• Gangster-Movie Experience: Through strong, authentic characterization and compelling narrative, the mature storyline will make you understand the pull and impossible escape of life in the Mob
• Action-Packed Gameplay: Take part in heart-stopping car-to-car gunfights, white-knuckled hand-to-hand combat and intense gunplay, all of which come together to form an intense and exciting experience
• All-New Engine Powers the Next Generation of Mob Videogames: 2K Czech’s next-generation engine, allows gamers to travel from beautifully rendered outdoor environments to intricately designed interiors seamlessly without the need for loading times
• Authentic Script From the Writer of Mafia I: The writing team from Mafia I returns to deliver another powerhouse script that portrays a stunning tale of survival, camaraderie and the pitfalls of pursuing the American Dream
• Music as Environment: Players will be immersed in the Golden Era of America as Mafia II features tracks from some of the era’s most influential artists

Source: http://worthplaying.com

Released on the PC in 2002, Mafia garnered almost unanimous high praise from game critics, with many citing the realistic nature of the world and spot-on production as high points of the game. Unfortunately for console gamers, the PS2 and Xbox versions suffered from numerous bugs and glitches, and didn’t provide the same level of polish that the PC version presented. Fortunately, developer 2K Czech is already on the right track to deliver an equally impressive sequel not only on the PC, but on the Xbox 360 and PS3 as well with Mafia II.Mafia II begins with leading man Vito Scaletta returning to his hometown of Empire Bay from World War II in 1945, reconnecting with his family and checking in on a few friends who’ve become embroiled in Empire Bay’s underground crime ring. Here 2K producer Denby Grace rattled off the usual numbers: Empire Bay is twice the size of the city of Lost Heaven from the first game; the city features 20 distinct neighborhoods; the city itself could be mapped realistically over 10 square miles. That said, once we took control of the game ourselves it was immediately apparent that 2K Czech has built a real living, breathing city, a sprawling metropolis that was almost intimidating in its size. More importantly, Empire Bay looks and feels closer to a real American city than the many real-world environments found in games that have already been released. After a short section of gameplay debuting the cover system (which the development team is vocal about being inspired by Gears of War and Uncharted 2), we were given the opportunity to get some hands-on time with the game.

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]]> http://www.mafia2forum.com/gamepro-gdc-preview/feed/ http://www.mafia2forum.com/examinercomqa-with-mafia-iis-denby-grace/ http://www.mafia2forum.com/examinercomqa-with-mafia-iis-denby-grace/#comments Sat, 13 Mar 2010 15:34:53 +0000 Henne http://www.mafia2forum.com/?p=1024

GDC never fails to give the press opportunities to chat with developers and producers (even more so than E3 since GDC is meant for the development community). Among the many folks we spoke to was Denby Grace, senior producer of the highly anticipated Mafia II.

So what’s the vibe like now that you’re at the home stretch of development?

We’re really positive. This is really the first event where people are able to play it and we’re excited to let people experience it as we’ve worked on it for a long time. It feels more real as opposed to how the game felt just as a concept with a lot of potential. Obviously we have a standard to maintain from the PC version of Mafia I. People recognize the game soul-wise. It’s the same cinematic storytelling experience.

One of the things we’re really pleased with is the improved combat. The way it plays is significantly different from Mafia I and it’s up there with some of the best third-person shooters. It’s a huge jump forward for open-world gameplay as well. It doesn’t play like an open-world game when you get into these combat scenarios. We have destructible environments, we have this cover system, and we don’t rely on an auto-lock system like other open-world games.

The premise of a character coming back from World War II obviously echoes one of the storylines in The Godfather.

It’s a good point. Obviously you want people to start at the bottom which almost always makes things interesting. Something we thought about early on was the question of “How do you start with someone on the top who’s got everything?”. Assassin’s Creed 2 did something very interesting in that way. Here’s a guy from a rich family who was stripped of everything and you spend the game earning back your family’s honor and credibility by killing people. It’s not really “earning” but you know what I mean?

Our story was written a long time ago, and that’s a fact. We’re not going to change parts just because someone has done something similar. When you play Mafia II, it’s the definitive gangster experience at least from our perspective. The quality of what you’re playing and seeing stands alone. Maybe some of it is a little cliche, but the story has its own twists and plots. One big difference with Godfather is that our characters don’t have aspirations to become a Don. They just want to become wiseguys in the mob, made men. They don’t want to be bosses of families or anything like that, so it’s a bit of a slant. It’s more Goodfellas than it is Godfather.

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Server G4TV.com release two exciting interviews with two main characters of Mafia 2 development. Jack Scalici and well-known producer Denby Grace.

Jack Scalici - The Autentic World of Mafia II

Denby Grace - The State of Development of Mafia II

Source: G4TV.com

Producer of Mafia 2 Denby Grace needs no introduction. There was many interviews with him. We now bring you the latest interview from Joystiq, which supply us with a lot of news in the last days.

Sorry for bad English…out tranlastor is allowed

We’ve been waiting a very long time for this game haven’t we?

Denby Grace, senior producer: The reason for the delay is polish. You’ll see the game looks great as you play today. It’s just not quite perfect, which is what we at 2K generally strive for. It’s what we want to be known for, the quality of our games. Just having come so long, it would be foolish to release it too early.

Are there any specific reasons for the delay? What needed to be polished?

Technically there are a few things: the framerate isn’t quite on the money yet. It’s just the whole experience. One of the things we’re spending a lot of time doing is focus testing. We’re testing about twenty people a week. And it’s getting that difficulty curve right. We want it to be hard, but we don’t want it to be impossible like Mafia I. I don’t know if you played the first game, but there was one mission when we shipped the game. Literally everyone failed until we released a patch. So we’re really, really conscious about delivering a really balanced, proper difficulty curve. And then it’s just bugs. It’s an open world: ten square miles, fifty vehicles, a hundred environments. There were quite a lot of bugs in it!

