Mafia III review

    I've mostly been disappointed with the Triple A game releases this year. There's been a lot of smoke and mirrors promising big and delivering little. Mafia III is a case where I had moderate expectations rather than high ones. The previous Mafia games had their ups and downs but were well known for their solid storytelling as well as atmosphere. The revelation Mafia III would have a Black protagonist, would take place in a faux New Orleans, and would involve shooting up the Italian Mafia rather than joining them intrigued me. The fact you'd also get to blow up the KKK was something which sold me as a first day buyer. So is Mafia III worth it?

The game comes with a warning label about racism.

    Pretty much, yeah. It's not going to be a game which is remembered in the same league as Halo or Grand Theft Auto but I'd say it's the best in the series so far. The storytelling is excellent, the themes timely, and I liked all of the characters. Unfortunately, the gameplay isn't quite perfect at launch and I think there's a lot more which needs tweaking before the game reaches its full potential.

    Interestingly, a lot of my complaints are planned to be addressed in free DLC and I find myself wondering why they just didn't add these issues to begin with. Still, a patched game is better than a broken game and Mafia III is still pretty entertaining as is.

Every burgeoning crime lord needs his own CIA agent.

    The premise of the game is Lincoln Clay is a Black Vietnam veteran who returns home to New Bordeaux in 1968. Raised by the Black Mob's leader, Sammie Robinson, he is recruited by the Italian Mob's leader in Sal Marcano to steal seven million dollars from the US Federal Reserve. That's about seventy million dollars in today's money, btw. Unfortunately, the Italian mafia turns out to be less than trustworthy and Lincoln's family is massacred in a double-cross. Recruiting his CIA handler and a group of Sal's enemies, Lincoln proceeds to build a new syndicate to slaughter Sal's organization and build his own criminal empire.

Lincoln Clay is going to murder some rednecks.

    There's both good and bad elements to this premise. The good elements are the game making excellent use of its time period and storytelling. We get to meet Lincoln's family before the betrayal, get to know them, and actually feel a sense of loss when they're killed.

    The bad elements are, for however well told it is, this is basically the premise of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, the first three Saints Row games, Assassins Creed: Syndicate, and innumerable other GTA clones. Mafia III is, fundamentally, the same game about being a criminal mastermind taking over territory as has been covered many times before.

    You go into a territory, raise havoc with various bases, draw out the enemy leader and then eliminate him. I'm sorry to say it doesn't quite have the same punch as Saints Row 2 and Assassins Creed: Syndicate as methods of raising havoc are less diverse. You basically always are infiltrating locations and eliminating the local hoods. The game has a real problem with repetitiveness. It's basically made of a hundred or so 'levels' which are full of criminals for Lincoln Clay to take out in a sandbox style.

    The problem is that this isn't broken up with car chases or other activities which would make it a more diverse, enjoyable experience. It doesn't help that the A.I. for the enemies in the game isn't great either. Once you figure out how to hide behind a corner and whistle for someone to attack you, you've basically got the game beat. The game could have been improved by adding some more Louisiana-specific oddities such as gator hunting, playing jazz music, or other mini-games. No one played Red Dead Redemption for its poker or five-finger-fillet mini-games but they added to the overall experience.

I love Lincoln's car.

    The gameplay is basically a kind of mixture of Hitman and Grand Theft Auto but scaled back from both. I was pleasantly surprised to see you could sneak around a large portion of the enemies in the game and do non-lethal takedowns on many of them. Sadly, the game seems to have been designed with a much more violent Punisher-esque aesthetic as it is impossible to play the game without killing a large number of people with areas designed so you have to slaughter your way out at time.

    Likewise, in order to do nonlethal take downs, you have to go to the menu and change from lethal to nonlethal. It seems strange this is not an individual choice in game or the result of what weapon you have equipped.

    Bizarrely, the most original element of the game is the racism mechanic. I never thought I would say that, either. Lincoln Clay attracts police attention by the very act of existing and is stalked by police when he's in rich affluent areas or when he's in "No Coloreds Allowed" stores. The police will always side with the mafia over Lincoln in engagements as well. Finally, they respond more quickly to calls made in white neighborhoods than they will in black ones. I'd say this was a mechanic going overboard but having grown up in the South, I'm going to say this is just accurate today versus an exaggeration of the Sixties.

Lots of cover-based shooting and stealth action.

    The city of New Bordeaux is probably the best part of the game as it's a beautifully rendered creation with lots of buildings you can enter. There's nine districts and they're full of stores, enemy fortresses, and unique locations. It says just about everything which needs to be said that there's more interesting places to visit and explore in Mafia III than there is in Fallout 4. Just wandering around, I've seen unique drive-throughs, movie theaters, trailer parks, boating docks, shanty towns, and swamps. While not to the same level as Grand Theft Auto V, I've got to say it's up there with Grand Theft Auto IV and that's not a bad comparison. The graphics are somewhat saturated and made to look like a Seventies movie but I feel they're quite impressive. Still, the ones on computer are notably restricted to 30 frames per second and they haven't yet been patched.

Police harass mixed-race couples in-game.

    The characters of Mafia III are memorable with a mixture of archetypes. Lincoln is the shell-shocked veteran on a roaring rampage of revenge (ala Mack Bolan or Frank Castle). Cassandra is the Dominican Voodoo priestess who is more show than faith. Sal Marcano is a corrupt Southern Gentleman/mafia don who is more George Wallace than Vitto Corleone. Mafia II's protagonist, Vito, is actually a recruitable lieutenant. Having survived the events of Mafia II, he's become an embittered middle-aged man who is interested in one last attempt to make it big in organized crime before he ends his life as a middle manager for the mob. Still, I wouldn't say any of the characters are going to be entering anyone's 'all time favorites' either as they're a bit too grounded and ruthless to become more than mildly endearing.

Killing these guys never gets old.

    I will say that I am very pleased by the inclusion of the "Southern Union" as one of the gangs which you have to fight against. The Southern Union is the Ku Klux Klan with the numbers (barely) filed off. They burn crosses, engage in hate crimes, and hold a near-undisputed control over the politics in New Bordeaux. Again, coming from the South, it is deeply cathartic to finally be able to shoot and stab these guys. I've killed thousands of Nazis virtually and it's a shame that the Klan isn't more often used as enemies in video games as I'd like to match those numbers here. Mafia III gets a benefit of having very hate-able enemies and that's no small thing in a game with a heavy combat focus.

