BoosterDuck
Banned
yeah, everyone and their mom recorded gameplay before XCom 2 came out
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No Mafia III Review Copies Ahead of Launch
- Thread starter SunBroDave
- Start date
yeah, everyone and their mom recorded gameplay before XCom 2 came out
orthodoxy1095
Banned
For the main release, yet. Not for the console release last week.
As someone who's played the game for six hours, this reads like an apt summary.
Lincoln's skill set is brutal gunplay and vicious melee kills. Also, upgrading is linked with your overall progress in taking over districts. You have three lieutenants who each have their specialties, and when you take over a district, you have to assign it to one of them. Vito's upgrades mostly relate to giving you more health, while Burke (Irish fellow) gives you more explosives.
It's not as unique as Sleeping Dogs' melee or Watch Dogs' hacking, but there are ways to differentiate your character.
Agent_4Seven
Tears of Nintendo
I think I am one of the very few people on earth who actually liked Mafia II.
Most of you will say that this game is shit cuz there was an open world in which we couldn't do anything besides main story missions (with a very few exceptions), but I think that it was for the better cuz you didn't wasted your time and focused only on the story and story mission, which let's be frank here - a lot better in almost any open world game than anything else you're doing in them anyway. Open world in Mafia II was just a very beautiful, very well detailed setting with an amazing 40s-50s atmosphere, nothing more and nothing less.
Damn, look at all this shitty, useless and boring as hell filler most of the action open world games (and even RPGs - DAI for example) have nowadays! The only and only reason for all this shit is to waste your fucking time for no good reason and what do you get for doing all this? Fucking nothing! And here we go again with Mafia III, bog-standard open world game with a shit ton of filler and barely anything interesting...
Yeah, I think I'll pass. I've better things to do with my life and money.
GhostWriter24
Member
Not really. At all.
I don't care how much coverage there has been before launch. I don't care if they have given youtubers a 8 hour demo. If the publisher is with holding review copies then that is your sign to cancel your pre order.
It's still possible the game will turn out well. It's even possible the publisher has withheld review copies because they believe it will get like a 75 metacritic and that just isn't good enough for them.
It's still possible the game will turn out well. It's even possible the publisher has withheld review copies because they believe it will get like a 75 metacritic and that just isn't good enough for them.
Okay. The game will have a good story, just like M2. What you get on top of this is the additional stuff to do in the open world. Do you want less stuff to do?
Lupin the Third
Member
Isn't....it pretty common for this to be a sign of mediocrity? DOOM is literally the only exception I can think of, but I don't exactly frequent review threads so feel free to school me.
I like Mafia 2 too. I'm passing on this due to lack of interest in the setting.
BoosterDuck
Banned
Like?
Paying for internet to shitpost on Neogaf.
IIRC Dying Light didn't have review codes out either. Or rather, they did, but like 12 hours before and only after the story about the lack of reviews came out. That turned out pretty good. It like this title was in the hands of many youtubers ahead of time though.
There was also the Shadow of Mordor PC version fiasco, when the game turned out good and the PC version fantastic. Of course that turned out to be because of WB's scummy promotion with youtubers.
It seems like a lot of the "no reviews" games are in the hands of youtubers pretty early like Mafia 3 is. I'm not sure if it's a sign of a bad product as much as it a sign of a focused different strategy.
Agent_4Seven
Tears of Nintendo
I can only envy your optimism, sir.
Isn't that obvious?
I don't care about "stuff to do" like most of the people at which games like this targeted at just so that they can guarantee that these people "will get their money's worth".
I think most of the people just playing games wrong or appreciate them in a completely wrong way by looking at "stuff to do" and deciding how good the game is by looking at this stupid "stuff to do" alone. If "stuff to do" is more important to you than anything else in the game, then... it's stupid.
And this too. Mafia II has a lot better and much more interesting, detailed and atmospheric setting.
Since we're talking about games here....
Dishonored 2 and maybe Titanfall 2 (not decided on this yet, will wait for reviews to see if story campaign is really that good as the devs say).
Mr. Mister
Member
Or maybe, just maybe everything you believe Isn't true anymore. This bizzare approach to consumerism makes zero sense. Buy it because the premise seems interesting or don't. If you have tech problems you'll have options to get your money back. So weird and sort of sad that you'd need to make sure your undefinable expectations can't be met prerelease.
