The original Mafia game released in 2002 is one of my all time favourite games. To this day I will still play it once and a while. Because it is a continuous story and not exactly Free Roam, it feels almost like watching a movie while playing the game. The original game, had excellent characters that you cared about, great action scenes, interesting missions, classic cars from the 30's that were a lot of fun to drive, superb physics for its time; you could riddle a car with bullets and it would be completely covered with bullet holes, smash windows, shoot out tires, break the fuel line and run out of gas in the car, shoot from the driver's seat (which was the first game you could do that to my recollection), the list goes on...the only thing that upset me was the final cut-scene of the game has your character gunned down on his front lawn by two hit men. So in the end your character dies tragically. But of course he paid the price for his actions.
Now for Mafia II...starts off during WWII, then a fair chunk of the game takes place in 1945 when you return from the war, then get sent to prison, then jump to 1951. You get out of prison and get right back into the life of crime. You start off as a low-level thug, doing petty jobs...which continues for a very large chunk of the game, until you become a made man. Then, almost immediately after you become made, you start doing things that are forbidden in the Mafia (at the time.) it is clearly stated by one of the bosses that you don't deal in drugs. Yet you do it anyways and through a course of action, create a major sh#tstorm between the Chinese and your mob faction. Then you're basically targeted for death, but you're offered a chance to save yourself by murdering your boss. Your character just shrugs and says okay. All of the characters in this game are under-developed. The missions play so fast, and NONE stand out as being unique. All verrry generic. The story is lacking, other than Vito and Joe, all the characters seem to come and go without getting much "screen time" so you don't get to care about any of them. Vito (your character) is just a douchebag. I didn't like him at all when watching the story and Joe could be funny, but he was also obnoxious, so I didn't warm to him either. As for the ending of the game? Well there isn't one. It just stops in the middle of a cut-scene, more or less like the end of The Sopranos. I assume they're releasing some add-on content to continue the story. The problem is, I wasn't interested enough to fork over any extra cash towards this game. If they continue the story with Mafia III, they better make some significant improvements...oh and I forgot to mention, there's also a mission which simply has you driving to a guy's house and activating a cut-scene...that cut-scene is the ending to the original game, which has you killing your character from the original game. So now, your current character just murdered a character I actually warmed to. But there's nothing else to the mission except escaping cops, which requires you to drive about a block before you lose them.
Now for Mafia II...starts off during WWII, then a fair chunk of the game takes place in 1945 when you return from the war, then get sent to prison, then jump to 1951. You get out of prison and get right back into the life of crime. You start off as a low-level thug, doing petty jobs...which continues for a very large chunk of the game, until you become a made man. Then, almost immediately after you become made, you start doing things that are forbidden in the Mafia (at the time.) it is clearly stated by one of the bosses that you don't deal in drugs. Yet you do it anyways and through a course of action, create a major sh#tstorm between the Chinese and your mob faction. Then you're basically targeted for death, but you're offered a chance to save yourself by murdering your boss. Your character just shrugs and says okay. All of the characters in this game are under-developed. The missions play so fast, and NONE stand out as being unique. All verrry generic. The story is lacking, other than Vito and Joe, all the characters seem to come and go without getting much "screen time" so you don't get to care about any of them. Vito (your character) is just a douchebag. I didn't like him at all when watching the story and Joe could be funny, but he was also obnoxious, so I didn't warm to him either. As for the ending of the game? Well there isn't one. It just stops in the middle of a cut-scene, more or less like the end of The Sopranos. I assume they're releasing some add-on content to continue the story. The problem is, I wasn't interested enough to fork over any extra cash towards this game. If they continue the story with Mafia III, they better make some significant improvements...oh and I forgot to mention, there's also a mission which simply has you driving to a guy's house and activating a cut-scene...that cut-scene is the ending to the original game, which has you killing your character from the original game. So now, your current character just murdered a character I actually warmed to. But there's nothing else to the mission except escaping cops, which requires you to drive about a block before you lose them.