It’s true that the city is very large, but it also changes over time, correct? That must pose some challenges.

Not content with making one city, we’ve made two cities. You progress through the ’40s and the ’50s. We have a ’40s city, which is a very snowy, bleak backdrop, which we’ve shown off before at E3 last year. And then you progress through the ’50s and the feel is very different. Some different buildings have opened, some different shops have opened. The big thing is, though, the game is set across three seasons. We use the seasons, we use the weather, we use the time of day, we use all these things to paint a really elaborate mood for everything we do.

Considering there’s a huge city, with a lot of voice acting, were there any concerns you might not be able to fit the entire game on a single DVD?

There were at one time. We’ve resolved those issues now. Not to go into too many details, because it’s not very interesting, but we had to split out languages. We’re doing full localization for every language, which is pretty unheard for an open-world game, but it’s something we’re committed to because we have such a huge following in Europe. So we’ve had to do that, but the English fits fine. It’s one disc. The experience is fifteen hours, so it’s not too bad. But the scope is pretty huge, the script’s like 600 pages; 160,000 words; 300 speaking characters. It’s huge, but it fits on a disc.

The GDC demo hints at conflicts with rival gangs. Is controlling territory a large part of the gameplay, and is there an overarching “meta-game” for owning turf?

There’s no meta-game, so to speak, but there are gangs in the city that control territory. Obviously, you’ll use Little Italy as your local territory. If you get some grief in your territory, the native Italians will come and support you in your efforts. There’s Irish gangs, Chinese gangs, and stuff like that. These gang areas are interwoven into the story, so you experience them through the story. But at the same time, if you go off course, there’s civilians amongst those gangsters, and you’ll get to know them as you play through the game. If you mess with a gangster, his mates will join in and mess with you back. But through the story, you’ll experience these things as well.

Is the gameplay going to be tweaked any further? Specifically, we found it interesting that there’s no cover-to-cover movement in the demo we played.

There’s no cover to cover movement and that’s not going to be coming. That’s a reality. We had it, and we cut it. It just wasn’t super useful. You can get in cover, and you can move around a corner for cover. But what we wanted was a really fluid experience. The moment you have special conditions at the edges of cover, then it becomes kind of complex. I’m a big fan of Gears of War and Unchartedand these kinds of games, and hey I love their cover system and I’m not going to start ragging at them at all. But sometimes we’d find that you could get stuck in cover, and we wanted the A button to always be the same control, no matter where you are in the cover.

Everything is still open to be worked on, you know. That’s the reality. There’s still a few bugs when you pop up at the end of corners, stuff like that. As for cover to cover movement, we’re not going to implement that.

We only got to see a very small amount of police confrontation in the demo. How far does it escalate? What are some successful strategies for eluding the coppers?

If you go into an arrest status, that might trigger two or three cops to chase you. “Shoot to kill” status will go up to four, fix, six. When you’re getting towards the end, the police are using tommy guns, leaning out of their vehicles to try and shoot you, there are stingers across roads, roadblocks across bridges, that sort of stuff is what you can expect. Obviously, there are no helicopters and stuff like that.

The system is based on line of sight. You have an immediate chase, but if you duck out of sight the cop doesn’t know where you are and you lose your wanted status. But if the cop sees you at a close proximity, then he’s going to fictionally radio in what you look like. So at that point, you’re wanted by the entire force of Empire Bay, whether they see you or not. If you stay out of sight, then they’re not going to be immediately chasing you. But if you come back into sight, then they’re going to know what you look like and they’re going to chase you. At that point, you’ll have to change your clothes, or cleanse your car. There’s different ways you can do that: you can change the license plate of your car, respray it, that sort of stuff.

A good strategy to use is — if the cops are in cars, their cars are often faster than yours, especially in the ’40s. One of the best things you can do is stop your car, jump out, and go jump over fences, stuff like that. They’re not so hot on foot.

All those doughnuts get in the way, huh?

Haha, yes, I’ve talked about that a few years ago. The “fat cop” thing.

Finally, we’ve seen the single-player game. Are there any plans to incorporate multiplayer?

There are no plans that we are speaking of at this moment.

Source: Joystiq.com

Joystiq redactors have the opportunity to play Mafia 2 at GDC 10. Here is short video.

Screens HERE!
Joystiq:

It seems like almost a year ago that I first saw Mafia II. That’s probably because it was almost a year ago that 2K Czech (formerly Illusion Softworks) demoed live gameplay from the title (which had been announced nearly a year and a half before that.) Today, it was time to finally get my hands dirty as a virtual wiseguy, but first I had to put some clothes on.

In all seriousness, protagonist (I guess he’s that, right?) Vito Scaletta had just woken up after a pretty wild night (judging by the various undergarments strewn around his bachelor pad) when my demo kicked off, so I of course jogged around turning on faucets and flicking light switches before actually doing what the game was instructing me to do: Get dressed. Leaving Vito’s apartment, I stepped out into a world as pitch-perfect in its depiction of the 1950s — the cars, the clothing, the architecture, the music — as I can imagine. So what if the car that I hopped into and the place I was driving around — Empire City — never existed in any real era?

I spent the first few minutes of the demo causing all sorts of mayhem. Heck, the very first thing I did was get into a fender bender (putting it mildly) from which I fled, only to learn that the punishment for a hit-and-run in the ’50s was, evidently, only a few dollar fine. But my trouble with the fuzz didn’t end there…

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