Uff, it has been a while since the first Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven came out where you as Thomas Angelo were experiencing a story of the taxi driver who unfortunately or fortunately was moving around his car when suddenly... The players who already experienced Mafia's atmosphere know how the main story will end and what finally be done with Tomy in the next parts of Mafia today well-known series.

Mafia 2 was released 8 years after the first title. Criticism paved the path due to the short story and due to Dan Vávra who made a great job on both titles but at the second one title was a man with a few words.

Identify to Vito Scaletta character who had been defending interests of USA during World War 2 and Vito's friend Joe Barbaro was lounging around in his cosy house but as he said he has nothing to be ashamed of. Vito came back home to his family from the war and everybody is just happy he returned. Joe Barbaro is linked to the underworld and early introduce Vito to his sidekicks. The entire story for Vito Scaletta alongside Joe Barbaro can be experienced within a couple of ten hours on PC, even on consoles.

The first title can be categorized by dubbing to the games like Vietcong. The first Mafia from the series had an excellent dubbing that the game has become quickly cult in the Czech Republic. Mafia 2 came to the surface with Czech dubbing as well but not in the form of the first series. Joe Barbaro's jokes are incredible and memorable. "Lady, do you have a pocket mirror in your pocket? Because I already see myself in your pants."

Mafia III developed by studios like Hangar 13 or 2K Czech was released in October 2016 by publishing studio Take-Two Interactive. As I mentioned above Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven and Mafia 2 titled due to Mafia series has gained the dedicated fan base and there is no doubt that Mafia 3 is the third title in the series which was awaited by a bunch of players from over the world. Immediately after introducing the game on Gamescom 2015 questions had been appearing which were answered only by a trailer which described a few characters appearing in the game. In the first minutes of the trailer, we are being introduced to the main protagonist Lincoln Clay who is driving a car and tuning the radio at the same time. In the radio is playing his favourite song. During the journey to a specific place, he has vague memories of Vietnam where Lincoln Clay was operating carrying out services to his homeland. After homecoming, things are getting back to normal but something twists and they journey of Lincoln begins.

Who is Lincoln Clay? He is black who belongs to a family with Ellis and elder Sammy. They meet with each other in Sammy's bar where they spend free time at the bar accompanied by live music and dancing black females. Afterwards, Lincoln Clay came back to New Bordeaux in 1968 by a train to his brother and father he found out that something's wrong. In the first phase, Lincoln meets with a mafia boss Marcano himself who rules everybody in New Bordeaux and says Lincoln to take care of Delray Hollow area where Lincoln lives with his brother and father. Marcano is so generous to put together a dirty deal with Lincoln himself which should solve every problem with money inside the family.  After the settlement, the black brothers together with father could flee wherever they wanted. It's a custom that money is money and people are just made of flesh and bones. In a specific phase of the game, a mafioso career of Lincoln starts from a different view than we used to be from two previous parts.

During the first hour of playing the game is being introduced and you slowly find out where you belong and who your friend is and who your enemy is and what your goal is in the entire system. You will learn to drive a car, handle with a weapon and how to heal yourself effectively not do die after second bullet shot.

Mafia 3 has a great story, in my opinion how Lincoln Clay must have felt in the age when every minority, Hispanians, black people or other nationalities had to deal with offensive language or inappropriate notes. One of the people also get you know that you are his friend and in the social milieu, it is a habit to use pejorative language for black people. Lincoln Clay is a veteran hero who cannot be disconcerted in entire New Bordeaux after the incident with his family and is tolerant to accept offence.

After several incidents when many people turn their back to you, you try to look up a sense of life. What will be your next mission and how do you revenge those who did not have a chance to defend themselves? In certain situation, you say: "Great, the brilliant story begins and I will hang on from start to finish." I have been mistaken.

As Thomas Angelo was an imposing character, Vito Scaletta meets some expectations and I can say I enjoyed both of titles. With Lincoln Clay, I was enjoying the game only for 5 or 10 hours of playing because after that, repetitive, leaving me in suspense, unbearable and long dragged out story shed light on the entire system. I was just sitting in the armchair and praying to end the suffering. I can explain why I did not enjoy the game and most likely would not to play the game again.

Facial rendering does not look bad for many characters. In my opinion, facial rendering is a brilliant highly-developed work and I was glad to see Lincoln's face or Vito Scalleta closer. Expressions of any character in the game are well made and I cannot rate worse than very positive. On the other side, driving a car was something unrealistic and I really did not like to travel from the one spot to another via vehicle as the car in Mafia 3 is.

While I was looking at the rear-view mirror, I felt like I was playing Colin Mcrae Rally 2 of 2000. With a moderate pain in my heart, I must state looking in the mirror is strictly not recommended.  If you do, a tangle of unknown objects and weird things which you wouldn't even recognize. Sure, a police car is recognizable because blue light is blinking in front of your face.

When I stopped by the police cars and police officers themselves, I was a little bit confused because of their behaviour. The fact the officers would like to shag with black girls or women, I assume it was necessary to be added, because of the plot and the entire story takes place at specific times in the USA. On the other side, I understood, that police officers work for underworld boss, named Marcano, but.

