5. Sold illegal contraband
Finally, we lost the police and followed our map to the mission's contact point. Vito is meeting Joe in the back of a warehouse to sell discounted (i.e., stolen) packs of cigarettes to blue collar workers on their lunch break. He does the talking. You stand in the back of a truck, hitting one of two buttons to throw him either a pack of the "red" brand or a pack of the "blue" brand… whatever the customer requests.
Pretty tedious, right? Yeah, until a rival gang shows up, drives around you in menacing circles, claims ownership of the territory and demands that you hand over the entire shipment of cigarettes if you want to live. Joe does not agree and shoots the leader of this gang directly in the face. Things are going to get ugly…
6. Destroyed a place of business
Vito and Joe attempt to chase down the rest of the gang, but they escape with the goods and you're forced to find a telephone booth to call your boss and deliver the bad news. He's pissed and berates you over the phone for a good minute before ordering you to meet up with some other mobsters and enact payback.
Step one of that payback is easy enough. You drive to an enemy's diner, pull some machine guns out of the trunk and start obliterating the place in a furious stream of bullets. The restaurant is obviously a passive and stationary target, but we still had a blast tearing it to pieces. We could shoot out individual windows, tear off individual pieces of wood and even shatter individual letters of the neon sign above the door, watch them dangle dangerously for a bit, then blow them off the roof entirely. Finally, we tossed the guns aside, tossed a couple of Molotov cocktails through the broken windows and watched the place burn to the ground.
7. Murdered dozens
Revenge, step two, is more complicated. The boss wants you to kill everyone who just crossed you, so Vito, Joe and the other mobsters drive to an industrial area of the city and begin strolling through the scrapyards, gunning down anything that moves. Some of the gangsters run away as you and your mafia mates shoot them ruthlessly in the back.
Others stand and fight, forcing you to take cover and aim more strategically. Mafia II isn't too forgiving during combat sequences… your health regenerates, but you can only take a couple of hits before you're hurting badly and must return to cover. Fortunately, the controls are similar to Gears of War and Uncharted 2. Hit a single button and you're pressed up against a wall, crate, whatever. Hit the aim button and you pop out quickly to shoot. Let go of the aim button and you're safely tucked away again.
We played with the previously mentioned machine gun, then tried out Vito's three pistols – a tiny trouser pistol, a standard issue and a powerful, shotgun-force Magnum. Before too long, our foes were all lying bloody on the ground and we were stealing their hotrod cars for much-needed cash.
Another wholesome day in the 1940s – finished. If you'd like to experience some of this mission for yourself, check out the gameplay video below.
Mar 11, 2010