    The game is very adjustable in its difficulty and controls, which I give 2K Games credit for. In addition to lethal or non-lethal takedowns, you can choose the responsiveness of your firearms and cars. You can even remove all of the racist language which the developers have included in order to be period authentic. Personally, I think the game may have gone to a little too many lengths in order to allow multiple play options without attending to the fact the control placement is really odd. For Xbox One players, the "Special Vision" button is the Start button, you get in cars with the X button, and you throw Molotov cocktails or grenades with the Left Button. The gameplay is somewhat awkward as a result and I think it would have been improved by sticking with the standard GTA control placement.

Driving in the game comes in "realistic" and "easy" formats.

      The soundtrack for the game is fantastic and probably the best video game music collection of all time. This isn't something we can really give the game credit for, unless we give the game credit for the Sixties being an awesome time for music. "Fortunate Son", "All Along the Watchtower", "I Fought The Law", "Set Me Free", "White Rabbit", "Paint it Black", and more are the kinds of music you hear when you're driving around. I don't know how much this cost but it was an investment well worth it.

    I was going to give the game an 8.5 out of 10 but in the final third of the game, the games crashing became a problem that prevented me from completing it on console. I'm fairly forgiving when it comes to bugs this is a deal-breaker as I had become invested in the story despite the busy-work. It left me feeling cheated and dramatically decreased my appreciation of the game.

    In conclusion, Mafia III is an entertaining game but I think it has some technical issues which keep it from being great. Still, I have to give an A for effort and also a B+ for its premise but a C- for performance. The fact this game chooses to explore such a controversial period of American history is to be commended even if they do so through the well-trodden rode of a GTA clone. The soundtrack is amazing, the characters enjoyable, and the graphics...passable. This is not a must buy if you're strapped for cash but I have to say it's the first game I've played this year which failed to reach its great ambitions versus playing it safe to disappointing effect.

6/10

Mafia III: Definitive Edition review

    I was one of the early purchasers of Mafia III and I had a set of mixed feelings about it that could be summarized as: "I love this game but it crashed to the point I could not complete it." That is a pretty heavy criticism for me to lay on a game. The story was magnificent, the characters entertaining, and the soundtrack was so great that I burned myself a CD of its classic Sixties hits. Unfortunately, the frame-rate drops and bugs were nasty to the point that I had to quit. There was also a point where the gameplay became repetitive and boring.

Lincoln is a very engaging protagonist.

    When I heard that anyone who owned the original game would be able to upgrade to the Definitive Edition for free, I was intrigued. I didn't know what to expect three years later and was wondering what I'd get. Much to my surprise, I'm going to say it's gone from being a fairly mediocre game to one of my favorite releases of 2016. Well, technically, I suppose it's one of my favorite releases of 2020. The game isn't really anything more than all of the DLC and bug patches but that's a pretty big apology for its awful initial release. Hell, there's 15GB in patches without including the three DLC expansions.

    The premise of the game is a pretty standard revenge plot with a unique backdrop. Lincoln Clay is a Vietnam War veteran newly returned from deployment with the Green Berets and CIA in the worst of the fighting. Lincoln is a biracial orphan who was raised by the Black Mob, which runs the prostitution and numbers in New Bordeaux (which is a fictionalized version of New Orleans). Lincoln is willing to use the skills he acquired in the army to help his adoptive father, Sammy, but his mentor doesn't necessarily want to get as violent as his son yet. This changes when the Italian mob led by Sal Marcone (based on real-life New Orleans gangster Carlos Marcello), "invites" the Black Mob to help in a robbery of the Federal Reserve.

The RL Louisiana Mafia had 300 Made Men. You'll kill more.

    Robbing the Federal Reserve was the climax of Grand Theft Auto V and it's a very good opening act to Mafia III but goes horribly wrong for our (anti)hero. It turns out, surprise-surprise, the Italian mafia can't be trusted. Lincoln ends up badly injured and his adoptive family murdered. Worse, when he finally recovers, he finds the Black Mob's former territory is occupied by a stand-in for the Ku Klux Klan while the mob is planning to use the money from the Federal Reserve Heist to make themselves untouchable in the state. What follows is 30 hours of Lincoln recruiting allies, assassinating gangsters, and seizing territory on his quest to take down Sal Marcone.

    In basic terms, Mafia III is more like classic Grand Theft Auto or Saints Row 2 than the previous Mafia games. It also has elements of Hitman. The majority of gameplay consists of you going to one of the mafia's outposts throughout New Bordeaux, sneaking or shooting your way in, and smashing up the place. After you do sufficient damage to the local capo's businesses, you'll get a story mission to assassinate said capo. Honestly, the majority of these missions are busy-work and there's a decent argument that if you removed everything but the story missions then the game might actually be better. Certainly, it might be tighter storytelling-wise.

    The biggest appeal of the game is the setting of New Bordeaux and it is a fabulous re-creation of the Sixties. Unfortunately, there's not much to do in the city aside from kill people. You can't drink in bar, buy things, or other activities. This was a major flaw in the original release. The updates have mitigated that by adding racing and alternate costumes to the main game, however. It also added car customization that allowed me to drive around in a bright red jeep with the words BOUNTY HUNTER on the side and the vanity plate GATOR. That went a long way to easing my initial problems with the game. Sadly, there's no Burt Renyolds or Crocodile Dundee costume to put Lincoln in.

Grenades are the best solution to this group.

    The DLC also goes a long way to breaking up the monotony of the missions as well. My recommendation for playing them is to do them after every two territories you take. It will make the game feel much more diverse in gameplay. The biggest problem with the game's storyline, as stated, was the grind and the DLC suffers none of that. They also add features like slow motion driving, slow-motion shooting, new weapons, and new cars to make the territory seizures more entertaining.

A short review of each DLC on their own:

* Faster, Baby!: Lincoln Clay and a beautiful Pam Grier-inspired action girl named Roxy Laveau go into a small town outside New Bordeaux where a murderous Sheriff is indiscriminately killing black people. Lots of car chases and run-in's with the police ensue. Sadly, Roxy disappears after this DLC and it would have been enjoyable to have her in the main game. I also loved the Bill Paxton-esque Sheriff.

