Going to make you an offer you can't refuse: Mafia 2

Publisher:
2K Games
Developer:
2K Czech
Genre:
3rd Person Shooter, Sandbox game
Release Date:
August 24, 2010

It's hard not to find the world of the Mafia appealing. From what we've seen in the films it's a life of glitz, glamour, violence, gun fights and stinking great amounts of money. What's not to like? Well Mafia 2 is going to show you the life of a made man and contrary to the films it's not all it's cracked up to be.

As far as I can tell Mafia 2 has no major connections to the original game apart from a brief cameo from the protagonist of the original game. Instead you are cast in the role of Vito Scaletta who begins by recounting his life story of poverty and strife. Caught whilst stealing with his friend Joe Barbaro, Vito is sent to fight in the second world war, this segment serving as the games tutorial. Sent home with an injury, Joe uses his new connections to save Vito from having to return to the war. Going home to tell his family the good news, Vito soon finds his father has left the family in debt to some sinister Mafia types who are keen to get their money back. At this point Vito's journey into the life of organized crime begins, all set to the backdrop of post World War 2 America.



Mafia 2 is an interesting game. At first it looks like any old sandbox game, you have a large city, a wealth of cars to steal and a number of people to rob from but that's where the similarities end. While there are a number of activities; like upgrading your car of choice, stealing from the various shops, eating at fancy restaurants and buying stylish suits ultimately the only story line is that of the main game. So there's no side missions or activities to keep you entertained. Thankfully however the game never forces you to do some inane tasks to unlock the story, it's always available. There for you to dip into as you wish. It's a good thing then that 2K games have written such an immersive story with well rounded characters, otherwise you'd have little reason to play.

Missions vary, sometimes you'll find yourself shooting anything that looks at you funny, other times you'll be racing around town with the police in close pursuit, the rest of the time missions are a combination of the two. There's nothing particularly ground breaking about this game but in the same respect everything is done well so there's nothing that stands out as poor. The only things worth mentioning are a few interesting ideas that hopefully future games will take into consideration. For example police are no longer magically aware that you are a criminal and they don't suffer from such crippling amnesia that they forget you after losing sight of you for a while. Instead, if your car runs someone over and they see your license plate then they will come after you if they see you driving around town. If you shoot someone but escape then you need to change your clothes before you can safely wander about again, otherwise you will be instantly greeted with a shotgun blast to the nostril. It sounds simple but ultimately it makes you consider your actions quite carefully before committing to a violent crime spree.



The world itself seems small compared to some of the other games in the sandbox genre but it's so beautifully put together you won't seem to mind as much. Driving around in my pristine car of choice, I couldn't help but admire how wonderful everything looked as it was reflected off the bonnet of my car. Not once did the game chug, not even the time when I decided to introduce a number of cop cars to my good friend Mr Hand grenade and a series of explosions began that would put any action film to shame. My computer is fairly new but I wouldn't consider it the top tier of gaming machines, not by a long shot.

To accompany the brilliant aesthetics of the game you get your usual in car radio stations, playing the likes of the sultry voiced Dean Martin initially, but later adding a few rock tracks to its repartee, things like 'Buddy Holly and the Crickets'. The voice acting isn't bad, I never flinched when a character opened their mouth which makes the game fairly easy on the ears and while there is a fair bit of foul language its never excessive, which is good because it often detracts from the dialogue. Unless its Deadwood, then it makes for a good drinking game.

Simply put, if you have ever seen a film about the Mafia that you enjoyed, go buy this game. It's gripping story will draw you in and the amazing graphics will keep you hooked. If you want your modern day gangster game with a truly free setting then perhaps this game isn't for you.

It Came From Space 2: Drop down, change direction, increase speed!

Just a little follow on from my previous post, here are the presentation slides from the talk I took part in on pygame, game development.

The presentation went fairly well and I think people enjoyed it. Or rather they didn't fall asleep.

Thanks to Katie Fenn for doing this presentation with me and putting together some really swish slides.

It came from outer space!

In the not too distant future I'll be helping to give a talk on pygame, a set of modules for the scripting language Python that allows you develop simplistic games. 2D platformers would be a good example.

Unfortunately it has been a very long time since I worked with pygame. So to get myself up to speed I decided to recreate Space Invaders.



Overall it has been a great learning experience. One of the pieces of advice I took on board when starting this project was to "do the whole thing". It doesn't sound particularly revolutionary but you'd be surprised how many times people, myself included, stop as soon as they have one aspect completed. Creating a game isn't about stopping when you have your character moving about, instead you need to think about menus, sound effects, the user interface, all the things that make up a game.

I'm fairly happy with the result but its a bit sad that I won't have time to continue it any further as I'm quite busy in the near future. There's still a fair bit missing, a high score table would have been nice. There's also a few issues that will need to be resolved. The lightning red UFO will definitely need to be slowed down before people can actually shoot it.



I'll post the slides for the talk here once we have finished them. In the meantime I'll close by saying that Pygame is a wonderful tool, if you want to learn about programming games or would just like to learn about Python itself, this is a great place to start.

