Mafia The Old Country launched the other day to a split reaction. Some say it’s a good game while others say it’s really bad. We played it and have some stuff to add that no one is saying.

We’ve played most of the Mafia games and they’re ok. They each had the potential to be good but missed something that would’ve made them the game people claimed. Mafia 2 was the best one, had good gunplay, but a lot of story and missions were removed. The final mission was also a big letdown. Mafia 3 had good gunplay and cool storytelling ideas, but a generic open world and repetitive mission structure. Mafia DE is a generic remake to the first game. The gunplay is worse than 2 and 3 with a more generic open world and writing.

A lot of people were complaining about how the Old Country’s open world is fake, you have to select a game mode for you to explore it. Another complaint was you have to do a lot of basic tasks. Basic tasks can be loading crates on a truck or helping someone run errands. These have been issues since the first Mafia game. The driving around the empty open worlds hurt the pacing. The errands were to make you appreciate what comes next in the game more.

The Old Country seemed generic when I watched others play it. When I played it, the gameplay was meh, but I liked it. The writing and characters was what kept me playing.

The writing helped you overlook the rest of the game to continue the story. The gunplay was not as good as 2 or 3. Old Country’s gunplay is annoying because enemies can hit you easily while the spread on your guns makes it difficult to shoot at others. The stealth missions are typical with a low budget knife throwing reticle. I didn’t mind the having to press a button to knock someone out or they can get away from you. There is no melee in the game you can only use your knife and every boss fight is a knife fight, with a lot of scripted moments.

I finally stopped playing about 1/3 into it. What happened was the writing goes from being good to generic. The characters that seemed cool at first, became your typical generic mafia members. Then the game starts recycling missions and ideas from earlier.  It felt like the devs were running over their time constraints, then management quickly had them finish the story.

Mafia The Old Country is another game that loses its narrative steam. After starting in a unique way, it goes back to being the generic open world cover shooter, like all the others. It went from being a 7/10 to a 5.