Mafia 2 Jimmy’s Vendetta & Joe’s Adventures Mini-Review

After reviewing Mafia 2 I planned on reviewing Jimmy’s Vendetta, however I postponed it until now in order to review both (and possibly the last) expansions for this game.

My Mafia 2 review has already covered many things that haven’t changed, thus there will be no Graphics or Sound sections to this review.

Introduction

Jimmy’s Vendetta is the second expansion to Mafia 2, centering around the character of Jimmy from the previous PS3 exclusive The Betrayal of Jimmy, it brings Mafia 2 to an arcade style open world gameplay that the main game missed.

Joe’s Adventures takes place during the time when Vito is in Jail, centering around his best friend Joe from the main game, it contains slightly more story than Jimmy’s Vendetta but still contains the same arcade style gameplay.

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Mafia 2 Review

Mafia 2 is the long awaited sequel to the 2002 Illusion Softworks (now 2k Czech) classic Mafia. The version I will be reviewing is the PC version, released on the 26th of August 2010.

My Mafia 2 Demo review has already covered many things that haven’t changed in the finished game, so I’ll try not to repeat too much.

Introduction

The PC version of this game is a Steam exclusive, though you can buy a physical copy that contains the Steam files. Installation was smooth and there were no issues with the PhysX runtime like there were with the demo.

You play as Vito Scaletta and follow his rise through organised crime in the fictional city of Empire Bay during the 1940s and 1950s. This is an open world game, though the storyline quite linear for a game of this type, not unlike Mafia.

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Dead Space Review

Dead Space is a 2008 survivor horror third person game from Electronic Arts, released on the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC. The version I will be reviewing is the PC version.

First Impressions

The game places you in the shoes of Isaac Clarke, a ship specialist who you will immediately notice is in a full body armored space suit and stays in it for the duration of the game. The year is 2414 and shortly after the beginning of the game you find yourself inside the seemingly empty USG Ishimura, a “Planet Cracker” starship that is sending out a distress signal and isn’t responding to radio messages.

This game is primarily horror, along the lines of Doom 3, however it includes many puzzles to stop things getting too boring.

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Mafia 2 Demo Review

This is a review of the demo of Mafia 2, released on the 10th of August on Steam for the PC.

First Impressions

Mafia 2 is the long awaited sequel to the 2002 Illusion Softworks (now 2k Czech) classic Mafia. It was first announced in August 2007 touting “benchmark-setting visual quality and action that you expect to see only in Hollywood movies”, since then it has had a few delays and some features have reportedly been removed.

The PC version of the game is a Steam exclusive, as is the demo that I will be reviewing, installation was fairly easy however the installation of the latest PhysX runtime caused an issue with PhysX on the target machine that I will explain later.

The demo takes place during a mission in the 50s where you must take out a mobster known as “The Fat Man”, you start out in a safe house answering a call detailing the mission and what you must do, once you leave the house you get to explore a small section of the city for 10 minutes (12:30 minutes if you die at least twice it seems) while heading to the warehouse.

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The Saboteur Review

This review took a little longer than it should have.

First Impressions

At first I wasn’t too excited about the game, it looked interesting and the style was something different but I wasn’t expecting this game to really change much when it comes to a sandbox game. I only saw 2 reviews about this game before buying it and they were generally positive, they were reviewing the PS3 version however this is the PC version, I was expecting to have the usual PC issues but not as many as I eventually did.

This game seems polished at first, the animations are smooth and it has great atmosphere, the controls are easy enough to handle and the story starts off as expected, a little cheesy, but bearable.

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