* Stones Unturned: My least favorite of the DLC that seems like it moved from the mobster movies and blaxsploitation films of the main games to a James Bond-esque spy movie. A renegade CIA agent is trying to steal a nuclear weapon. Lincoln teams up with his CIA contact Donovan to hunt him down. It feels a bit too Call of Duty: Black Ops at times and removed from the main story. Really, you could change it to a story about recovering some Nazi gold and it wouldn't change in the slightest. The game adds a few "Bounty Hunter" missions

* Sign of the Times: This is easily the best of the DLC as you face down a drug cult of murderous hippies based on the Manson family. The atmosphere, introduction of "investigation" mode, and unique enemies make the encounters really memorable. This is also probably the most emotional of the DLC as we see Lincoln desperately try to save a pregnant cult survivor from her "Family." The game also adds the opportunity to rebuild Sammy's Bar, an important location from Lincoln's childhood.

Roxy is a great side-character.

     None of the DLC are particularly long but added into the main game are enough to smooth out a lot of the rougher edges. I think the game could have benefited from even more DLC after these three but I can understand why they chose to move on after the game's initially mixed reception. Still, the setting of New Bordeaux and its characters are some of the most memorable and enjoyable I've dealt with in recent memory. I was particularly fond of the sub-lieutenants like Nicky and Alma, who proved a lot more interesting than their limited appearances would imply.

    No discussion of Mafia III would be complete without also discussing the fact the game is one of the few that systematizes racism. Lincoln Clay will be harassed by the police if he goes into well-to-do neighborhoods, the police will show up faster in white neighborhoods, and there are numerous buildings that will call the police on him if he enters. There's also the Dixie Mob and Southern Union that serve as stand-ins for the Klan as well as serve as regular enemies. Indeed, I found Remy Duvall (the local Grand Wizard) a much more hateable villain than Sal Marcone. Sadly, it feels like the treatment of the subject in the game is relevant in 2020 rather than an exaggeration of the past.

     In conclusion, Mafia III: The Definitive Edition is a much better game than the original version. I wish they'd added even more content rather than collecting all the previous but "free for anyone who buys the old version" is a price worth getting behind. I managed to get a second hand copy of the Xbox One version for $5 and got access to all of the features. Most of the bugs are patched up but I still suffered a few crashes (but nothing gamebreaking). I strongly recommend this game and think its even more topical than it was in 2016.

Mafia: Definitive Edition review

    Mafia: City of Lost Heaven was one of the stand-out Grand Theft Auto clones when seemingly every game in the business was trying to imitate the success of GTA III. The idea behind this game was that you would play a mobster, Tommy Angelo, and the game would rid itself of all the more absurd elements. Instead of a hyper-exaggerated version of real life, it would be fairly true to the cinematic mafia movies of Goodfellas, The Godfather, and American Gangster. It would attempt to tell a serious story and see if that was possible with the game mechanics of 2002. It worked very well and was fondly remembered even if some of its choices were a little strange like the cops picking you up for speeding.

    The premise is Tommy Angelo is an Italian can driver who is unwittingly pulled into the mob war between Don Morello and Don Salieri in the city of Lost Heaven. Tommy finds himself getting recruited as a driver and later an enforcer for the underdogs in the fight because the money is too good to pass up in the Great Depression. He's also interested in the daughter of the bartender of Salieri's headquarters, Sarah. What follows is an eight year storyline that has Tommy gradually prove himself as a soldier to the Italian mob while also wear away at both his morals as well as friendships. What he decides to do is foreshadowed by the framing device of telling a cop his story but ultimately revealed only at the end.

Beautiful world and eye-catching graphics.

   The Definitive Edition updates the original story of Mafia: City of Lost Heaven with the same technology used to create Mafia III. Tommy Angelo, Don Salieri, Paulie, and others are all recast with new models that reflect their actors' faces. There's also some additional content to make the game's characters more fleshed out, particularly Sarah's role as Tommy's love interest. 

   The game also adds numerous ways of adjusting your playthrough like how the driving is done and even providing the option to skip the lengthy but sometimes boring driving segments. The gunplay and fighting is also much more cinematic but you can choose to play like the original game where it is all too easy to be killed by one shot.

    The primary appeal of the game is the storytelling and atmosphere. Tommy is a likable protagonist but you can tell he's making the wrong decision getting involved with Salieri's mob. The little tweaks to the game's story emphasize they're charming but scummy people, like when Paulie threatens to beat their stuttering mechanic for comparing himself to him. Tommy has lines he won't cross but these are increasingly more flexible and the ones he won't get him in huge trouble with his faux affably evil boss. 

The plotline is a decently written gangster tale.

    If you've played Mafia II or Mafia III, this updated game is very similar to both, but improves on them in most ways. Still, this is a game that doesn't actually need the free roam mode that it comes equipped with. You'll almost certainly just play the game from mission to mission with a minimum of driving around for fun. The city is beautiful and I recommend driving through many missions but outside of it? No. The collectibles are nice but nothing that's really necessary. There are no sidequests either.

    Gameplay wise, the game consists of shooting, driving, and stealth sections. There's a few brawling bits too but none of this is particularly deep. It's serviceable, though, and that's all that really matters. The game is not free of bugs, however, and I remember when I waited for almost twenty minutes for a car to be destroyed by the beating I was giving it with a bat before I realized that I had a bug that prevented me from using a molotov cocktail on it. Still, aside from that, nothing was game breaking.

Gameplay is familiar but solid.

    The 1930s atmosphere of the game is well-done with Lost Heaven feeling like a mostly optimistic and pleasant place to live, if you're a gangster at least. There's hints of the Great Depression and Prohibition going around but very little of the misery. The few times it does intrude like when Sarah is doing her charity, it is a nice reminder of the historical authenticity. Tommy is a man with power and respect but that doesn't mean that anyone around him has any. The racism and sexism in the game is toned down for the period but exists in enough amounts to make it feel like the actual period.

