Niko-Mafia-Mobster-Boss-Corleone

'Listen-Now' Notes.
I really hate reading long text and that is why I have 'Listen-Now' buttons on most of my blogs. If the post is really new, then the Listen-Now feature won't pick up the post, usually for about 24 hours.

Lazy Reader!
There have been various faults with different services I use occasionally. Also, my spelling sometimes causes the error. I apologize in advance. That is why I have two reading buttons on most of my blogs, in case one isn't working for some reason. If they aren't working, bookmark this site with Control+D and return another day to listen if you are a lazy reader like me.

Mafia 2.
Just completed Mafia 2. Love the game, but in comparison to GTA it still comes a 2nd best for this GTA fan. First I'll try tell you what I don't like, as that is a shorter list, I'll probably extend the list as I play it a second or third time! But for now, I'd like to say what a really excellent game Mafia 2 is! RockStar developed the GTA series, but did you know that RockStar is a subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive Software Inc? As is the 2K Czech team that developed Mafia 2, are also owned by Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. No-wonder the driving physics are so good!



Auto-Save.
Auto-save is OK, but I prefer to have the option of manual save. In Mafia 2, I don't like the auto-save, it can effectively ruin your game. I don't like being pushed around in the game, not being able to (save), sleep whenever I choose to. I may have just got a nice car customized and want to save it, but instead in Mafia 2, I'm being forced into a mission, where I will loose whatever car I'm driving and cannot leave it in the street. OK, I do think you can actually take it to the garage and leave it there without saving, but you had better not fail the mission, or the game will re-load back to the last save. (I'll have to check that and get back to you).

The Perfect Save.
I agree some people like auto-save, but I would have it on a toggle in the menu so that you could turn it on to manual save. I prefer to have to go to a specific point, home or a safe-house with a save point. Also, it would be perfect if:- You had the option to save whenever you went to sleep, where-ever you are! (I have given this a lot of thought and asked many people too, who agree with my idea), You could just choose to sleep, or be asked if you would like to save. Importantly though, I would have the option to name the save with my own personal identifier.

It would be perfect if:- You had the option to save whenever you went to sleep, where-ever you are and to be able to take a nap too, for 1 hour! e.g. Sleep in the car maybe, or a park bench, or in the street or disused house like a tramp!

No-idea what the last save was?
I don't usually find out till I return a day later, when I put my console on, that the last save was called 'Mission at XYZ' for example. Who-ever knows or remembers what the missions are called? I'd have the game remember the last save, via adding a date and time stamp to each save. so that it would keep a chronological order for me, but I'd also be able to give it a name I choose.


Stupid 10 car garage.
How can you fit 10 cars into a garage? Its easy if they are virtual cars. Look, I don't like it, I thought we were going for realism and realistic feel here. Joe in Mafia 2, has a few garages near his crib. I know they must belong to the neighbors, but there could be some reason, (explained in a cut scene), as to why Joe has the garages. Like, maybe Joe is renting or hiring the garages, or has twisted his neighbors arms to let him use them. The best game that got this right was GTA San Andreas with CJ. (and various other previous GTA's).  

Don't Like's.
It's not total true free roaming is it! -This is not a big issue, but it was the very first thing that annoyed me. Like the bits where you crash into invisible walls, where the road runs off into the distance, but you cannot use it! (OK, I'll admit, that I was driving on the railroad)!

I was amazed!
I was following the train tracks not far from the scrap yard, headed for a train tunnel, full-speed with the cops-in-tow, then wham! Shattered glass and a steering-wheel imprint on my chest. WTF?

Blind Alley.
This was not the only place, but you'll experience this early on, if like me, you like to explore. I was on my way to mum's house and just thought I'd take a look around. In the alley that leads to mum's, there's a truck parked. You could, in reality, easily walk between the wall and the truck. But you are just spun round as you try to pass through to the other street. I only wanted to take a look!

Little Walls.
Later, to be fair, it lets you go through this part of the alley. But it is annoying when that happens. I get annoyed at this type of thing, like when in any type of game, where there is a small wall for instance. In reality, you could easily hop over it, but no. At least in GTA, RockStar* have most of those details ironed out. I bet you never even noticed this did you, till I just pointed it out!

Nothing Much Ado.
Mafia 2 is great to play, it has the right atmosphere, the car handling feels a lot better than it initially looks, more on that in a minute. What is lacking, to put a basic name to it, is the side missions. You should be able to take on jobs like the Taxi, Paramedic, Fireman, (and yes... Also Police missions)!

AI?
There is no real interactivity with the general public apart from being able to assault them and knock them about. It's also a feature lacking in GTA, so no points lost there. A topic for another post elsewhere on this blog later I think, But basically, The general public should make general observations and have some interactions with our protagonist.

The General Public.
It would be nice if passers buy noticed you, a bit like GTH (Grand Theft Horse-O) - Red Dead. Howdy Pardner! (But obviously made to fit our character's theme personality and era). If you haven't showered or changed clothes in two days, then the public could insult you, saying things like. "Phew, what's that smell"?

