Mafia III

A brilliant story with a great mood and fantastic soundtrack gets shadowed by too many problems like a dumb A.I., many bugs and an unoptimized engine. If you like 60s crime stories it's still a suggested game, but we were expecting much more from this series.

An enthralling open-world crime drama tarnished only by a few largely inoffensive bugs, Mafia 3 succeeds in delivering an involving story with great shooting and stealth gameplay. Repetitive missions and a lack of polish mar the experience, but you'll still have a ton of fun playing Mafia 3.

If I were rating the story and acting, I would put it at a 95 out of 100. But with all of the bugs and flaws in the gameplay, I am rating the entire package at 75 out of 100. I hope my feedback will be useful as a reminder to developers that six months more work on a game can pay off with huge dividends in quality.

Lincoln is an incredible protagonist and New Bordeaux is a fantastic setting thematically, and it would’ve been great to see them put to better use.

I felt like what I was playing could be a top contender for a game of the year, but then as I got deeper into it I realized that there are too many nagging issues holding it back from that level.

An ambitious study of crime and race slightly spoiled by niggling bugs and menial missions. [Christmas 2016, p.74]

Mafia 3 isn't without its problems, but they should be overshadowed by the depth of the story of the game. It is really carried through its use of narrative cut scenes, which unfortunately lets the gameplay elements of Mafia 3 down by a wide margin.

Mafia III is one of the best stories in a video game I have played this year, heck I would go as far as to say this generation. It is wrapped around some pretty standard and repetitive open world game design though, which does do it a disservice. Still, the locales and world resonate with me, and the story kept me coming back for more, and that speaks volumes. This game will certainly be on my mind when it comes time to discuss the best of 2016, and I think it is more than worth looking past its blemishes to check it out.

Mafia 3 feels like an unfinished product. It has a bunch of potential, but fails to deliver. Mafia 3 simply cannot live up to the hype. Unfortunately, the good does not outweigh the bad.

Mafia III is a missed opportunity to put an important time in American history in the spotlight, and ends up being one of the most lifeless and one-note open-world experiences I’ve come across. You can see the potential for a great game here, but it sticks to safe and simple gameplay and storytelling conventions, and ends up being a bloody bore.

If I had to describe Mafia III in one word, that would be disappointing. A huge open world, good voice acting and an impressive soundtrack flesh out 2K's big bet. Unfortunately, repetitive missions, technical setbacks and a barren city end up diminishing the game's potential, putting its flaws on the spotlight.

Mafia III is consistently inconsistent. An engrossing and mature narrative told between repetitive and boring missions, satisfying gun play against moronic AI enemies all taking place in a beautifully designed city that’s ruined with shitty lighting effects. Throw in numerous game crashes (on Xbox One) and a ridiculous count of reported bugs on PC you have a game that appears to have been built by talented people but QA checked by the work experience kid.

Much as I hate to admit it, strong storytelling – which is so rare in big games – is often only half the battle. It’s a shame to see it tarnished by mediocre action.

Mafia 3 is a game that gets in its own way. The city is beautiful, the themes are mature and the story, writing and performances are all easily some of the best we’ve had in games this year, but then the incredibly repetitive missions, wonky AI and technical glitches all make getting to the meat a royal pain in the arse. I’ve never loved and hated a game simultaneously quite as much as Mafia 3.

Mafia III put a high priority on its backstory, immersion, and presentation. That work shows in the quality of the narrative and the tragic characters, but unfortunately left little to flesh out the city of New Bordeaux. It's worth playing for the campaign, but perhaps there isn't a need to rush.

The story really is great, the shooting feels good, and getting more and more powerful is rewarding. Unfortunately though, Mafia III is plagued with head-scratching design decisions.

This could have been a great take of revenge. Instead you get a collectathon in an open world that suffers from technical glitches – with the exception of the gorgeous cutscenes. While the predecessors had their own identity this is hardly more than a faceless, insignificant action playground.

Though Mafia III's campaign contains quite a few memorable moments like that bayou shootout, they're buried under a pile of repetitive filler missions and underserved by dated gameplay, which adds little to the standard sandbox shooter formula we've seen in dozens of other games. And worse still, the game suffers technical blemishes from start to finish.

Even though the story is well written and the flow of it helps the game, almost everything else in Mafia III is either broken, repetitive or bland.