    In conclusion, I think Mafia: Definitive Edition is probably the best of the three Mafia games and definitely manages to avoid the missteps of the others. Tommy Angelo's journey has a lot more emotional punch than Vito's or Lincoln Clay's, even though I liked both of them. It also ends on a great moment that has stuck with gamers for close to two decades. I should probably not give it a perfect score given the bugs and simplicity of gameplay but I'm an overly generous reviewer.

 10/10

Mafia II: Definitive Edition review

    Mafia II is one of my picks for all-time best story of any video game ever. The other picks are well-known ones like Red Dead Redemption, Deus Ex, and Grand Theft Auto IV. Mafia II never achieved those kind of heights but I think it is one of those rare video games that would work every bit as well as a movie as it would as a video game. While there are plenty of those games, Uncharted and Tomb Raider come to mind, they tend to be action-orientated genre pieces. This is the rare game that functions like a gangster movie. Which, given it's called Mafia II, isn't really a surprise.

Vito and Joe's friendship is the best part of the game.

    I've played both the original Mafia II and the remake. I played Mafia II on my Xbox 360 and thought it was an excellently told story but incredibly clunky to play. I didn't think the graphics were that bad in the original game and held up pretty well actually. They made ample use of the snowy environments and grainy atmosphere to cover up the limitations of the software. Either way, the biggest draw of the game was the story and people who know me will attest that I often overlook gameplay problems for the sake of a good story.

    As I understand, the only changes of the Definitive Edition are to the graphics as well as removing some of the lesser-used physics like clothing as well as fire. So how do the two games stack up? Well, that's a complicated question that I'll get into after I discuss the game as a whole. However, the short version is that I don't think the Definitive Edition improves on Mafia II in any real way. It's still the decent game with a great story it always was.

Empire Bay is a beautiful 1940s New York reproduction.

    The premise is Vito Scaletta is a WW2 veteran in the Italian campaign against Mussolini. Vito is injured during his battle against the fascists and sent home in 1943 to Empire Bay. Empire Bay is a barely fictionalized New York City akin to Grand Theft Auto's Liberty City. Vito's family is dirt poor and heavily indebted to the mob with his father having been possibly killed by them. Nevertheless, Vito accepts the offer of his friend, Joe Barbaro, to make some "real" money by stealing cars as well as doing odd jobs for La Cosa Nostra.

    Part of what makes the game so effective is the gritty unsympathetic take on mob life. If your typical video game mobster is Michael Corleone or Tony Montana, Vito is closer to being Hank Hill from Goodfellas. He's dirt poor at the start of the game and doesn't ever quite reach the highest aspirations of wealth that he's been promised. Indeed, the game makes it clear that low-level soldiers like Vito are as expendable to the higher-ups as civilians.

The frozen New York City is my favorite part of it.

    Vito wants to make a fortune but the game makes it clear that, while crime may pay in the short run, you're more likely to end up paying a horrific price for a few extra bucks. Indeed, "Time Well Spent" is the first time a video game ever showed one of the most realistic consequences of mob life. It eventually all comes together in an ending that I felt was really powerful and worked well for the character (who gets a bit of a denouement in Mafia III).

    Gameplay-wise, it's a cover-based shooter and Grand Theft Auto clone. You drive around the city in stolen cars, shoot up bad guys, and occasionally do a bit of stealth or lockpicking. It's not a complicated game and there's nothing in the way of activities here. I remember constantly fleeing cops in the original game but here, they just kind of ignore me and are easy to avoid. This makes the game less frustrating but is rather noticeable. The cars are very easily busted up and health regeneration has to be managed with eating food in-game. Its serviceable but nothing to write home about.

A romance was set up in Mafia II but sadly goes nowhere.

    Graphics-wise, I don't think the game has actually improved. Yes, there's some scenes that are much more vivid but the character models actually seem worse. They also didn't replace the reused models in the game so now you're seeing the same hookers from Joe's crew in every crowd scene, sometimes in multiple places. I feel like this is the bare minimum of what qualifies as a "re-master" and it doesn't really succeed at that either.

    The Definitive Edition comes with all of the DLC, which mostly consists of new cars and a handful of costumes. There's also an adventure set where you play as Joe Barbaro that I really enjoyed as he's easily the best character in the game. Really, the most surprising set is "Jimmy's" adventures that have you play as a Ed Harris-looking hitman that slaughters his way through Empire Bay in an adventure that has nothing to do with the main story. I feel like some more crimes for Vito like a bank heist or more content with the Black Mob ("Bombers").

None of these guys can be trusted. Shocking.

     Unfortunately, these are hurt by the fact that they're not fully animated games but mostly just a series of busy-work tasks that are inferior to the main game. I also think Joe's Adventures could have been incorporated into the main game. The game has some bugs too, some of which haven't been fixed by the Definitive Edition or were even made worse. At one point, I followed the recommended route to my goal only to completely fall off the map (and get an achievement for traveling 125 mph).

    In conclusion, Mafia II is a fun game. It is a painfully average one in terms of gameplay, though. Likable characters and atmosphere can make up for a game's flaws, though, and this game has it in spades. Joe Barbaro is one of the best supporting characters in games and a character you'll wish you knew in real life. Vito manages to evoke Ray Liota and Al Pacino both, which is an impressive feat. The story of Mafia II is a tale of ambition, greed, friendship, betrayal, and the perils of organized crime. If my biggest complaint is that Robert "Harvey Bullock" Costanzo voices two major character with the same accent then that's a minor one.

7.5/10

Watch_Dogs 2 review

    Watch_Dogs was a game I really enjoyed but felt had a lot of flaws. I found Aiden Pearce aggressively unlikable and while I believe that was deliberate (see my "The Subversiveness of Aiden Pearce" essay), I believe that didn't contribute to a great gaming experience. I also felt the game suffered for its unwillingness to go full cyberpunk. It felt let down by its attempts to tie itself to the present day and I would have enjoyed a much more overt near-future experience. Despite this, I was still interested in the sequel. I wanted more Aiden Pearce and was looking forward to more hacking of the Blume Corporation.

    I was disappointed in the first case because we switch protagonists from Aiden to newcomer Marcus Holloway. Marcus is an aspiring member to San Fransisco's Anonymous/LulzSec stand-in, DedSec. DedSec was nothing more than a set of minor antagonists in the original Watch_Dogs so it was interesting to see them upgraded to protagonists.