Snappy Dresser.
If you are dressed fine, the opposite sex could notice you, or perhaps even the gay males, like in TBoGT. "Ooh, you look fine baby". The women could say. Also, some high class prostitutes, won't entertain you, if you are in two day old threads. Even the quality of clothing for the date, like we had back with CJ in GTA-SA with his girl-friends. Remember that bitch on the farm, a right picky bird she was!

Empty World.
In Mafia 2, you might as well be in an isolation tank. Sure, the pedestrian and car driving public, really bring the world to life, but because you are basically ignored by everyone but the police, you may as well be alone. I did like the touch of police cars going about their job of chasing other criminals, on their way to the next job. Going by with sirens on. Like GTA with beat cops chasing down perps on foot, great!




Driving or Diving!
The best thing in Mafia 2 physics, was the driving option for 'normal' or 'simulation'. If you've not played it in this mode and want a greater level of difficulty, give it a go! - Also the general overall difficulty levels, easy, medium and hard. This is great and in my version of the game, these would be separated out to difficulty in car handling, police aggression, (easy = less cops, etc). and gun aim mode difficulty levels.

First Impressions, Mafia 2.
When I first saw Mafia 2 previews of car handling, I thought it looked a little stodgy, they didn't really do themselves any good, by having a shitty driver at the controls. This always amazes me, when games developers release a preview, and they choose a guy to demonstrate the game that cannot even play, or drive! I am fantastic in games like, where you need to judge braking, accelerating and drifting around a corner. But give me a footie game and I'm not interested and play like a three year old. Why do they choose that idiot to demonstrate the game, I nearly never bought it because of that preview! 


The Wheelman.
If you don't understand what I'm talking about, play GTA4 and then play a newer game like The Wheelman, - what a pile of crap the driving physics was! The crap way the cars handle, I only played The Wheelman for the first hour, until I got so disappointed with the car handling, that I had to stop. If you still don't understand about car handling and feel after that, then please shoot yourself in the head.

Mafia is Sound.
I particularly was impressed with the sound track, both from a music of the era appreciation side and from the acting in the voices. A good script just lacking more filling out. I reckon that the original script was fantastic, but has been edited to fit and expedite the release of the game. The best sound control feature in Mafia 2 is that you can separately control the volume of SFX sounds, independent of the Voices, Radio and 'BGM' that K2 have called 'Music' instead of BGM.

Music.
However, the sound controls did fall a little short in the fact that when you turn down the 'Music', (BGM), then it also effects the cut-scenes actors voices and narrative. When are developers going to get this right? You would think that 'Voices' - would only contain the vocal from the actors, even in the cut-scenes! At least if they are going to make the cut-scenes share a channel, then it should be the SFX, because you nearly always want those switched on, but at a lower level than the voices! Because of this I missed some of the story-line the first time round, till I discovered that nearly every-time you went to sleep, you just about always had a cut-scene afterward's!

Pause.
For a start, "Pause Game", should always give silence! If I'm on the phone or watching TV temporarily with my game paused, whilst I'm eating my snack, then I want silence, not some twittering nonsense that isn't even musical. I'm too lazy too look for the remote for the TV attached to the xBox. 

A totally different game, not GTA!
I've written about this before, somewhere, perhaps it was another blog or just in my written notes - I cannot find it right now, so I'll explain again as briefly as possible here. I keep calling my idea for this 'New GTA Game', exactly that, The New GTA Game! But its not essentially GTA.

Idiot.
If you read some of my other posts, and you are a total GTA nut, (like me), you will probably be thinking, 'what's this idiot going on about, doing lift and carry jobs'? That's not GTA! I should be stealing cars! (I often call out to my sons, when the are playing, if they are running about a lot, "It's not Grand Theft Walk-O, Its called Grand Theft Auto and you should be using cars"!

Silly Dick!
A 'Silly Dick', friend of mine, (his real name is Richard! -We've now dubbed him Silly Richard, for his record breaking attempt to walk the farthest), he has actually walked, every street and highway, walking round each block and marked off his progress on a photocopy of the map in GTA4. He did it in GTA-SA too. What a wally!  (Dick, if you didn't know, is short for Richard)!


A New World.
My version of a new GTA type of game and storyline, has you turning up at a dock in this new city as an immigrant ex-convict. You are trying to leave your old life behind, but are following your wife and children, who have already left you behind for a new life, whilst you were still in prison back in your home country. The character would not be too dissimilar from Niko Bellic in GTA4.


Objectives.
The objective of the game, would be to develop businesses and become very wealthy and in the process, gaining back the love and respect of your wife (and thus your children at the same time). Our character is not so strong willed, that he cannot resist the company of a beautiful woman every once in a while. Also he has no moral ethics stopping him from eliminating anyone who gets in his way.


