games I've played the story and its missions figure far more prominently than the sandbox elements. If you disagree with me, consider this - it is certainly possible to play through any GTA except San Andreas (and maybe Vice City, though I'm not sure about that one) without touching any of the sandbox content and only doing story missions. There is nothing in the game to discourage you from doing so - the only repercussion is that you won't experience the entirety of the game's content. On the other hand, you can't fully experience the sandbox without playing the story missions, simply because huge chunks of the game world remain permanently inaccessible otherwise. To me, this is clear proof that GTA games are designed as story-driven shooters/driving games first and sandbox games second. If you have further arguments to dissuade me, I'm interested in hearing them.

Okay, let me put it like this: every GTA game I've played I've enjoyed vastly more than Mafia. In part because I simply enjoy the arcade-y gameplay more - I don't like having to keep to speed limits and traffic signs, but in large part because even if I am as railroaded I don't remotely feel like it. I enjoy going around town and there actually being stuff to do there other than "it's just there", like in Mafia. GTA feels like a sandbox, and it gives me the illusion of a world to explore and just do things in. GTA appeals to my sensibilities a lot more than Mafia does.

 

[Brother None]

Hey guys, I heard someone reviewed Mafia and had the gall to complain about how you have to spend one mission waiting around for a truck and then doing menial labour in carrying boxes around! How dare he! If you don't like this realistic dockworking emulation you have no business reviewing this game!

 

[Hamenaglar]

Brother None, you really have been trying to present your opinion of the game as fact. Ratty is too but he does it in a cool and fun way (it is my opinion, not a fact and it doesn't make him right).

I haven't played mafia so I have no opinion on it. I accidentally opened this topic and noticed you trying to force your opinion as fact. I really expected better from you (not that you should care about what I expect).

 

[Brother None]

Brother None, you really have been trying to present your opinion of the game as fact.

Yeah yeah. Just imagine there's a "in my opinion" after every sentence. For Frith's sake, why pretend this is worth wasting anyone's time with?

PS: except for Mafia and GTA being different genres. That's not really up for debate. The fact that people think saying "Mafia is not a very good game" needs qualifying with "in my opinion" is really disappointing. I thought the NMA community was better than that.

 

[Ratty Sr.]

Hey guys, I heard someone reviewed Mafia and had the gall to complain about how you have to spend one mission waiting around for a truck and then doing menial labour in carrying boxes around! How dare he! If you don't like this realistic dockworking emulation you have no business reviewing this game!

Hey, asshat, driving around a city is a fun activity. Loading boxes onto a truck is not. Fortunately, that particular task only takes about thirty seconds to complete in Mafia, so it's hardly a noteworthy flaw in the game.

It's certainly much less of a nuisance than that shitty GTA:SA mission where you have to load ammo crates onto a truck using a fucking forklift while fending off a horde of heavily armed soldiers.

See how for every minor weakness in Mafia I can find a much deeper flaw in GTA? That's my legendary debating acumen at work!

Brother None, you really have been trying to present your opinion of the game as fact. Ratty is too but he does it in a cool and fun way

Damn straight. It doesn't matter what position you advocate in a debate, as long as you do it with style.

EDIT: WTF, where did that Sander post come from?

NVM, not much to adress there, just a few minor points:

If you classify the genre as "shooter", yes. If you classify it as "story driven game", then no it was not up the genre. The voice acting, in fact, was shit when compared to basically any genre except shooters.

How about "story-driven shooter", a category that barely existed in eight years ago? Mafia was, in many ways, a seminal game. As is often the case with seminal games, it did some things less than perfectly. Maybe voice acting really was weak compared to some other games, but those of us who played Mafia in 2002 were too busy being flabbergasted at its mind-numbing awesomeness to notice that one of its aspects wasn't quite up to a standard that wasn't really even established at the time.

First thing he says after fucking her: "I knew that if I was ever going to spend my life with anyone, it would be this girl" (paraphrased)

Love at first sight, and all that jazz. Can you begrudge the man? At the beginning of the game he is obviously a chump who hasn't been laid in god-knows-how long, when suddenly this amazingly hot piece of ass walks into his life and fucks his brains out? Man, I think even Luke would have fallen in love on the spot. And Tommy was actually wise enough to wait a few years, letting those feelings develop and mature before he proposed to Sarah (though presumably he continued to fuck her in the meantime).

There are two differences though: for me (so far) Mafia's driving never felt like anything other than a chore, while the opposite is true for GTA. That's just opinion, though.
More importantly: you can skip that shit in GTA 4.

That was probably the single biggest improvement in GTA IV - no longer having to drive all the way from the safehouse every time you fail a mission. Though as I recall, you still had to drive the whole route the first time around, unless you took a cab?