It's a beautiful game, I'll give it that.

    After being initiated into the organization, Marcus drunkenly suggests the group attack the sinister Blume Corporation. Blume is gathering large amounts of data on the public as well as profiling "at risk" people like Marcus (because he's poor, Black, a hacker, and a gun owner). Inspired by his idea, the group proceeds to start performing "pranks" and cyber attacks against San Fransisco's most repulsive white collar criminals in order to get followers who will lend their computer power to help them take down Blume.

    This rather convoluted plot is part of the game's problem as there's not really a clear sense of what DeadSec is attempting to accomplish. Blume Corporation is stealing large amounts of the public's data and profiling people but that's a relatively minor offense compared to the first game's human traffickers. The game also takes you against stand-ins for the Hell's Angels, Zeta Cartel, Church of Scientology, and San Fransisco Tongs but none of them are the main villains. The central villain, Dusan Nemec, just wants to make a large amount of money through white collar crime so I can't bring myself to hate him when our heroes are engaged in hacking as well as robbery.

The likable cast is easily the best part of the game.

    Indeed, the game's dissonance in how it can be played versus the story is arguably worse than Nico Bellic's can be if you choose to play in a typical Grand Theft Auto fashion. Despite being angry about being racially profiled and hunted by the police for crimes Marcus didn't commit, it's possible to 3d Print an assault rifle then murder your across San Fransisco with no penalties. This wouldn't be noticeable if not for the fact Aiden Pearce, a much more vicious character, got penalties for killing cops as well as innocents.

    The game is also fully optimized for co-op and multiplayer. While you can turn it off, the fact is the game is often full of challenges which require other gamers to play. For those of us who aren't fond of multiplayer, these events distract from the main game even as they do provide experience points for upgrades as well as other tangible benefits to the single player campaign. They're fairly decent adventure hooks like allowing you to hack other players, assault bases, and other fun but nothing to write home about either.

There's a greater emphasis on stealth versus gunplay.

    Despite this, there's some elements to write home about. The cast is likable and entertaining with lots of references to geek pop culture as well as genuine camaraderie among the protagonist's gang. Marcus is a fun everyman, Sitara is a pretty but not overly sexualized mastermind, Wrench is pure fun, and Josh is a neuroatypical rationalist. The game is never more entertaining when the characters are just playing off one another and they might have benefited by having you able to play all of the characters rather than just Marcus.

    San Fransisco is lovingly rendered with lots of the city's signature landmarks visible throughout. It's colorful, suffering gentrification, and full of interesting NPCs doing oddball things if you watch them. There's also the addition of the fact you can pet dogs scattered throughout the city. Sadly, there's also dogs as enemies and I hated hurting them unlike their punchable masters. The fact the game allows you to complete it without killing anyone also is a bonus, even if I generally prefer creating a body count in four figures. You also get a remote controlled drone and toy car which add to the diversity of the game play even if it makes me feel like Marcus is less mature than he should be for his quixotic quest.

I think I dated Sitara in college.

    Really, I think the game's biggest flaw is it never quite embraces the sense of wackiness inherent to the story. The San Fransisco branch of DeadSec is just shy of being as entertaining as the cast of Saints Row. However, the only plot which is anywhere near as crazy as they have the potential of being is when they steal a stand-in for Knight Rider's KITT before running it in an obstacle course to Judas Priest's "Turbo Lover." If the game had been either darker or completely goofy, I would have liked it a lot more.

    I will say Watch_Dogs 2 embodies what I call "contemporary cyberpunk" which was created by Hackers in 1995 and has since gone on to inspire shows like Person of Interest and Mr. Robot. The premise for contemporary cyberpunk is it's all about the misuse of technology, corporatism, hackers, and crime like in your typical cyberpunk story but it's set in the present day. Technology has caught up with the science fiction of yesterday and created a world where you can be a hacktivist rebel sticking it to the man. The enemies in the game are barely disguised versions of Scientology, Google, Trump (who is a minor villain), the Russian mob, the NSA, and Facebook. No one really stands out enough to be the main villain but the social relevance, while a bit too dated in its time frame, still works out for those who like that sort of thing.

This is the villain. Seriously.

    One thing I will give the game credit for is that it embraces the attitude of sticking it to the Man through technology even as the Man is sticking it to the public the same way. The villains all hide behind layers of bureaucracy and the system in order to profit from the misery of those least able to defend themselves. The protagonists may be too sanctimonious about their criminal activities to be truly punk but the fact the game gleefully shows them striking out warmed my cynical Generation X heart.

    The characters make the game entertaining but like Mafia III, there's nothing which stands out either and it swiftly falls into a rut of SWATing (sending the police to arrest guards) every level. Like Mafia III, it also has quite a few bugs which crashed my game or caused the graphics to fail. These bugs are to be expected from an Ubisoft game but, combined with the long loading times, swiftly dropped my enjoyment factor.

Curse you and your adorableness!

    I recommend people who purchase this game to definitely pick up the Gold Edition because it adds about four hours more content and some of the best adventures in the series with additional ties to the original Watch_Dogs. While I tend to prefer my cyberpunk a good deal darker and this group is a little too loopy (even with a surprise tragedy mid-way through the game), I think it provides an excellent storytelling experience throughout. There's not really a plot, per se, but just a lot of individual vignettes. That's not a bad thing but I hope the next game gives us a stronger central villain than the man-bun wearing Silicon Valley executive which barely makes an impression in this game.

    Watch_Dogs 2 is an okay game. I actually prefer the original, overall, because it was dark and moody present-day cyberpunk. Here, it feels like the game is far light-hearted to get into without a plot you can sink your teeth into. The game's villains are just too squeaky clean and the protagonists the same way. If they'd been a bit more low life to go with their high tech, I would have enjoyed this game a lot more. Say what you will about Aiden Pearce but at least you believed he was  a guy capable of killing someone.

    8/10

Far Cry 5 review

    This is easily my favorite of the past few Far Cry games. I eventually warmed to Far Cry 3, I loved Far Cry 4 with some caveats, I hated Far Cry: Primal (to the point I didn't review it), and I've really loved Far Cry 5. I will say, though, this is a game which had the misfortune to be released at a time when everyone is trying to make everything about the Trump election. There's some digs against Trump in the game which are hilarious but they're good-natured South Park-esque digs while the politically discourse lately is far more angry.

