Mafia 3 is officially my favorite entry in the Mafia series. 1 & 2 were fun, without a doubt, but Mafia 3 has a special place in my heart not only for it’s unique crime documentary story -telling style, but also it’s setting. Set in 1968 New Bordeaux, a fictional New Orleans, complete with it’s own French “Ward”, gator-filled swamps to the south, and a nostalgic, era-appropriate*, 101 song soundtrack.
The “documentary” tells the story of the crime spree of Lincoln Clay, a Vietnam War Army Veteran of Haitian descent, seeking revenge for his adopted family. Cut scenes are interviews with important people in Clay’s life, as well as federal agents investigating the spree, and federal trial testimony from characters.
There are so many things to love about this game, and the first thing I came to appreciate about the game was New Bordeaux. New Orleans is like this whole other world, with the old Spanish architecture, the cobblestone streets, the lights, the sounds and the frequent rain, all of this is well captured in New Bordeaux. My mom, who normally hates watching me play video games, was mesmerized to see a virtual recreation of the New Orleans she grew up visiting.
The soundtrack is the next outstanding feature; Jefferson Airplane, Cream, The Rolling Stones, CCR, Clifton Cheiner (and other Zydeco artists), The Animals, Jimi Hendrix, John Lee Hooker, Iron Butterfly, Steppenwolf, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, and so many others. And the talk radio becomes almost a character itself as it tells of the events Clay finds himself involved in and it reflects the troubled times of the American South in the late ’60’s, giving the player a great soundtrack as you play through the Crime Drama.
Driving and Combat mechanics in Mafia 3 are pretty spot on. There were times I wished the cars were a little faster with the lack of fast travel, but it was made up for with broken bridge jumping and high speed races through the swamps. There were also times that the combat seemed tougher than it should have been and other times where it was almost too easy, but once I learned the controls and got the combat style down, the play was mostly seamless. There are a lot of faction, open-world, assistant and time-reflective features that I don’t have the space to get into here, but in-all, game-play definitely carried the story along well enough for me.
I only had a couple of complaints about the game and none serious enough to make me not enjoy it. First, New Bordeaux has hills, which factual South Louisiana has a serious lack of. Second, they refer to a group of Hillbilly types south of New Bordeaux as “Cajuns”; while some Cajuns can be a bit Hillbilly-esque, they don’t frequently live south of New Orleans, but I suppose they can live south of New Bordeaux. Lastly, there’s a commercial that airs somewhat frequently in the first half or so of the game, where a local butcher encourages you to come to his shop and try the “bou-deen”; this triggers my inner Cajun to want to “pie-yow comme ca” this guy in his head, but what you get to do to this butcher in game is pretty satisfying, so I can let it slide.
The soundtrack, scenery and innovative storytelling style make for a great game, and it gets lagniappe points from me for the setting. But perhaps my favorite thing about the game may be one of the most obscure things about it; at one point, while walking through one of the shops in the game, an NPC that i accidentally bumped into turns around and tells me, “Watch where you’re going, cooyon“. I nearly ejected the game to give it a kiss at that point.
In short, I loved this game. If you liked previous Mafia games, you’ll enjoy this one, and if you like GTA style games and appreciate South Louisiana culture, you really should give it a play. Way to go 2K and Hanger 13, you’ve made a fan out of me.
*Only a couple songs were not from ’68 and before, and they were covers of era-appropriate songs heard during a hallucination.
-Morgan@1063RL