Incredibly shocking to see this game got such low reviews, but I guess I can't argue against this games dissenters too soundly, because their criticisms are correct. This game has a bad case of the open world sickness that was incredibly prevalent at the time of its release. Assassins Creed 2 convinced all these game companies that your game needed a drastic amount of bloat and repetition in order to retain your player base. Mafia 3 will have you repeating the same 3 or 4 missions ad nauseum, albeit with some unique story missions sprinkled in ever hour and a half or so, depending on your overall thoroughness. You'll repeat the same stealth takedowns, shoot the same guns at the same looking goons, and drive pretty much the same cars back and forth picking the world dry of any meaningless collectables you come across. If you look at the game from that standpoint, the game holds up very poorly. But personally, I became fully obsessed with the story on offer. Admittedly, there were some side plots that didn't exactly pan out to my liking, especially taking the DLC into consideration, but man, the story of Lincoln Clay hooked me. I am a sucker for the 'Man is Too Angry to Die' trope, and this game is that in spades. You can feel Lincoln's rage in each of his needlessly brutal stealth kills, his brutal takedowns, the way gameplay revolves around quick and hectic gunfights. Lincoln turns backwater Louisiana into a personal Vietnam for his opponents with his guerilla hit-and-run tactics, and the horror of the situations is amplified by the chatter of your enemies and the detail put into the animations of bloody, dying enemy NPCs. The sound design is also on point, nearly all of the weapons delivering adrenaline pumping audio, and the cars roaring in a way that encourages quick and agile maneuvering. The story absolutely gamifies the best qualities of the blacksplotation genre and puts a really interesting character study on display. The game certainly isn't for everyone, I can't imagine many people want to play another one of these open world collectathons after nearly a decade of being force fed this bloat, but I think if you can wiggle past a little repetition and ignore a lot of the needless bloat (collectables, rackets, a few underwhelming side missions) you'll find a really exciting revenge story.

Mafia III is such a good 6 out of 10 game that I'm giving it a 7. Now is the stealth hopelessly broken? You bet it is. Your "whistle" magically calls enemies toward you to investigate, nevermind if they're on a whole floor above you. Are the missions woefully repetitive? Absolutely...this game has so much filler that it basically demands that the player either switch to their approaches or cheese their way through it in order to not die of boredom. Is the open-world undercooked and under utilized? Well...this one is just Mafia series tradition.

But I love it all the same. The game has one of the best openings in AAA gaming, and some tremendous dialogue and scene direction to boot. Even though Mafia III, at its root, is a pretty straightforward revenge tale, it is told in such a wonderful, layered way that I was always excited when the next cut scene rolled along. Lincoln is a brooding, cold hearted killer, yes, but he also has a reason for being so, and has friends and uneasy alliances all throughout the marsh that make the world that Hangar 13 captures feel bigger than the actual landmass itself.

And then, the DLCs, though they do little to fix the actual mechanics of play, find ways to change up the scenery and pacing in ways that I appreciate. From Dukes of Hazarding in a sundown town to living your own Rambo-esque mission in the wilds, each DLC seems to take a different cinematic approach that makes the pastiche work of influences that drive Mafia III that much more interesting.

So...is it fun to play? Sometimes. But Mafia III has heart, and characters that I'll remember forever, and that's why I love it, bruises and all.

Mafia III was supposed to revive the series, not that it was dead as Mafia II had a positive reception, but with such long waits between games, this third entry needed to explode.

It did not. Mafia III was extremely buggy on release, heavy performance issues and it came wrapped up with an insanely repetitive gameplay loop.

The story, as usual, is good. This time around you are not as involved in the traditionally italian-american way that the Mob operated in. Instead, Lincoln, the protagonist, seeks revenge for what happened to his family.

The game offers some interesting scenarios, allowing you to assign rackets or businesses to one out of three characters, something that eventually can or cannot change how they talk to you, interact with you and see you as their boss. This is easily one of the biggest highlights of the game, it is a simple system that made the game more interesting.

It differs from the rest of the franchise as it has multiple endings, stopping a sequel from happening unless one of those endings is deemed cannon.

I was thoroughly enjoying this, before the game became stuck in an infinite loading screen just before the final boss. There is seemingly no solution for this on Xbox, so jokes on me I guess. Once you get over the familiar open world padding, there is a story and characters here that are thoroughly absorbing. A truly righteous approach to complex and thorny ideas - often feeling genuinely boundary pushing for games. Like Mafia II DE, this deserved more care.

If anyone has any ideas for the infinite loading issue, let me know. I've tried everything I can think of. Marking this as complete in the meantime as I don't have a 30 hour replay in me.