    The premise for the game is you are a nameless, voiceless Montana Deputy who you can make a character for. You and the US Marshal's office have been called in to arrest Joseph Seed, leader of the infamous Eden's Gate cult that has recruited a good half of Hope County, Montana into its ranks. This attempt, clearly based on the raid on the Branch Davidians, goes horribly wrong and you find yourself waking up a few days later to the county under the cult's control. Cut off from the rest of the United States, you must build a resistance to take back the county.

Yeah, this will go well.

    I've seen a lot of reviews attempt to unfavorably compare the game's "commentary" to Wolfenstein: The New Colossus. The thing is, W:TNC didn't have any political commentary on the present, it just so happened to state killing Nazis is a good thing and the fact America has a racist past/present it has yet to confront. That's not commentary on the present but a rather universal theme which just so happened to be politically relevant (unfortunately). Far Cry 5 has a lot of political commentary on it but it's not the commentary which Polygon apparently wanted and missed out on some very interesting themes.

    The big thing, for instance, is the fact Far Cry 5 is a love letter to rural Americans. You know, those people who voted roughly half the "correct" way but have been demonized as a vast collection of MAGA-hat wearing racists who have ruined this country. I say this as a left-leaning frothing crazy liberal who lives in said area that is demonized--so you can imagine I'm a bit sympathetic to the game. This is a game where the doomsday preppers and poor working class of America aren't the bad guys and it seems like this burned out the brain cells of a lot of reviewers.

Peaches is the best Cougar ever.

    Far Cry 5 is a story about the monster truck and Nascar loving gun-toting rednecks of Montana getting attacked by an evil cult and fighting back. It's the kind of game premise which eagerly adopts themes from "Red Dawn" and doesn't exist in the easy political spectrum of "city folk good", "country folk stupid." Given the amount of flack the game has taken from both sides of the political spectrum, the fact it's got black rural Americans working alongside white ones makes it a reminder of an America I grew up loving. Because, honestly, can't we all join together against the comically evil drug-addled terrorist organization?

    Honestly, I feel bad about killing the Eden's Gate cultists at time because they're such an entertaining bunch of evil doers. John, Faith, Jacob, and Joseph are hilariously over-the-top parodies of how cults recruit people. The sad fact is, they're not actually that far from some of the cults which exist in rural America. People I've actually had to deal with and are prepping for doomsday with lots of guns. It makes me wish there was an arrest option for them like in Battlefield: Hardline or a non-lethal set of takedowns like in Mafia III or Deus Ex.

    Still, the game is fun and has a lot going for it in making sure you experience all the various facets of it. Like previous Far Cry games, taking various outposts away from the bad guys is a big part of the game but there's also a variety of other missions. The game encourages you to use a variety of vehicles and missions. It also replaces the "Tower Mechanic" of previous games with simple exploration ala Fallout 3 and New Vegas.

Montana is absolutely beautiful.

    Indeed, the game feels like Fallout at the best of times where you're wandering around the beautiful Montana landscape and stumbling across ambient storytelling like the cult having murdered a family along with their pets, a father begging his daughter to come back from the cult only to be murdered, or a bunch of doomsday preppers who built a big bomb shelter stocked with food only to get murdered for it. You'll use everything from cougar bait to Molotov cocktails to SMG to carve your way through the baddies.

    The story sometimes goes off the rails, like the fact you're captured like eight times by the Eden's Gate cultists in order to get some face time for the bad guys, but this is a small price to pay for good storytelling. I was particularly fond of Faith, the lone female cult leader, and actually came to sympathize her before the end. Joseph, himself, seems like the least interesting of the quartet and that's a shame. The ending of the game is also confusing and poorly-done but it's hardly the first game which threw in an unneeded twist at the end.

Faith is an awesome character.

    Still, this is just a plain fun game and that is the standard by which I judge my games. There's endless number of things to do in the game ranging from riding planes, helicopters,and  jet skis to shooting down all of those. You can fish, hunt, and blow things up with the best of them. This is the definition of a wide-open sandbox game and there's very little "filler" like collecting feathers (okay, there's some of that too like bobbleheads and comic books but that's just standard in these sort of games).

    The tone of the game is a bit wild but that's to be expected from Far Cry games, to the point they're sort of their own genre nowadays. One mission can have you find out about how the Father murdered his own newborn daughter because she was born disabled, convincing himself it was God's will, while another mission might include punching insane drug addicts into a fire pit while on super-powered meth. I was hoping for some more Assassins Creed and Watch_Dogs references but, sadly, there doesn't seem to be any and I doubt the three universes are still the same by the end.

     Gameplay wise you have a higher reliance on companions, more lethal enemies, and more lethal A.I. I died a lot during this game compared to Far Cry 3 or 4 since there's a lot more enemies in body armor or guys who can shoot you in the head. You also don't have multiple health bars but just one with med-kits being the only way you can heal in combat (you do have natural regeneration this time around). The lack of towers to climb means exploration on foot and talking to the locals is a brilliant idea and benefits the game tremendously. Your A.I. companions aren't gamebreakers but I really enjoyed when my pet cougar accompanied my sniper in wiping out attacking enemies during outpost assaults.

Yeah, five cops can take on an army. Smart, US Marshals.

    Do I have any complaints about the game? If there are, I have only a few nitpicky ones. The hunting in the game is nerfed with crafting no longer being a major part of the game. This is a shame because I feel like if there's a game where you should hunt cougars, bears, or moose to make weapon sheaths then this is the one. I also don't much care for the Skill Perk which requires you to use a bunch of weapons and achievements to get Perks versus just accumulating experience period.

    In conclusion, this is pretty awesome all round. It's a work which has a political stance but it's one which isn't "Trump bad" as its sole statement but a more universal theme about radicalism, gun culture, freedom, and extremism. There's even the somewhat questionable but still perfectly valid idea that it's sometimes best to leave alone situations which could potentially explode. It's also just a game where you can experience Good vs. Evil gameplay in a story which is just plain silly. You can have both as Far Cry the series has shown repeatedly. Play Far Cry 5 for the fun and don't worry about the politics.

