izigame.me

“You know what capitalism is? Getting f***ed!”
~Tony Montana, Scarface (1983)

“The Definitive Edition”. What do you think of when you hear those words? Well, technically, you can think of pretty much anything. Just because those words mean nothing. Publishers can literally sell us anything and call it “The Definitive Edition”. And Mafia is a perfect example of that. At the point I write this, there are three games in the series. All of them have “The Definitive” editions and all of those editions are absolutely different. The first Mafia got the best treatment. 2K asked their division called Hangar 13 (which was already merged with 2K Czech, creators of the original game) to create a proper remake and gave them enough money to do a good job. Mafia III didn't get any treatment at all. They've just released a free update that was supposed to improve graphics (spoiler alert – it failed and almost broke the entire game) and called it a day. Now, what about Mafia II?
For Mafia II, 2K hired a little (about 100 employees) British company called d3t and asked them to do a quick overhaul. So... yeah. Unlike the first Mafia, the “Definitive” edition of the second one is not a remake, but a quick remaster. Remember what we had in Shenmue remasters? Well, it was d3t who worked on them. If you've played modern versions of Shenmue 1 and 2, it should give you a general idea 'bout what to expect here. Take the old game, sprinkle it with some modern technology and voilà, that would be $29.99 (note how price of Mafia II remaster is exactly the same with the one of Shenmue). At least, that was the idea.
Because while Shenmue was a console title, the one that only DreamCast (and Xbox in the case of the sequel) owners were able to play (as long as we're not talking about emulators, of course, but that's a different story), Mafia II was a multiplatform game that was already presented in Steam. And obviously, asking money for such a basic overhaul would have make a lot of people angry. So, 2K decided to play it smart and sold the new version only for console owners. Didn't make much sense for Xbox One owners who still had their Xbox 360 discs on them (backward compatibility, ho!~), but for those who didn't have the game yet and, of course, for PlayStation 4 users it sure did. So, that's how it was about selling this version, while in Steam? In Steam everybody who already had the original version in their libraries got the new one for free, while for the rest of us the new version just replaced the old one in the store (more about that later). So... we've got an updated version and we didn't even need to pay for it. Life's good, right?
Well... technically – yes. Yes, it is. On paper. It comes with all DLCs (unlike the original version, cosmetics in the remaster will unlock with time and won't be available at the beginning of the game), the textures were replaced with those of higher resolution, there's an MSAA (Multisample Anti-Aliasing) support, there are improved shadows and light, new technology was used for both hair and foliage, etc. Some sounds (like sounds of shooting) were also improved. In other words, like I said, on paper it's pretty cool. Unfortunately, only on paper. Because it looks like due to limited monetization, this remaster got very limited budget. And as the result... yeah. You know how it is about those quick and cheap overhauls. Instead of fixing and improving things? They just make everything worse.
First of all – nobody cared to fix the old bugs. It's not like Mafia II was the buggiest game ever made (thankfully, Todd Howard wasn't involved in its development in any way), but it had a series of well-known bugs that pretty much everybody who played the game before knew very well. It was only logical (yes, you can call me Mr. Spock, thank you) to fix those in the remaster, but like I said, nobody here bothered. Quite the opposite, it looks like the game became more buggy now. At least, while playing the remaster, I've experienced way, way more weird bugs than before. One of cutscenes with Harvey Epstein is broken too and looks like a mess. The color palette was changed and looks way more cold than needed, while “retro” effect was completely removed, which makes the game to look... weird. Especially for those who remember playing the original. New hair and foliage technologies are half-broken and come with tons of visual glitches (remember Cyberpunk 2077? That's the stuff.). New light looks totally out of place and may even cause troubles. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
In other words, we've got the same exact game, only worse. The “Definitive” edition of Mafia II is one of those cases, when it's actually a better idea to stick with the original. Sure, the original didn't have high resolution textures optimized for 4K, but honestly, I didn't feel bad playing it on my 4K TV. The remaster, on the other hand, felt way worse in many ways. There's a little “but” here in a form of the exclusive DLC that adds suits and cars from the other two Mafia games, though. We've got Tommy's Shubert Six taxi and gangster suit to remind us about good ol' days in Mafia 1, while from Mafia III we've got Lincoln's Samson Drifter (which totally breaks the balance, by the way) and army coat. Sure, it's nothing big, but... it's there and some die hard fans may be interested in it.
All in all, though, it's still a no-no. PlayStation 4 owners don't have much choice, but for everybody else out there it's way, way better idea to stick with the original. Which... unfortunately you can't buy in Steam anymore. Well, technically you can, but to get access to it you should buy this crappy remaster first (it comes with a free copy of the original version). Because, like I said, that's what crappy remasters do. They just make everything worse. One way or another, that's pretty much it. You already played the original game before? Just forget about this remaster. Nothing good here. Totally no reason to bother. You haven't played the original yet? Wait for a good discount and pick this one up, but play the original that comes with it instead. You're on Xbox One? Go buy the Xbox 360 version. And if you're on PlayStation? Congratulations, you're screwed. Dixi.