Well, their point is that the moment to moment action contains less story, which is true. It starts off like Mafia 2, very story heavy and it doesn't feel like it's rushing to the open world gameplay at all. But at some point you're out in the open, taking over the city, and not everything you do will be directly connected to the progress of the plot (though pretty much everything you do means you gain progress in taking over a district, and thus the overall story 'progresses').
Thing is: the gameplay I recorded doesn't contain anything about the story of the city or any important characters, because they're mostly spoilers. So not every mission will have a cutscene, because there's so much optional content. But that doesn't mean that the world isn't connected in any way.
When you take on bigger missions, you'll get some dialogue about why you're going after person X. There's a rhyme and reason to the world. But it's not exactly like Mafia 2 where every mission is pretty much forwarding the plot. There's more open world stuff in between, and I enjoy progressing my character and murdering fools. But it's not like Mafia 2 exactly.
Imagine the plot of the game like a rope. In Mafia 2 the developer pulls it through the open world and beautiful sceneries, keeping it taut at all times. In Mafia 3, the developer gives you way more slack, so inherently the plot will move slower.
holygeesus
Banned
I liked it a lot, but there was far too much driving.
What is this shite? Just wait a few more days for a game without reviews on release day. Stop putting blind faith into corporations that are happy to fuck you.
And no, refunds are not easy to get for games with technical issues.
Agent_4Seven
Tears of Nintendo
Well guess what, you'll get much and much more of this in Mafia III.
I don't think we are that few.
Agree with everything you said, fuck all the filler in open world games. I'll take Mafia 2, Bully, and LA Noire over something like Ass Creed or whatever any day.
From what I've played, this doesn't seem true at all. Mafia 2 forced you to drive long sequences for the sake of story. In Mafia 3, there seems to be a lot more moment-to-moment gunplay.
Shpeshal Nick
aka Collingwood
Does this game gave an online component?
Mr. Mister
Member
Ahh to be blessed to live in your bubble. It's either blind faith (based on what?) or your are just an uninformed consumer.
This is gonna easily be - 8/10 not the best collectathon but not the worst. So ridiculously predictable that to pretend this is gonna break the trend and suddenly be deemed awful by the peanut gallery is silly / borderlie insulting.
To be clear it won't be a 10/10 either. This game is essentially wallpaper. It just exists and does nothing.
Which is sad imo. I enjoyed those story bits and taking in the scenery, felt more grounded. But I guess todays audiences can't go 2min without blowing shit up.
As someone who heartily enjoyed a lot of Mafia 2, I must say that having a dense open world of New Bordeaux full of activities to take over the city with, and locations to explore along with bigger set piece missions to advance the story is something I am excited about. I can't tell you how may times I'd replay a certain mission (usually Chapter 3, Enemy of the State) to advance to a point where I could just cruise around, listen to the radio, kill multiple gun shop owners and upgrade vehicles. I liked this aspect of the game - the tight cinematic shootouts felt great, but I also liked advancing the progression in a Chapter to just wander around.
And you know what? Mafia III definitely looks to have no shortage of activities, in terms of exploring the open world and taking over different pieces of the city. I bet bigger sub-boss assassination missions can be completed without taking over every piece, or completing the same side missions that you find repetitive. If the grander story missions are up to par with the best moments of Mafia 2, I'd say they've done an incredible job. As evident from Joe's Adventures and Jimmy's Betrayal/Vendetta, it's also apparent that 2k Czech wanted to make use of Empire Bay with more mundane, open world missions.
And as far as the story and the character go, this is what I'm most excited about. I love that they're setting a crime story in the late 60's with a Black character, taking down the mob. This alone makes me want to buy the game.
Nope. Single player only.
Shpeshal Nick
aka Collingwood
Is this sarcasm? Why would this not be a good sign? Hangar 13 repeatedly said they wanted to create a single player adventure focused on the story of Lincoln Clay. It doesn't need an online component.
Shpeshal Nick
aka Collingwood
I mean, the fact that review code isn't going out early.
Usually online is the excuse used.
OverBlood 3
Banned
Zero interest in any multiplayer component.
Ah, I see. That's fair - I assumed it as needing a multiplayer component, apologies!
Well it's not like they are hiding game from people. There are hour and hours of gameplay on YouTube and you really can form an opinion about game based on those. It is stupid from 2K to "hide" reviews but this is not NMS situation where people didn't know too much about game until release.