9/10

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

    Damn, it feels good to be a gangster.

    Grand Theft Auto is a series I like to call a "Catharsis Simulator" where we get to briefly turn off our brains for a time to enjoy ourselves. You can read more about my opinion of such things in this essay:

Grand Theft Auto, Violence, and Alternative Media.

    The series is all about being a criminal, enjoying the fruits of your ill-gotten gains, and engaging in reckless mayhem as an alternative to the humdrum joys of real-life. If you haven't tried them out, you're probably one of the few gamers who haven't but I suggest everyone do so. It's not going to be everyone's taste but, for those who enjoy them, they're great.

    Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is considered by many to be the turning point in the series. Whereas Grand Theft Auto III was where the series became famous, GTA:VC is where I felt its combination of wacky characters and mayhem reached its perfect mixture. While Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was my first game in the series, I've since gone on to play them all and Vice City is definitely my favorite. The premise is fairly simple: play a story which is a combination of Scarface and Miami Vice.

Vice City is beautiful to look upon. Its vibrant colors and design is spectacular.

    You are Tommy Vercetti, voiced by Ray Liotta, and you are a member of the Italian mafia. Having been freed from prison after serving a sentence of fifteen years, you are eager to get back into the game. Sent down to a thinly disguised Miami, Florida (the titular Vice City), you have been ordered to start a drug empire. This is somewhat difficult when you are robbed of your starting money at the very beginning--alienating your employers as well as the people you were to buy drugs from.

    The game follows Tommy as he conducts an investigation of who set up his deal to fail, assembles enough cash to pay off the mafia dons back home, and builds a network of contacts which will allow him to become the Number One Boss of Not-Miami. You can do missions as a hit-man, drug-supplier, cabbie (?), and mind-controlled Voodoo zombie (?!). Note: the last one is the real-life person under the power of suggestion rather than the shambling monster. The game world is smaller than San Andreas by a significant margin but more interesting, in my humble opinion, because Vice City feels so alive.

The nightlife is good, too. It makes me want to move to South Florida.

    The all-star cast really helps sell this game. In addition to Ray Liotta, there's Phillip Michael Thomas (Tubbs from Miami Vice), Burt Reynolds, Denis Hopper, Robert Davi (License to Kill), Fairuza Balk, and even porn star Jenna Jameson. Deborah Harry, of all people, does some voice-work for the game. It's really a shame Rockstar decided to move away from this format because "spot the celebrity" is part of the game's fun.

    I think part of why the game is so enjoyable is the story is unapologetically materialistic. Tommy Vercetti is a psychopath, having no objections to any of the horrible acts he commits, but that allows the player to become further removed from any of this having any meaning. It's all about the Benjamens in Vice City and the feeling of satisfaction you'll have when you finally have your very own Tony Montana-inspired mansion is tremendous.

    No mention of Vice City would be complete without mentioning its absolutely insane soundtrack. "Dance Hall Nights" (Wang Chung), "Billie Jean" (Michael Jackson), "Self Control" (Laura Branigan), "Owner of A Lonely Heart" (Yes), "Video Killed the Radio Star" (The Buggles), and "Running With the Night" (Lionel Richie) are just some of my favorite soundtracks in the game. It really manages to capture the peculiar feel of Florida in 1986, the height of the decade and all it represents.

The world is yours, Tommy.

     I wouldn't have enjoyed the game half as much as I did if not for the eclectic cast of characters. One of the early missions in the game introduces the majority of the quest-givers; a massive collection of frauds, hypocrites, big-spots, and masterminds. In addition to their celebrity voices, they're all self-centered to the core but reel you in with their promises of wealth and power. As Tommy builds his crew, you'll also get acquainted with plenty of colorful lesser criminals as well. My favorite of the characters is Dennis Hopper's sleazy softcore (?) porn director, who positively oozes incompetence but is convinced he's a genius.

    I picked up Vice City via Steam and the game played wonderfully even on my laptop. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas but it is more tightly scripted (IMHO) and easier to master. Not an hour or two into Vice City and you'll have the hang of the game, which is a great thing when you're playing it on computer. There's still options for other game consoles but the age of the title makes it more difficult to acquire.

Yes, Tommy, the scenery is nice.

    Does Vice City have any flaws? Honestly, I don't think so. It's exactly what it's supposed to be and does everything it attempts perfectly. It's a story of an up-and-coming crook in an environment which thrives on crime and cruelty. There's just enough ridiculousness to keep the story going and to make all of Tommy's evil deeds seem sane and rationale in the corrupt environment. No one likes doing horrible things to nice people, everyone loves doing horrible things to bad people--and everyone is bad in Vice City.

    All in all, I heartily recommend this game.

10/10

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands review

    I'm actually a huge fan of Tom Clancy, which is kind of oft-kilter since he's the original "Dad's thriller" author who created a genre defined by America being under threat by any number of increasingly ridiculous threats. I'm particularly fond of the excellent marketing he did before his death, creating the character of Sam Fisher, the Rainbow Six series, and Ghost Recon. Still, there's one thing about the man's legacy which leaves me kind of iffy and that's the fact despite being no more realistic than your average James Bond movie, they tend to be taken as more "realistic" than your average shooter.

Hundreds of fun missions in pseudo-South America.

    This is no better illustrated than by the Ghost Recon: Wildlands game where you take place in Bolivia, a nation of 11 million people, and see the entirety of the population are either enslaved peasants or members of a Mexican drug cartel. Really, Ubisoft, you couldn't even let the Bolivians have their own cartel? They used to be third in the world for cocaine production and now they have to outsource their supervillains? Mind you, in real life, they legalized coca (not cocaine) production and basically won their War on Drugs where other countries still struggle but that's not the premise of the game. No, in this country, they're utterly boned and have been effectively turned into a narco-state. When doing this sort of thing, I think it's better to take the Far Cry route and make a fictional nation. They could have named it New Bolivar or Cocaineland or something--Tom Clancy "realism" be damned.

    The premise is that a U.S. embassy has been bombed by the Santa Blanca cartel. They're a Santa Muerta worshiping cartel headed by, for all intents and purposes, Batman's Bane (who doesn't sadly wear a luchador but has a cross tattooed on his face). It has effectively conquered Bolivia and runs the country like one of Saint's Row's archvillains. You have to eliminate his carnival of crazy badasses before moving against him and freeing Bolivia from the iron-grip of the cartel....except not.