 

[Sander]

Hey, asshat, driving around a city is a fun activity. Loading boxes onto a truck is not. Fortunately, that particular task only takes about thirty seconds to complete in Mafia, so it's hardly a noteworthy flaw in the game.

It takes significantly longer than that, but more importantly it's in there for no reason. The game expects you to go to the docks, find the boxes you need, be told that you should go carry other boxes....then carry those other boxes around (which takes a while and is tedious as fuck). And then you're supposed to tell the guy who ordered you around that he's needed elsewhere.

WHY THE FUCK COULDN'T I TELL THE GUY HE'S NEEDED ELSEWHERE BEFORE? NO EXPLANATION IS GIVEN!

You could theoretically assume that it's because he doesn't trust you initially. But a few minutes hauling boxes does gain his trust? That does not make sense.

Here's what baffles me most: someone in the development team spent time implementing the ability to haul boxes around specifically for that mission.

It's certainly much less of a nuisance than that shitty GTA:SA mission where you have to load ammo crates onto a truck using a fucking forklift while fending off a horde of heavily armed soldiers.

See how for every minor weakness in Mafia I can find a much deeper flaw in GTA? That's my legendary debating acumen at work!

Actually, the flaw there isn't nearly as deep because Mafia is filled with pointless and boring padding like that, while GTA: SA doesn't have that much of it (although SA is the worst of the GTA's and its pointless forcing you to train your character is also fucked up).

How about "story-driven shooter", a category that barely existed in eight years ago? Mafia was, in many ways, a seminal game. As is often the case with seminal games, it did some things less than perfectly. Maybe voice acting really was weak compared to some other games, but those of us who played Mafia in 2002 were too busy being flabbergasted at its mind-numbing awesomeness to notice that one of its aspects wasn't quite up to a standard that wasn't really even established at the time.

Did you just try to define a new genre for Mafia just so you could say "there was no standard for this genre in voice-acting, so it's not really a weakness!"
Yeah, bullshit.

Love at first sight, and all that jazz. Can you begrudge the man? At the beginning of the game he is obviously a chump who hasn't been laid in god-knows-how long, when suddenly this amazingly hot piece of ass walks into his life and fucks his brains out? Man, I think even Luke would have fallen in love on the spot. And Tommy was actually wise enough to wait a few years, letting those feelings develop and mature before he proposed to Sarah (though presumably he continued to fuck her in the meantime).

Yeah, in other words: It's shit and you can't explain either.

The rest of the thought going into Tommy's...'relationship' (she doesn't show up for most of the game)...is good and in general the plot is really good as is the characterization. But it's also really obvious that they quickly inserted a fluff mission and bullshit cutscene to establish an instant and massive love interest. It's weak and lazy writing, and it stands out because the rest of the writing is generally excellent.

That was probably the single biggest improvement in GTA IV - no longer having to drive all the way from the safehouse every time you fail a mission. Though as I recall, you still had to drive the whole route the first time around, unless you took a cab?

You could just take a cab every time, which meant waiting 3 seconds for a cab, getting in and then going 'skip to destination'.

 

[Brother None]

By the way, I am reminded by the bone-headed decision elements Eurogamer mentions in its Mafia II review of, well, several "why would anyone think this is a good idea" broken gameplay elements in Mafia, but mostly I'm curious to hear some perspectives on one. The final area/bossfight, where the game kind of falls apart at the seams (tho its story is continued very well afterwards), in two ways:

1. Whatshisface's speech is completely out of character and even delivered with a kind of stereotypical villain tone, which is more funny than anything. But it comes out of nowhere. We've been long forewarned in the game that [spoiler:40d8c14ad3]the "assassination attempt" (or whatever the hell this is, it doesn't make much sense to try and kill someone like that) will come from a friend.[/spoiler:40d8c14ad3] But did they really have to heap on that stuff that has not been set up in the game at all? The whole "it's only business, there is no honor" thing? Where did that come from?

2. The actual one-on-one-fight between the PC and that dude. Why would anyone think that design is a good idea?

 

[Serge 13]

Since you guys are talking about sandbox games you might want to mention Saints Row 2 as well. Because that was one of the best Sandbox games i have ever played. The world was alive and there was something to do in every corner of Stillwater.

 

[Brother None]

Saints Row 2 is all sandbox and no direction. I liked it well enough but it's not my type of game. GTA strikes a better balance, SR2 kind of loses itself in its zaniness.

It's worse than San Andreas, easily the worst GTA, at it.

 

[SkuLL]

Just Cause 2 was a good sandbox game, but the world was too big (although beautiful) and the settlements were too repetitive (almost identical military bases etc).