Mafia II
What I enjoyed most about the game is the setting as it takes place partially during the 1940s, and 1950s America in the fictional Empire Bay (an analog for New York City). I had fun snatching up any old model car that looked cool so that I could cruise around to a shop, and buy a nice tailored suit. This does bring me to a negative regarding the game.
I think a lot of previews for this game would have people thinking Grand Theft Auto with an alternate setting, but honestly this is a very linear open world game. The structure of Mafia II is mission based where the main character wakes up in his current residence, answers a phone call to meet someone about a mission, goes to complete the mission, and then you're informed to return home and go to sleep to finish the chapter. Now certainly you can ignore the mission during the course of the chapter to go explore the city, but honestly there isn't much you can do in the city. It's limited to robbing store, stealing cars, customizing those stolen rides, buying some clothing, and maybe stopping in for a bite to eat.
So in those regards it does feel like the time spent crafting a big open world city were wasted, but it is what it is and the city certainly still provides great atmosphere for you to soak in. Game play is your standard on foot third person shooter controls, and features a button press cover system. I did struggle to aim, and that might be due to my low comfort level with the PS3 controller (most of my shooting is done on a 360). It did seem to me that the aim-assist was inconsistent. There were times where I'd pop up out of cover to fire a few rounds, and have the reticule line up for a perfect head shot while other times I found myself staring a few inches off to the side of even the body of person I was trying to shoot.
Mafia II is not a very difficult game as I made it through on hard mode without many struggles up until the final two chapters of the game due to some design decisions. Mafia II uses a sparse check point system which can make things frustrating if you've just spent several minutes clearing a room, and then moved outside to a cut scene where you die once the action picks back up. Maybe we've been conditioned to think a cut scene (a break in action) equals a check point for progress?
My other frustration came from interesting enemy placement in the final two chapters combined with the increase in damage that accompanies raising the difficulty level in games. I suffered cheap deaths from trying to walk down stairs with no safe approach. I suffered a death because an enemy hopped a wall to an area that I didn't think was accessible, and sat around until I had it and walked up a set of stairs. Part of this might have been eased if enemy locations showed up on your radar. It's an omission that I could have forgiven if the developers had not taken the time to make sure police cars, and on foot officers were well displayed including the direction they're facing.
Overall the game was very enjoyable for me despite frustrations, and I found the story very enjoyable even if I felt bad about the stories outcome (Hmmm, same thing happened with Heavy Rain). The next thing I have to figure out is how many trophies do I want get from it by tracking down the 50 Playboy centerfolds (only accessible in specific chapters, tracking down over 100 wanted posters (accessible at any time), and making the decision to buy the DLC centering around the main characters childhood friend.
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