The game itself is available here. Just keep in mind that you will need Python 2.6 and Pygame installed on your machine before you can use it. Once this has been done, just run main.py and enjoy!

Top 5 Badass Characters

We all like a hero who is not above making a wise ass remark after doing something spectacular. It doesn't matter if its a celluloid hero like John McClane or virtual one like Bulletstorm's Grayson Hunt these are people so cool they don't even need to look at explosions.



So in honor of their awesomeness here are my top 5 bad ass game characters.

5. Dante



Don't dismiss Dante for his stupid hair cut and questionable apparel. This man gets stabbed, shot and impaled on a regular basis and his only concern is looking cool while kicking butt. The 'Devil May Cry' games are full of bosses that probably have had dumps bigger than Dante but he still brings them down armed only with his wit. Oh and the arsenal of weapons he keeps stashed in that stupid coat of his.

4. Max Payne



If Max Payne was any grittier you could spread him on your driveway. Ok that probably doesn't sound right but the man is really cool from his comic panel dialogs to his bullet time dives this man is definitely not to be messed with.

3. Travis Touch Down



OK so he is a bit of a geek with his anime obsession and he's not exactly a winner with the ladies but how can you fault a guy with a light saber? Especially when he gets to cruise around town on his rocket powered bike assassinating members of a shady pizza company.

2. Tommy Vercetti



Forget that luke warm affair that was the 'Scarface' game. If you really want to know what its like to be Tony Montana then play Grand Theft Auto Vice City. Tommy is every bit the replica of Tony from his chainsaw wielding antics to his questionable taste in shirts. This man has cojones!

1. Duke Nukem




Yeah yeah its cliche, its predictable, I know he hasn't been in a game for 10 years but when it comes to kicking ass and chewing bubble gum there is only one guy for the job. With one liners that feel like Bruce Campbell himself wrote them and a penchant for the ladies Duke is truly the king of cool.

Hopefully Grayson Hunt will soon be topping that list because I think the Duke-ster is starting to get on a bit...

I don't like it, don't want to like it, don't make me like it: Bulletstorm Demo

It's rather odd to say but I really wanted to hate Bulletstorm. I think its because of reading Total Biscuit's comments on twitter about it, perhaps it was because Xbox Live struggled to download the demo, maybe I've just not been getting enough fibre in my diet. No matter the reason, I sat down expecting to thoroughly loathe Bulletstorm. Sadly I was disappointed when I found I actually enjoyed it. How dare 'People Can Fly' and 'Epic Games' make a game I actually enjoy? The rotters.

From the start you feel that you should be expecting a standard shooter with all the usual duck and cover and frantic shoot that normally entails. Something that feels like Serious Sam and Gears of War had a strange love child, a nice simple amalgamation of arcade gun fights in a post apocalyptic setting which happens to be cartoon land. The game itself is quite happy to let you treat it as such but you will soon realise you've been missing the point somewhat. This isn't about just meeting objectives or getting to the end of the levels, no this game is about being over the top. The protagonist Grayson Hunt, voiced by the excellent Steve Blum, even tells you this as he breaks the fourth wall to introduce you to the demo.



Rather than your assault rifle being just an assault rifle it has an alternate fire that’s a shotgun, instead of a revolver you have something that can fire rockets into characters and have them fly off into space, nice. Then you find the flail which lets you pull enemies towards you who are then suspended in a state of slow motion weightlessness where they float around waiting for a rocket up the back side, brilliant. Soon you realise you can kick your enemies sending them again into slow motion but this time flying away from you, excellent. Combining these abilities lets you turn anyone you don't like the look of into a human sized yo yo, at least until you accidentally impale them on spikes, whoops.

Armed with the knowledge of how the game works you begin trying to rack up more and more outlandish kills using the above tools and any other set pieces that you can lay your hands on. A convenient trap door full of rocks placed over a bad guy's head? Why thank you Bulletstorm and thanks for all those lovely points. It's then that the realisation hits. You're hooked. Its not enough to kill someone, you have to utterly destroy them just so you get a better score for the level. Soon you will be replaying the level over and over just to get a higher score.

So that’s the demo finished and shamefully it has successfully convinced me to buy the game. Now I need to find something else to hate. If you would like to volunteer to be the target of my wrath please feel free to get in touch via twitter. Expect to be abused within 5 to 10 minutes.

Saints Row 3

According to numerous web sites (Thanks to CVG and IGN) THQ's CEO Brain Farrell announced the following during a quarterly earnings call this morning:

“In the Fall, we plan to launch the latest installment of our Saints Row franchise, which we view as a significant growth driver in fiscal 2012.

“Volition is setting a new bar for this outstanding franchise and we look forward to unveiling this game in the near future.”

Though when pressed further his response was

“I have been placed under a very tight gag order by our Saints Row team. Hang in there: you’re going to love it.”

Of course this good news should be tempered by the announcement that a number of free to play online games have been scrapped, Company of Heroes Online for example.

Still Saints Row 2 was a brilliant game and in my opinion better than Grand Theft Auto 4 hopefully the third in the trilogy will be even better.