True mafioso
I enjoyed it, there is something to be said about a back-to-basics approach, a simple but we'll written story, relatively basic but satisfying combat. The Old Country is another solid Mafia game though Mafia 2 remains the king.
This is a gorgeous world, I frequently found myself stopping to take it in. The problem is that it's also an incredibly static world, much moreso than it's predecessors. Here is my theory: they just announced an upcoming free update that will add sidequests and stuff to do in the open world. I believe this was meant to be in the base game but they wanted to meet a publishing deadline and maximize sales potential, early August was the *perfect* time to release, nothing to compete with, lots of people on holiday.
The game has myriad collectibles arbitrarily scattered across the map with little rhyme or reason. When you explore these areas it's literally a ghost town, *zero* NPC's, it's quite jarring. If you try to explore within certain missions where the NPCs are already present you will find them to be mostly lifeless, no conversations taking place (there are specific exceptions) with the simple sound of chatter filling the void as ambient noise. Then there is also the dreaded "return to mission" warning with a countdown timer should you stray too far from the invisible boundaries.
The narrative - like all Mafia games - is the driving force here. I loved these characters, there are only so many ways to tell a mafia tale so criticisms of it being "cliche" or "simple" are just silly. From chapter 9 onward the game goes full balls to the wall with it's missions with some spectacular setpieces and story beats, I was completely hooked.
While my initial impression of performance was positive it got worse as time went on, typical UE5 fuckery rearing it's ugly head from frame hitching and weird pop-in, the things we've come to expect from this engine are here. None of it killed my enjoyment but it's definitely noticeable and worth mentioning. Otherwise the game delivered with it's visuals with great animations, gorgeous lighting and a presentation of it's world that felt authentic and transportive.
I enjoyed my time with it, will probably plat, do wish they gave it a couple more months and delivered what I believe it was meant to have from the start, by the time the DLC rolls around I would have long moved on. No regrets though, 7/10, will always support quality, staunchly single player games, we need more of them.
