I swear it’s all I’ve been seeing.

[u/Mr_Pinstripe1]

Don’t get me wrong, the game ain’t perfect but I’m not letting small imperfections ruin my entire experience.

I said it once and I’ll say it again. The driving is peak.

The story meets the standard for the Mafia series so y’know, it’s good.

The shooting is really good and yes it is better than all the other mafia games and also better than RDR2 and GTA V.

How is it better? Well, first of all, when it comes to shooting in RDR2, as the player, you don’t really feel the weight of the gun you are shooting.

Basically in RDR2 and GTA, it just feels like you’re shootings airsoft guns but mafia: the old country actually feels more realistic and I feel more immersed when it comes to gunplay and I don’t doubt other games also have better gunplay than Mafia: the old country but, I can’t speak on those because I haven’t played them.

To be fair, nobody, not even me, should be comparing Mafia the old country to other games outside of the Mafia series.

This isn’t me being ignorant also. The games has flaws. I definitely think it holds the game back to an extent but then again, consider the fact that this isn’t another Mindseye or Ubisoft game or activision game… and it does what it what all mafia games set out to do? Then you can’t complain too much.

[u/LucaColonnello]

Mafia 2 open world implementation didn’t add anything to the experience. And I’m not saying this out of staying an opinion as a fact, cause it is a fact that you doing any of the things it allowed you to outside of the main story, didn’t contribute in any way to the game direction or character development.

It may made it feel more immersive TO YOU, and that I would not debate as it’s an opinion and personal experience. But open world elements being there or not would be indifferent to the outcome, which is not the case in games where open world is part of the game design (side quests, levelling, grinding), and not just minor interactions like press triangle to open or close a door or tap.

And Mafia 2 is one of my favourite Mafias BTW, so I’m not bashing, just trying to make some possibly objective observations.

This is why people dismiss the open world aspect, not because is not fun, but because if you want it to matter in the game (and not just to people with OCD wanting the game to allow them to close the doors), you would need mechanics that deviate from Mafia’s main story, which matters more given a linear game.

[u/alexintradelands2 → u/LucaColonnello]

I don't think it needed to contribute to character growth or game direction, though. Even though it does in some aspects by introducing Giuseppe and Harry as characters that you can visit at anytime. You're constantly stopping at those places to gear up between missions too, which counts towards overall progression.

While I get where you're coming from, I completely disagree. You interact a lot with the open world naturally anyways between missions. I always find myself robbing a gun shop while driving to my next mission just because I need ammo for whatever it might throw at me. And oh shit, the police saw me and are gonna be a pain in the ass; better get some new clothes. In fact I always do this after robbing the jewelry store, which is in the middle of a mission. To say it doesn't add anything to the experience, I couldn't disagree more, and I'd go as far as saying that I don't think the game would be a cult classic if these open world elements never existed.

[u/LucaColonnello → u/alexintradelands2]

Some of the elements you cited are indeed fun, and as others have said, are a result of a much bigger budget and development timeline. And they are nice additions to the experience, but they could have been implemented like TOC, where you can also go and stock ammos and weapons for example, and it doesn’t feel playing it like something is missing, just different…

I do agree on the fact that police snd the camouflage element could have added to the immersion, but then again, it’s Siciliy in the 1900, not much like a bustling city tbh.

[u/alexintradelands2 → u/LucaColonnello]

TOC suffers in that it very, very rarely lets you use the stuff you unlock throughout the game. The only thing that you're always going to get some value from is your knife, otherwise for the most part you'll not get a chance to choose your own guns, usually a car is chosen for you, etc. I remember one mission wherein you are to go somewhere and in the corner of the screen, my objective was to ride or drive to the location. So I decide to walk to the stables, which are completely blocked off. You really don't get much agency at all.

In terms of police, they could've had foot patrols around the main cities at the very least. I get why there's not horse patrols as that'd be a pain in the ass to code I imagine, but surely foot patrols would be okay?

[u/DonkeyIntelligent501 → u/alexintradelands2]

I don't think police are fitting as from what I know they didn't really exist, but what they could have implemented is other families coming after you if you cause a ruckus in certain parts of the map.

I'm not sure how many families are present on the available map mind you.

[u/LucaColonnello → u/alexintradelands2]

If you have any open world element, yes. Others the player is never going to encounter them. Like in uncharted, it won’t really gave a chance to engage if all you let them do is go from mission to mission. Just a different style of gameplay, but bear in mind building such mechanics takes time, so when they say it’s been developed in a short time, you’re going to see how the main focus had to be the story and representation of the time and place, and I think they nailed that! I think J’d even remove the skill tree they put, which was very useless and the item collection tbh.