Mafia 3 review: A Deep South Grand Theft Auto that misses its target

After the Grand Theft Auto-in-period-garb all-night party of publisher 2K's first two Mob games, Mafia 3 is a wayward, early Sunday-morning haymaker of a sequel that misses its target and bruises its knuckles on a nearby wall.

Somewhat predictably, it tries to fix Mafia 2's perceived problems by following the open-world trend, but, in doing so, misses most of its marks. Yet like most drunken nights outs, though, things start off well enough...

You are Lincoln Clay, a young, black Vietnam war veteran who's trying to adjust to life as a civilian again back in New Bordeaux, a fictional analogue of New Orleans during the late '60s. It's a time in our history when racism wasn't exactly subtle, where minorities were forced to use back doors in shops and you didn't have to be a member of "The Black Mob" to be the brunt of brazenly racist language.

It's surprisingly shocking to hear racist slurs in video games, no matter how contextually appropriate, even though they're commonplace in period films from Gangs of New York to Django Unchained. Developer Hangar 13 knows this, too, so has issued a content warning in the game's opening, distancing itself from some of its own characters' behaviour.

It's an interesting decision, and certainly one that feels less like it's playing the controversy card than, say, BioShock Infinite. Pretending the world was any other way, after all, would be disrespectful and there's clearly potential to touch on topics rarely approached in video games. Unfortunately, it's wasted on what's actually a very by-the-numbers game.

Mafia 3's first few hours are its best, setting up the motivation for Clay's revenge story and glimpses of the game it could have been. It's a linear thrill ride filled with exciting set-pieces, violent shootouts and some of the finest, most well-acted cut scenes we've seen.

Alas, once Clay's motive is set up, it becomes just another game about hoovering up map icons and shooting bad guys in back rooms.

The vast majority of its very long runtime is spent repeating these kinds of missions. No prizes for guessing that Clay wants to take revenge on a Mob boss, but to do so he has to work his way through the ranks, taking out all the underbosses first – because reasons.

Each of these are dealt with in exactly the same way and there are about 16 of them altogether, pushing the total play time to 30 hours.

To draw these underbosses out, you have to hit their businesses in true Mafioso style, be it a moonshine distillery, a heroin production line or a human trafficking ring. Regardless of what it is, though, it plays out the exact same way: sneak or fight your way in, then pick up money and destroy glowing goods till you hit the target amount.

Once you've done enough damage, the underboss shows up in a place where you've probably already shot up 20 minutes ago, and you do it all again before turning the racket over to one of your three underbosses.

Shooting feels great at first, because there's such a good heft to every shot and enemy reactions really sell the power of the firearms. Unfortunately, the repetition soon unmasks flaws in the combat, as you begin to notice the rather dopey AI assailants, who don't so much assail as stand around, not reacting to your presence, before walking at you like The Terminator, with no regard for their soft, mushy skulls. They just keep on coming until they're all in a neat pile.

Stealth makes things a little more interesting, but it's all a bit too basic to keep you that engaged. You crouch, you take cover, you toot on a whistle to distract people, before performing nasty melee finishers. Textbook.

But stalk a warehouse silently, leaving it littered with corpses and crimson, and your reward is just for it to all be mopped up minutes later when you're not looking by the invisible cleaner.

Driving around New Bordeaux, though, feels great. Like that Saturday-night before the morning after, Mafia 3's cars are wild, flailing around corners is sweeping arcs. It feels incredible when you get the feel of it, skidding into oncoming traffic and threading the needle at the last minute as Paint It, Black blares from your car's speakers (seriously, the soundtrack is amazing).

Even here, though, there's something that's not quite right, as the game has oncoming vehicles constantly popping into existence at the last minute, meaning that drifting into the opposite lane and not crashing is often more luck than skill.

This is Mafia 3's problem write large: nothing is as good as it should be, leaving you with a game that is sporadically fun but that clearly would have benefitted from more development time.

And while it's occasionally possible to look past these little design oversights and technical issues if it was all wrapped up in an entertaining package, the uninspired mission design leaves you cold, with the main story effectively being side missions you'd ignore in any other open-world game.

Verdict

Mafia 3 has one of the best soundtracks in any game ever and is good in brief stabs, but it's difficult to recommend when its rays of mafioso sunshine are buried beneath poor mission design, repetitive action and forgettable bloat.

The city of New Bordeaux, from the 18th-century landmarks of the French Quarter to the damp swamps and open plains of the Bayou, is lovingly crafted and gorgeous to explore, while its attempts to show racism in all its raw ugliness is commendable.

Yet unfortunately none of this is enough to make up for its myriad issues that just stop it being much fun. In a year of brilliant games, Mafia 3 is one of 2016's biggest disappointments.

Mafia 3 release date: October 7, 2016

Available on: Xbox One, PS4 and PC (tested)

Developer: Hangar 13

Publisher: 2K Games