Immediately after the first meeting with the police officers, game notifies you that most of the time the police officers will chase only you instead of Marcano's men because the bribes are in the game. You won't do a step to not to shoot through or flee. Owning the fastest car in the game are the police cars still able to overtake you, and a little bit makes things hot. Even a small motoring offence forces the policemen officers to pull out shotguns and your head is in that specific time very delightful to be on the right place, on the neck. Policeman officers do not react very often to the situation, even when you crash their car or when you are a culprit of a car accident. If you fall out of the favour with them, shot the head off is certainty how to get you to the grave.

In total, the behaviour of the cars in Mafia 3 is ridiculous, because 70 % of the drivers do not comply with road regulations. Stealing the car is very easy, and you do not have to even try hard to get a dreamed car, so any kind of lockpicking as in previous parts does not exist. Some of the car drivers behave unpredictably, and some of them were intentionally damaging my own car.  Even if I should overlook those small mistakes, I cannot be satisfied with driving mode. The same deceleration mode as in Need for Speed or nonsensical hitting against cars and constantly showing an arrow which indicates the right way to go. It is the end. The developers might have thought about the players who are lazy and their needs are to know, which way to follow. If we compare the map with the map from the first and second game (Mafia 1 and Mafia 2), in the first part, you could only see a little cross on the map, in the second part you could mark the end station and in the third part, you do not have to do anything, the game does nearly everything. No, I don't like it.

Hitting the car causes rebound from the another and it doesn't look realistic, even make it worse experience from playing and driving. Are you bad at turning right or left? Never mind, launch deceleration mode and run the turn in 120 km/h. Whenever you choose to drive to whatever location on the map, do not expect the people by the road make a step aside, they deliberately jump under your wheels. In that situation, you've got police officers behind your back within few seconds, and if you do not shoot them all or flee, merciless death awaits you.

To not to be just a negative reviewer, many times you meet with pleasant feelings when you say, the game is just like I expected to play the game. As I mentioned above, the plot is attractive and tempting, but in the specific phase of the game I was talking to myself, when does it end? As Lincoln Clay, who build up a certain renomé and connect with other three companions who will follow the black hero to the very end of the game, you become the one, who they listen to. A brilliant experience is redistributing areas to companions who offer you different advantages. Addressing Burke, Cassandra and Vito Scaletta. Vito got really old, but it doesn't affect he is your loyal friend who can become one of the three who can get one of the locations which you already acquired. If you redistribute the areas only the one companion, you get a maximum from him, for example, Cassandra is able to deactivate telephone lines in your close area, alternatively, you will be able to load your assault rifle faster. Every companion can provide different services, so it will teach you how to redistribute areas.

As it has always used to be, even in Mafia 3 collecting Playboy magazines, Vargas drawings, band albums, Hot Rod, communist propaganda belong together. Penance is a sort of collectable as well. If you are bored of playing storyline, focus on collecting collectable stuff.

Fulfilment of the storyline is not everything you can do in the game. You can fulfil different bargains for your companions or attend in racing, thanks to them you can earn several improvements to your car. For example, first place in racing is getting interesting drawing on your car, a small fortune and rarely new car.

Get in bad contact with Haitians or with helpers of boss Marcano himself is not just like that, so watch out who you shoot against. The game has its own very easy combat system, I'm afraid to say that, but I can honestly say it is not the well-worked combat mechanism. In the second part of the series, you could pick a quarrel with a passer-by on the street for nothing, instead of women. In the third part of the series, you just hit passer-by with the lower hook and he is pronounced dead. Along the second Mafia, bloody footprints could be seen on the pavement when you passed by through dead body. Forget it, something similar in Mafia 3 does not exist. I cannot say I don't like fighting by my fists, but the same movement is annoying, round and round. Enhancement is the special attack, which you can do in specific time pushing a certain button for fist attack. Stealth action is feasible in many ways while fulfilling any kind of mission, it is not suitable but required. Why fight with 50 Haitians when you can slowly surprise them from behind and lay carefully on the ground. While collecting trophies, throw the body to the crocodiles. 

Weapons choices on PlayStation 4 console is comfortable and decent. Getting weapons is easy in the game, so you as a player do not have to make an effort to steal them or consider any of them as a special one. Easily, you can call your friend in the van to deliver weapons at your place with a complete arsenal of arms. Good, sometimes the van cannot drive through and get at the exact place where you are standing. The van is always pinpointed on the map, so you can easily find it. As the weapons are on phone call, stealing cars is also unwanted. Just call your friend on the phone, he will arrive in your chosen car as soon as possible.

The game has got many pros and cons, but at my discretion, there are more cons. As soon as you get to killing treadmill, interrogations, getting plenty information, you get to the final phase when the game ends and you find out that you are bored as hell. The story is attractive part of the game, but continuous recurrent quests with minimal depth is not the plot for hankering.

If you want to experience the action with many enemies while police officers stand behind them and enjoy the life story of Lincoln Clay, I honestly recommend it to you. If you are a hardcore fan of Mafia, I truly recommend playing Mafia 3 to get to know new information about Vito and cinematic video at the end of the game might tell you more about Joe Barbaro. Is it him?

If you expect the phenomenal highly-developed title, due to which you couldn't go to sleep before finishing, I have to disappoint you. The game looks average or mildly over-average, nothing less, nothing more.

The story ends as you decide, but I think this is not the final piece from 2K Games and Hangar 13.

(Reviewed on PlayStation 4 version)

22. 2. 2018 14:46