Mafia III Review

Mafia III is set in the year 1968, and revolves around Lincoln Clay, a black biracial orphan that was adopted by black mobsters and later served in the Vietnam War as a special forces soldier. After being discharged, he returns to New Bordeaux and reunites with his friends in the black mob, led by his surrogate father Sammy Robinson. However, an ongoing turf war between Sammy’s gang and a rival Haitian gang has put him in debt with Sal Marcano, the Don of the Marcano crime family. Lincoln meets with Sal, who insinuates that Sammy is no longer fit to rule the black mob and suggests Lincoln take his place. However, Lincoln refuses, and to pay back the debt he works with Sal’s son Giorgi to rob the Louisiana Federal Reserve. The heist is successful, but Sal betrays the black mob and has Sammy and all of Lincoln’s friends killed. Lincoln himself is shot in the head and left for dead.

Father James, one of Lincoln’s close friends, rescues Lincoln and nurses him back to health. As he recovers, Lincoln calls for the assistance of John Donovan, his CIA handler in Vietnam. Donovan agrees to use his resources and expertise to spy on the Marcano’s while Lincoln vows to destroy the Marcano family and seize control of New Bordeaux himself.

Lincoln then begins looking for allies in his war against the Marcano family, recruiting three underbosses: Thomas Burke, the boss of the Irish mob whose son Danny was part of the Federal Reserve heist crew and killed during the betrayal, Cassandra, the boss of the Haitian gang (whose previous boss was, ironically, killed by Lincoln himself) and Vito Scaletta, exiled from Empire Bay following the events of Mafia II and a Marcano lieutenant that had fallen out of Sal’s favor. After freeing their respective districts from Marcano’s control, he brings them together and tells him his plan: they will systematically eliminate the Marcano’s from the ground up, as well as thwart Sal’s plan to retire from organized crime through the construction of a casino. Meanwhile, the underbosses will hold and run the districts Lincoln seizes, contributing money and benefits to him. With that, Lincoln begins dismantling the Marcano family’s organization. As he does so, Lincoln has the option of providing additional assistance to his underbosses to increase their loyalty. Conversely, depending on his choices, Lincoln may cause his underbosses to betray him if he withholds too many districts from them, forcing him to kill them.

2K have done remarkable with the story and have kept it as authentic as possible, Lincoln has just come back from the war in Vietnam where he was serving his country and was exposed to a lot of turmoil as were many. Being a black man in the 60’s your life is going to be tough. You have three underbosses in Mafia III, Cassandra who is in control of the Haitians, Vito Scaletta who was the main protagonist in Mafia II and Thomas Burke who Lincoln had a good relationship with when his son was alive.

Every district you take over you have aligned it with one of this three underbosses, each one gives you money and perks, but try to avoid what I did, in a district there are two rackets which you have to take over and kill the main person running it then the main person to kill in Lincoln’s hit list come out to play. I gave one racket to Vito and the other to Burke thinking they can profit from this but then when I took over the district completely I had to side with one of the underbosses which meant that I pissed the other off. This wasn’t explained to me so I had to make a hasty decision. Which pissed off the other parties involved.

It’s good that 2K have added that level of control into the game, it is something that I’ve wanted Rockstar to implement into their GTA series. The police also at first seem to have a serious effect on the game as when you pass them they seem to watch you like a hawk, at first I was worried that because Lincoln is black they would chase him but it wasn’t the case, it seemed to be that you were under their radar. However, if you collide with a car in their radar that will pursue you which is good and realistic but losing them is really easy. It’s when you’re on foot and get into a car that they seem to spawn 50+ cars on you…seriously I have no idea where they come from! The public also has an effect in Mafia III, if they witness a crime of Lincoln with a gun out they will call the police, you can grab them and knock them out or kill them your choice.

I have seen levels where if you annoy an underboss so much they rebel towards your leadership which then launches a mission where you have to kill one of them. I haven’t done this yet but I’m sure I will cross paths with it in another play through. Each underboss has two perks that you can use. One whenever you want and the other you can either use markers you earn from doing favors for them or paying for it. With Cassandra, she will send a van you supply you with weapons and health at a price of course. Vito sends one of his workers to deposit your cash this is really helpful as you have two balances, one is your wallet which deflates if you die and more you the higher the cost. The second is your safe which is located in the burnt down bar that your family ran. Thomas Burke has the most helpful one he will send you a car at will, you do more missions with him and the catalog will get bigger. The more you get your underbosses on board the more loyal they become towards you.

The game is very repetitive as you have to do the same stuff over and over again and I also found in the early stages that it was seriously easy to kill a host of enemies by just whistling to them and taking them down with the B button which is either a takedown or lethal takedown. This was done so easily, now I own a silenced weapon it has become even easier to take down rackets without them even seeing me! The weapons in the game look and sound really realistic which is a good factor as it fits in with the look and feel of the game as a whole.

Controls of the game work really well but at times feel slightly clunky I also found playing GTA for years had an effect as the buttons are completely different normally I’m used to pressing Y to enter vehicles but with Mafia III it is X,  there are also glitchy moments that really open your eyes to the fact this game could be better, I also had many internal issues where the game would just log me off, nothing to do with my internet as I was still online just boom dashboard…?

The soundtrack is amazing and works so well with the game, they captured everything! Even the death of Martin Luther King and Kennedy, which all came around that time. The radio stations captured it all and really portrayed it well with the story. One flaw I found is the enemies seem to all look the and sound the same with the same dialogue. I found this out when I was stalking enemies and getting the same reaction as the guy I just stabbed.