Some people also buy games because of personal interest, not just review scores. For me the setting and tackling racism head on is something i'm very interested in. Even if this game would land somewhere between 70-75 on metacritic, I would still get the game for the reasons mentioned above. If it would go much lower than that I would wait for a sale, so sure i'm still taking a risk. But my preorder already came with -22% so that would soften the blow atleast.
Very often people know what they will like. And review scores mean nothing then, there are people that can't stand critical succes like Witcher 3 while praising Dragon's Dogma that only got decent reviews. Is it wrong to buy games that don't review great? If no, why is it wrong to preorder them?
Very often people know what they will like. And review scores mean nothing then, there are people that can't stand critical succes like Witcher 3 while praising Dragon's Dogma that only got decent reviews. Is it wrong to buy games that don't review great? If no, why is it wrong to preorder them?
I love Mafia 2, but at some point some of the driving was senseless. "Drive to point A to start mission (...) Alright, now drive back."
I get that Mafia 3 looks totally different, and I'm not gonna claim that it'll click with everyone. But it's not some mindless shooter that aims to distract players with explosions.
Agent_4Seven
Tears of Nintendo
I've absolutely zero problems with that.
And here we have another problem - people care about shooting and "stuff to do" more than they care about the story.
Now, the story in this genre (The Godfather, Goodfellas, Once Upon a Time in America etc.), is a lot more important than enything else (shooting, "stuff to do"), 2K Czech completely understand that and made a true Mafia game with a good story, characters and everything else. But Mafia II was a video game too and obviously you still have a lot of shooting sequences, but all of them was either well justified or simply well placed in the story and didn't feel like they put action scenes with the shooting here and there just for the sake of it.
What I'm stying to say is that all action scenes in Mafia II (shooting or anything else) was made for the sake of the story and story alone to not waste your time, were as in Mafia III they everywhere and was made for everything else and this everything else is not related to the main story and was made only for the sake of it and for the sake of wasting a lot of your time with the "stuff to do".
Here's the difference between these too games. One was made for the people who loves this genre, story and characters with a mix of action scenes here and there for the sake of the story, and another for the people who care a lot more about mindless shooting, killing and "stuff to do" to get their money's worth and to play the game for 50-100 hours by doing all sorts of boring shit that nowhere near as good, interesting, memorable etc. as the main story missions with an absolutely zero payoff.
My biggest complaint right now without playing the game is exactly that there seems to be too much shooting. The reinforcement mechanic is very unnecessary to me, I'm happy to shoot let's say 5 dudes to get the mission done. But please don't bring 3 more cars full of people guns blazing. I almost got burnt out playing Red Dead Redemption even, like where do all these people come from. Where do they even live? I've killed hundreds of guys already. It's like 90% of the people in the west were outlaws. But I guess the market likes it's killing too much, so we don't get many big AAA games that would really tone down the amount of combat.
As someone who's played Mafia 3 for six hours and finished Mafia 2 (and loved it), I have to fundamentally disagree with you.
Mafia 3 is very much about story and characters. It's not an open world 'for the sake of giving people things to do', it's to allow player choice in how you experience the story and the action scenes. The narrative rope is less taut, yes. But it still very much revolves around story.
Even as someone who enjoyed Empire Bay, this is not the case for me at all. New Bordeaux looks like a much more interesting city the team has created, based on the Districts video alone. Hell, even the aesthetic of each individual one looks unique. If there are interiors to explore that are varied, different and interesting, the density of the city will feel much more alive that a static backdrop.
This idea that Empire Bay was a much more interesting and atmospheric setting over New Bordeaux - doesn't feel like that to me at all.
holygeesus
Banned
Yes us 40-year old kids today and our short attention spans...
I have no problem with driving sequences, but Mafia II became a chore, especially when you consider the speeding element, and how annoying it became watching out for cops and staying under the speed limit.
I think it was the constant having to drive home after a mission - just cut those bits out. End the mission, cut to black and just have you appear at home for the next scene...but I guess that doesn't pad the game length out as much.
Agent_4Seven
Tears of Nintendo
Budi,
Yeah, RDR has a shit ton of story and narrative ralated problems in terms of gameplay and everything you've just said and I also really don't like any of it. Hell, I've got bored so much at 45% of the game that I even forced myself to play more just to finish the game and just to tell myself "here, I've finished the fucking thing!"... but I never did and have no desire to play it again because of so many problems I have with it.
