After seeing numerous developer demos for the game over the past 1.5 years, I was finally about to get hands on with Mafia II at E3. The level we saw, early in the game’s timeline, has you taking out a rival Made Man in a warehouse with two other goons at your side (a level I’ve seen demoed twice, but was now able to play myself). Going on the strong foundation of the first Mafia and the open-world gangster genre, Mafia II looks to be a solid single player title when it drops this August, albeit with some issues.

With the game shipping in August, the build we played was getting close to final code. However, some graphical issues still persisted. You could still see some wire-frame textures on character’s faces and a few environmental elements looked muddy compared to the rest of the world. That aside, Mafia II definitely feels like a 1950’s era gangster movie. The story follows you from just joining to the mob to taking over, which is typical for the genre. However, it spans multiple years and you’ll notice the scenery change accordingly. In the mission we played early on in the game, you can hop into old cars and run around town getting from mission to mission (it was a timed demo, so we couldn’t just run around town forever). The in-game map has a GPS even though such technology didn’t exist back in the day, but if it wasn’t there, you’d all pull your hair out or smash your controllers. The car physics felt realistic to those types of cars, with solid power but poor handling, so don’t go trying handbrake turns all the time — you’ll be smashing sideways into buildings left and right, which could be fun if that’s you goal. Both Justin and I played through the demo and we were able to smash a few windows and steal multiple types of vehicles — Justin stole a bus for whatever reason, which was funny.

A few weapons were available in the demo to show a variety in gameplay. You start off manning a powerful rifle in the window, moving on to pistols, shotguns, and Tommy guns as you proceed through a warehouse to take out multiple enemies and the Made Man you’re tasked with killing. After the mission, you have to run from the cops to get your injured partner to the hospital, dodging police cruisers coming at you from out of nowhere. It was definitely a fun demo and looked solid on both the Xbox 360 and PS3.

Based on everything I’ve seen of Mafia II over the past year and a half, I definitely get a very Godfather-like feel from the story. With previous Godfather games falling in short in that area, it’s nice to see something step up and give you that level of detail in the world. You’ll form relationships with the characters and care about them more-so than other mid 1900’s gangster era games.

So, with graphical glitches aside, will this be worth a purchase? If you’re the GTA type who wants to run amok and not care about the story, you might not be as interested as those looking for a more linear story-based experience as provided in Mafia II. Hopefully 2K releases a demo so everyone can get a feel, but I’ll definitely be picking this one up in August.