“This city survived the war of 1812, the civil war and god knows how many hurricanes. But when Lincoln Clay went after the mob he inflicted more damage than all the wars and hurricanes combined!”
And this is what basically that sets the tone of this story-driven open-world action adventure. The Marcano family made a mistake and they will pay for it. Excited gamers, if you are reading this then you should know that Lincoln Clay is one among the most badass characters ever created. We’ll get to that eventually but without any hesitation, we would like to share the Mafia 3 first impressions we have.
The developers, Hangar 13, have performed a decent job in creating a realistic open-world. The fictional city of New Bordeaux, based on New Orleans, looks dense and beautiful. But the most noteworthy thing is they managed to retain the story-driven tradition of the Mafia franchise with this title in a far better approach.
The opening cinematic showcases a few notable individuals being interviewed on tape. They basically narrate various events that take us into action with Lincoln Clay’s past. And this happens pretty much throughout the game.
Each and every individual keep on sharing unique events about the protagonist. From those narratives we get to learn that Lincoln is a war-hero who has been honored with great respect for serving his country. Back home, he gets indulged in some activities to help his family pay off a huge debt to Sal Marcano. Note that Lincoln Clay grew up as an orphan, so his family mainly describes the boys belonging to his orphanage.
After pulling off a heist for the Marcanos, Lincoln and his family get betrayed by the very same people they work for. The protagonist barely manages to survive a near death experience, only to find that he has lost his fellow comrades.
Then onwards it becomes a battle of fists as well as wits. Lincoln strives to gather allies to build a network powerful enough to outmatch and defeat the Marcano crime family. So, this is what we’ve witnessed so far in our first few hours of gameplay.
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A passionate gaming friend of mine criticized Mafia 3 saying that the games released from Q3 2016 onwards very much exhibit a realistic open-world with an engaging storyline. They pretty much showcase a lot of similarities and hence lack innovation. In fact I also agree with him. Many gameplay features of Mafia 3 happen to be straight-away borrowed from several open-world action games. The inspired elements that you will notice have been heavily tweaked. Well to be frank, we found some of them irrelevant.
There is simply no logic behind the “Intel View” ability that lets you see through walls and mark targets. It simply makes the gameplay a lot less challenging. So, Hangar 13 answer this. Was Lincoln Clay a part of a secret augmentation research initiated by the US Govt. in the 60s? Did they attach retinal scanners to his eyes? Or, is he some sort of Assassin from birth who has rather gained an evolved form of Eagle Vision? Seriously, this sounds so lame!
Not to mention, the PC optimization of Mafia 3 simply doesn’t reach our expectations. Many users have already complained regarding the 30 FPS lockdown that feels irritating. The developers need to release a patch as soon as they can. Although the game achieves playable frame-rates, the fact that even on a decent rig you can’t witness a number more than 30, simply feels annoying.
UPDATE: A patch has already been released to cater to the issues of PC gamers.
Well, without any doubt we won’t complain about the marvelous plot design. The story-driven game hooks you into its events and especially the characters. The character-design of Lincoln Clay is simply vivid and perfect. The aura generated by him, his leadership skills; looks and aggression, make him one hell of a protagonist. Who can forget the badass statements by him? There’s gravity in each and every dialogue he says.
One among the key moments in the game is when Lincoln furiously quotes, “This isn’t about bringing em’ back, or even exactin’ some street justice. It’s about makin’ that bastard feel what it’s like to lose everythin’, watch as I take it all away from him!“
Shit man! The antagonist, Sal Marcano, would surely shit his pants after hearing those words. Well, it’s evident that actions are more important than words. And Lincoln handles things in a well-organized fashion to tear down Marcano Syndicate step by step.
Another instance we remember in the early stages of the game is when Lincoln says after pulling off a successful heist, “I fought the law and the law lost!” Woah, you should listen to him saying this! It feels so cool!
His leadership and decision making skills have been highly commended in army as well. This seems to be justified by Mr. Donovan (a CIA operative), who is questioned about Lincoln Clay, regarding the latter’s performance in the army. The former without any hesitation says, “You don’t need to say these guys anything. Just point them in the direction and they’ll show their genius abilities.”
And it’s not just Lincoln, the rest of the characters further add more charisma to the game too. The voice acting of most of them is perfect. The return of Vito Scaletta is a superb decision taken by the script writers.
Another notable thing we forgot to mention is capturing the gang strongholds. In Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, a pretty much identical activity was present where you were subjected to lead the Rooks in capturing the districts of London from the enemy gang, “Blighters”. It felt somewhat repetitive and less interesting eventually because there was nothing unique in capturing the subsequent enemy strongholds.
For your delight, Mafia 3 answers this closed loop by adding a distinct way of capturing each and every district in the game. Capturing territories require a variety of approach to take down the enemy leader. You have to collect “intel“ about a district’s criminal tycoon, devise a plan of approach and finally execute your wild cards.
Remember that you are not alone in this game and can capitalize in using your allies for support anytime. Each ally has distinct resources and abilities that can be summoned for your aid.
So, this is just a tiny fraction of Mafia 3 that we’ve witnessed so far. There’s much more to explore and we simply can’t wait in progressing further in the story. Hope you enjoyed reading our Mafia 3 first impressions. Stay tuned for more and don’t forget to share your opinion below. You may watch our video on Mafia 3 as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrSFvmo-_78
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