JodokusK,
Really? I see a shit ton of activities and "stuff to do" by just looking at the map and you telling me that all of this shit is not hurting the story, narrative and everything else related to it? I'm sorry, but I don't believe you at all. "Stuff to do" is almost never a good thing in open world games and sure as hell is not even remotely well justiffied and well paced in terms of the story, narrative etc. All of this (or at least 90%) is just a bunch of stupid video game stuff that waste your time.
The Witcher 3 is the one and only game with the "stuff to do" (not question marks) which is made just as well or even better than some of the story stuff. So as long as other games doing the exact opposite, this "stuff to do" will never be good for the story, characters, narrative and for your time as well.
Yeah, RDR has a shit ton of story and narrative ralated problems in terms of gameplay and everything you've just said and I also really don't like any of it. Hell, I've got bored so much at 45% of the game that I even forced myself to play more just to finish the game and just to tell myself "here, I've finished the fucking thing!"... but I never did and have no desire to play it again because of so many problems I have with it.
JodokusK,
Really? I see a shit ton of activities and "stuff to do" by just looking at the map and you telling me that all of this shit is not hurting the story, narrative and everything else related to it? I'm sorry, but I don't believe you at all. "Stuff to do" is almost never a good thing in open world games and sure as hell is not even remotely well justiffied and well paced in terms of the story, narrative etc. All of this (or at least 90%) is just a bunch of stupid video game stuff that waste your time.
The Witcher 3 is the one and only game with the "stuff to do" (not question marks) which is made just as well or even better than some of the story stuff. So as long as other games doing the exact opposite, this "stuff to do" will never be good for the story, characters, narrative and for your time as well.
To me it seems that opposite is going on, people care too much that someone else pre-ordered the game. So people are bringing up the plentiful gameplay footage available that has brought them confidence in the game. I've seen more posts that say "people shouldn't preorder this" than "people really should pre-order this!" Haven't you? Even the OP tells people to not pre-order games.
Agent_4Seven:
Like I said, the narrative is not as tight as a linear game like Mafia 2, but that doesn't mean the story isn't one of the core elements of the game. Without the story and world building, this game would fall flat. The 'stuff to do' is to make the game more of an open world, they're all missions with a purpose. And those missions contribute to the main game progress, and some of those missions contain some narrative while some are the simple 'take this dude out'-type.
Yes. This is not Mafia 2, this has been designed with a more actual open world design in mind. So the narrative is not as tight and if you don't like that, that's totally fair. But I have to at least comment on the notion that there's just 'stuff to do' as if all of it is empty and soulless filler. To me, most of the content felt like it at least conveyed something about the world or the people connected to the mob.
Karu:
I agree that people should absolutely wait if there is any doubt. This is a very divisive game, as we notice in this topic. It's the third part of a franchise and it definitely changes things within the formula. Watch livestreams, read articles, make sure this is what you want it to be before you purchase.
Like I said, the narrative is not as tight as a linear game like Mafia 2, but that doesn't mean the story isn't one of the core elements of the game. Without the story and world building, this game would fall flat. The 'stuff to do' is to make the game more of an open world, they're all missions with a purpose. And those missions contribute to the main game progress, and some of those missions contain some narrative while some are the simple 'take this dude out'-type.
Yes. This is not Mafia 2, this has been designed with a more actual open world design in mind. So the narrative is not as tight and if you don't like that, that's totally fair. But I have to at least comment on the notion that there's just 'stuff to do' as if all of it is empty and soulless filler. To me, most of the content felt like it at least conveyed something about the world or the people connected to the mob.
Karu:
I agree that people should absolutely wait if there is any doubt. This is a very divisive game, as we notice in this topic. It's the third part of a franchise and it definitely changes things within the formula. Watch livestreams, read articles, make sure this is what you want it to be before you purchase.
J3nga
Member
It's not like game has been wrapped in fog guys, there's plenty of footage already with commentaries and so on, it's pretty much crystal clear what the game is all about.I bought Homefront: the revolution this year, I doubt this could be any worse. Anyway, I'm aware that in some areas it might dissapoint. Loved the 1st one, 2nd was not bad and I'm definitely not skipping this one. For f's sakes, some of you pre-ordered/bought NMS, I don't think you could go worse than that.