     Politically, a game set around a bunch of US Special Forces working for the CIA going on a campaign of anti-narco terrorism could be highly controversial even without setting it in a real life nation. Famously, George H.W. Bush decided to take the War on Drugs literally and thousands died in the conflict against genuinely bad dudes (sadly, many of them not at all bad). A lot of people dismissed the game as being propaganda as a result--which is bad because while this is a deeply silly game about fighting narco-supervillains, it's also surprisingly well written with a lot of nods to the fact the War on Drugs may be unwinnable even in a world of Hydra vs. the A-Team-level cartoonishness. In fact, it reminds me a lot of Tom Clancy's Clear and Present Danger. A book which did NOT turn a real life country into a caricature of narco-terrorists vs. heroic Americans.

Worst car driving in gaming--and it's BETTER than it was.

    Clear and Present Danger basically amounts to a stand-in for Pablo Escobar murdering the President's best friend (who was laundering money for them) followed by a terrorist attack against several American officials. This causes the President to sign off on a bunch of American Special Forces teams to privately go into Columbia and murder the hell out of a bunch of cartel bosses. It quickly turns into an enormous disaster as the government has taken on more than they can chew and the cartels retaliate. The movie makes it an even bigger scandal as the President's men attempt to sweep the soldiers in Columbia under the rug.

    Ghost Recon: Wildlands is never better than when it analyzes the complicated and morally ambiguous politics behind the War on Drugs. As cartoonishly evil as the Santa Blanca cartel is, it's also got plenty of grey figures like a CIA doctor betrayed by her employers, a native coca grower criminalized for making the same plant his ancestors have for 8,000 years, and the fact the poverty of the local communities is something the charitable arm of the cartel does more for than the government ever did. You don't expect that from something where the majority of the cartel worship the Angel of Death to a Temple of Doom degree (including human sacrifice).

Some of the characters have fascinating backstories.

    But how is the game? Pretty fun, actually. It's not great, to be honest. The car driving in this game is absolutely awful with the machines being barely able to stick to the road. You can either go in guns blazing or stealthfully, eliminating people one at a time. The game resembles Just Cause 2 only with an artificial multiplayer (I don't play with other people) and it doesn't take much to put down the various sicarios you face throughout the game. The missions get a bit repetitive but are broken up with quite a few very entertaining ones like filming a general's tryst with a prostitute where he admits to stealing a cat's prosthetic leg. I admit, by the end of the game, I was mostly just using the drone to mark targets and eliminate them before sneaking in.

Fast cars on dusty dirt roads and hills. Weee...not.

    I had a huge amount of fun stomping around Faux-Bolivia, shooting up the cartel's numerous fortresses and completing the innumerable sidequests for the local communist resistance. The exploration of the vast map is something I've enjoyed for weeks as I love the fact the "cartel heads" information gradually opens up as you collect information as well as explore new provinces. It made me go out of my way to pick up every little piece of intel I could. Not all of the Cartel underbosses and buchon are identified so you need to interrogate people to find out who they are as well as what they're up to.

    Still, I feel like the game is a bit dated and could have been done a bit better in terms of performance. The tactical portion of the game mostly consists of sending off your little drone, marking targets, and then having your invisible team mates eliminate them all. That is, unless you're like me and just want to slaughter everyone Call of Duty style. Except, that's a terrible idea and I've been revived by my teammates hundreds of times. I think the game would have benefited from a few more side-activities or perhaps the inclusion of more enemy types like animals. Honestly, most of my complaints could be summarized as "make it more like Far Cry except with better driving."

El Sueno is like Killbane from Saints Row 3. High praise!

     The environments are beautiful and it's a wonderful playground for our activities. If I have a complaint, the environments are a bit hard to traverse whether in vehicles or on foot. There's a lot of travel which has to be in this game and I hate to come back to it but the bad vehicle handling hurts my enjoyment. On the plus side, Ubisoft seems to be interested in supporting this game and has added everything from Predator to Splinter Cell.

   Much of the game is the usual Ubisoft grind. You scour the map for collectibles because that's the only way you can raise your skill set as getting the ability to use a grenade launcer, plastic explosives, or fly a drone all depends on having enough resources. This means quite a bit of the game is grinding. That is, if you want to play with all the special toys. The honest-to-God's truth is that you could probably finish the game without any of the special toys as the enemies mostly die when you shoot them once or twice. Still, I must have done hundreds of cargo heists and rebel operations in hopes of getting those toys--which is terribly addictive. I wanted to extend out the experience as long as I could.

Needed more nods to the book.

    I'm reminded a bit of the game Mafia III that overdid its grinding in order to take down the various mob bosses necessary to remove its Big Bad from power. Ghost Recon: Wildlands is a lot like that in its format but doesn't end up overstaying its welcome like Lincoln Clay's adventures did. Many times you're required to capture rather than kill cartel bosses, interrogate others, sabotage events, or steal vehicles. These managed to break up things so its not just a constant series of "infiltrate X, kill Y."

    My biggest surprise is the fact I think the game has one of the best casts of characters in the past few years despite the fact you rarely get to interact with them. The villains are a diverse bunch of interesting characters with most having distinctive personalities and a few of them surprisingly sympathetic. I also very much liked the main character, Nomad, who is a customizable character that still exudes a detached badassery as well as cynicism about the whole mission he (or she) is on. Karen Bowman, your CIA contact, is a sociopath driven insane by her time down in Bolivia but that just makes her even more determined to destroy the cartel. I also loved the casual chatter between your squadmates about everything from Bolivian history to how much they'd love to steal some of Santa Blanca's hot rods for themselves. The bittersweet ending is also great, showing there's no easy answer to cocaine trafficking.

    In conclusion, I recommend fans of the game pick it up but not to think it's going to be a gamebreaking example of the genre. Still, I enjoyed the journey through the heavily fictionalized Bolivia and shooting the hundreds of drug-cartel members I faced. I also thought the characters were all very well-designed and suitably theatrical. I wouldn't mind another game starring Nomad, his team, and Kate Bowman.

8.5/10