Looking forward to this one, Mafia 2 went under the radar for a lot of people last gen but it was a great game.
I can certainly relate to that statement, Samus. I have Mafia II in my Steam library for the good part of 2 or 3 years, if not more, but it has been a while since I have actually played it. It is strange, because I certainly did not think the game was bad in the slightest... Perhaps it was my PC's iffy performance with modern games that put me off, or maybe the lack of hard drive space for another game that led me into uninstalling Mafia II itself.
Either way, the key part is that Mafia III's existence eluded me until now. It has gone under my gaming radar like Mafia II did for a long time, and from the looks of it, unfairly so. The graphics are smooth and suit the new '60s timeline, the shooting is polished even thought it doesn't change much within the classic 3rd-person-shooter template most modern games use (including the standard weapon wheel that GTA has also favored), and the driving looks fun with the right amount of weight behind it (which was something that GTA V ditched in favor of a more arcade-esque and player-friendly handling engine). Fighting is what interests me the most, however; I've learned to despise the awkward fighting mechanics of GTA V (you'd think that the creators of The Warriors's videogame would know better), but Mafia's own hand-to-hand combate seems quite intuitive for what it has available. You can jump out of cover and smash a goon's head into a stairs divider, or tackle and disarm another goon. Not quite Sleeping Dogs's hyperactive Bruce Lee-esque battles, but I can forgive Mafia III for not doing those, it's not meant to be that kind of action movie.
My only real issue with Mafia III is that, without a current-gen console, I don't really think I can play it at decent speeds. There is a reason why I forgone buying GTA V with my current desktop PC, and it has nothing to do with the game's actual price...
