Topic: Looking for recommendations

@Yousef- okay, so where I was going with my comparison to sol, who remember is a lay person in regards to these series’… is that you can compare them (ie they have similarities) as they are both crime games based in an open world. Now obviously they’re both gonna bring their own things to the table after that fact (sim-like driving controls etc.) but if you honestly think two open-world crime games are nothing alike I don’t know what to tell you 🤣.

@colonelkilgore I was kinda fatigued when typing that out, and took me a solid minute and a half to realize what the discussion was about and missed a few messages you wrote. I don’t think I was directly replying to anything you said. I think I was just generally commentating on the games as a whole. Sorry.

@Yousef- no need to apologise mate, I appreciate your input whether I agree with it or not (and we’re batting above average on that tbh 😉).

@colonelkilgore The reviews and comments for M2 Definitive Ed do seem to revolve around the poor remaster job, rather than the game itself. But apparently it was really poor on launch. Glitches galore. From what I can tell, they patched it once and that fixed a few things (like the Take 2 logo getting stuck on screen for the whole game 😂, to the point of covering up important HUD elements) but it doesn’t look like a lot of the smaller issues were ever addressed.

@Yousef- Thanks for the info. The driving mechanics were mentioned as a problem on several reviews I saw. I don’t mind a manual transmission style gear shifting and stiff steering for the purpose of authenticity, but I can see why it might be a complaint.

As for the shooting, the videos of gameplay look reminiscent of Uncharted cover shooting, which I don’t mind. And the story seems to have mixed reviews, understandably.

It’s just confusing when the site gives the three games 7/10, 4/10, and 6/10 scores (and I know scores aren’t the whole story on game assessment) and then the article by Sammy about the new entry announcement starts off with: “The Mafia games are fantastic …” and the comments are filled with superlatives about the series and remarks about them being people’s favorite games of all-time.

@Th3solution that’s a shame, as it is a game that I’d like to revisit at some point. Oh well maybe they’ll get their **** together and properly patch the 2 and 3 remasters as the hype builds for the new game’s release.

@Th3solution
I enjoyed all of the Mafia games and recently completed the remaster of 1, not really interested in replaying the remaster of Mafia2 although I did enjoy it on PS3.
I know people seem to really dislike Mafia 3 but I really enjoyed it, I liked the time period and the music, which is a bit part of an open world for me was great.
However the ineptitude of Hanger 13 when it comes to fixing broken trophies really soiled the experience, I know it shouldn't matter but for me it did. The game released broken, was fixed and then broken again for the definitive (aka broken) edition, so you can't even use an unpatched physical edition. There is a thread on psnprofiles which is pages and pages long and some people have even developed tools to be able to install particular patches thus "fixing" the issue, one person even said that they made a front end for the tools because of Mafia3.
I still intend to replay Mafia 3 at some point as I enjoyed the world that much.
Rant over.

@CaptD yeah from what I recall (having read through pages and pages of it a few years back) you need to take the version back to 1.08 (I could be wrong on the specific version number) and then do every specific trophy that tracks a volume of actions (kills, missions for a specific mob boss etc.) during one sitting… otherwise the tracking resets 😩. The problem is that some of those trophies require a single session in the region of 30 hours and the game has a nasty habit of crashing… a lot (which obviously then resets the trophy tracking) 😫.

So annoying as, like you say it should’nt matter… but try telling that to my trophy completion rate 😅.

I’m not really sure what led you to believe I was claiming they were nothing alike. I remember claiming that 2 goes back on everything 1OG did and goes full-on GTA-like mode. I don’t feel going back and re-reading what I wrote but I probably did somehow neglect to mention that. In which case, sorry for the confusion.

There’s something to be said about how the discrepancies among each game manages to examine a large truth about gamers, ambient unintentionally. By having a mechanically different entry each game, you are essentially attracting people from all walks of life, with widely different experiences. Thus leading to a large divide. This is not really a problem although there’s something to be said about mafia not being able to maintain a basic level of consistency across two games, never mind four.

Hilariously, if you want a reverse example of this where you have a trilogy that’s different narratively rather than mechanically, seek no further than Jak & Daxter.
First game? Higu fantasy platformer.
Second game? Dark fantasy cyberpunk combat platformer.
Third game? Desert-based mad max vehicular combat platformer. Yes those are real words to describe a game, and I love every second of it. You can never fault ND for creativity.

Ooooh I dunno 🤔… this maybe 😁

In that case I suspect there’s some miscommunication going on. Because I still don’t quite get how you had that impression, when nothing I said there conveys that they have zero similarities. They use a similar template, but mafia 1OG begun development before GTA III’s release, and was taking inspiration from Driver, not GTA. And it uses a manual shift, rather than automatic. And the on-foot shooting controls are completely different.

It does virtually everything to drive itself away from gta, albeit unintentionally. How can anyone say they’re similar when the controls are so drastically different? The gameplay is different, the setting is different. It’s more of a realistic 60s game while GTA is an arcady 80s-2000s game. They’re nothing alike.

Mafia 2 is the game that goes full-GTA copy and paste mode, minus the setting.

@Yousef- definitely a miscommunication if someone is saying that Mafia is the most non-GTA game ever… and somehow that statement doesn’t mean that they have zero similarities. It’s all good though bud, I’m over it… been over it tbh.

@colonelkilgore understandable. Sorry about that. I suppose despite my attempts at objectivity, I may have let my emotions influence my judgment as a gta-lover but apathetic mafia enjoyer. Simply put, the original mafia game had nothing in it that I liked in gta. To me, it felt like the complete opposite of everything I’m seeking, despite certain key similarities (with said key similarities being ones I apparently don’t deeply care about despite acknowledging their existence and validity). Sorry again for the poor choice of words. (I apologize a lot but pay it no mind, it’s merely me compensating for my somewhat unintentionally rough or intimidating exterior).

@Yousef- honestly these is no need to apologise and I think I get what your saying. Shame you didn’t like Mafia but can see where you’re coming from. I liked it a lot but… I think part of that was it being the right sorta game at the right time for me. Having said that… GTA is in a whole nutha stratosphere in terms of an all-around package.

@Th3solution
Bit late to the party but I would recommend 3 as well, I remember enjoying it when playing through a few years back. And as @Ravix already mentioned the soundtrack is great (in places), driving around town and the car radio playing CCR and such definitely made my day. It fairly standalone story I believe and set amongst the political turmoil and societal upheaval at the end of the 60s. I think I might have played the first two a long long time ago but don't really remember much about them tbh.

@sorteddan Thanks for your insight. I do think I’ll like M3. And I reckon I’ll like all of them, but I’ll have to see if I want to prioritize the games over the rest of my pile of shame.

@Yousef- @colonelkilgore That’s an interesting thought experiment… I’d probably say the most non-GTA game ever might be… Puyo Puyo Tetris? Maybe Barbie: Pet Rescue? Nah, maybe Super Stardust. 😜 It all really depends on how you look at it! 😄

My vote is and always has been Hannah Montana: Spotlight World Tour… excuse my ignorance but I always thought it was a given 😉

@Th3solution holy sh*t I love Puyo Puyo Tetris you have no idea it’s literally part of my soul.

@colonelkilgore When I got this notification I thought it was a club vote so I was confused for a solid second.

@Yousef- serious vote right there! 😎

@colonelkilgore @Yousef- 😂 Apparently Hannah Montana is an easy platinum, so might be a good one to play!

@Th3solution I didn’t even know she had a platinum. Well i might have to give it a look then. The “easy platinum” I kept hearing about was megamind.