A True Story.
There are people out to get him and he will do whatever it takes to survive. He has a main reason driving him to make a lot of money. That being, because his daughter is in need of an operation to save her life. This was also the reason his estranged wife brought the children to this new place, possibly in the hope of treatment for their daughter, perhaps to meet a wealthy man, who would pay for the operation. (This story is based on a true story I was told, from Russian immigrants that I actually met and worked with).

All that is on top of the initial struggle to get started and find his wife and children in this new city.
See other posts for more about what I'd have in the game.

Lift and Carry Jobs.
In Mafia 2, there is a perfect example of what I mean by a lift and carry job. When we visit the dock union boss for a job. OK, its a shitty job, (I know its boring, but that's the point you shouldn't miss), someone has to do it!

Real life, boring job.
Our protagonist in Mafia 2 refuses to do this job after a short while, but the principle of the job and the way our character carries the boxes to load a truck, is exactly what I am talking about! My idea is that you only have to do this type of tedious job for a few days, (next paragraph I'll explain why), unless you are just working for a pittance and never learn your lesson! No-one ever got rich, working for someone-else!

Getting Rich.
On that last point, 'no-one ever got rich, working for someone-else', the reason why you only have to do a job for a short period of time, is that first you have to learn to do the job, (it has to be done right, doesn't it)?
Next, you can either stay in the job for as long as you want, or until you're sacked for being late or don't work hard-enough and meet the minimum pace of work.

Team Work.
Your next objective, is to build a team, so that the other three guys in the work-bay follow you and do your pace! This offer of team leader is made to you, at the end of your second five-day-work-week, only if in your second week, you do the required normal pace of work. The foreman asks you if you would like the chance to build your own team. You will be on more pay and your task, (should you choose to accept it), would be to call at the docks to find new workers and train them.


Training.
Training workers would be relatively easy. Workers you train, do what you do and in my version of a GTA style game, the workers copy your pace too, When you have three men working along-side you and you complete one full week of work, (without being late or missing the work pace target), the foreman will ask you to choose a successor for your job as team-leader. The foreman will move up to manager. I'll explain more in a different post, but you get the idea. As Foreman, you get even more money and have to do less work.


Start Your Engines!
I like the little touches in Mafia 2, like the bit where you can fix your car engine when it won't start! This is a brilliant idea, and even perhaps better than GTA4's rapid left-right-left-right-left-right-left-right on the triggers to get a car started that you have just crashed and the engine has stopped. What? You didn't know you could do that? Well, you are not alone, nearly every-one I tell, doesn't know this! To fix your engine in Mafia 2, get out, go to the bonnet, when you get the blue 'X' to press on xBox 360, you can open the bonnet and tinker with the engine. Go on, try it! - News flash! - The boot or trunk works too! They didn't in GTA4.


A Stroll from Mum's to Joe's.
This is the type of thing I like! I was walking to Joe's, from Mum's place, (as you do, since they won't give you access to a car that early on in the game), just after I arrived in Empire Bay, Mafia 2. You see a couple having car trouble. I thought nothing of it, I tried to talk to them, but then I saw a guy down an alley and decided to push him, lure him to the other side of a car parked in the corner of the alley, so that the police couldn't see me knock the stuffing out of him to get his money. (Only there was no money).


Don't Call the AA or RAC!
Later, my son noticed that you can fix your none-starting engine, by going to the front of the car and pressing the blue 'X' button on xBox. I'd had several engine failures due to high speed front end collisions and crashes. I should have been paying more attention! Not to the road, but to the hint the developers gave right at the start, by showing the man fixing his car at the road-side! I should have been paying more attention!

Fuel Rationing.
I love that Mafia 2 mission of delivering the Gas-Stamps to the gas stations by midnight, because the stamps are due to expire in a days time. This is really a logical mission, fits in with fuel politics of fuel rationing. In one of my idea's, I had a fuel embargo, where you are running black market fuel operations, buying it cheap and storing it illegally, undercover, at one of your warehouses.

Taunt Me, Tease Me!
I love the 'Taunt' during fisty-cuffs. You don't get told about it at first and that was really great to just discover this little secret. (Press the Blue 'X' on xBox 360 during a fist-fight). Although, whether or not it actually gives any benefit in Mafia 2 is doubtful. It is an idea taken from Scarface. The World is Yours!

Scarface, the World is Jaws!
If you've played it, you'll know that when you fire a gun, injuring or killing your enemies, you can taunt them in between attacks and this builds your 'balls-level' on your balls meter. When your balls meter is full, you can go into a blind rage, where your adrenalin is high, thus slowing time. In slow-motion, you can more easily and quickly target and kill your enemies in multiples.

Got Enough Balls?
In Scarface, you even gained 'balls-points' for doing dangerous things like driving head on toward oncoming traffic. 'Near-misses', would rack-up balls points very quickly. It was often the best strategy to fill your balls-points-meter before a mission, gaining them on the way, whilst driving to the mission!

True to Life!
People often become cocky when they constantly get away with doing something dangerous or risky. This leads to them appearing to the rest of us, as being brave or clever, when in actuality they are just fooling themselves. The law of averages will one-day, kick-in with ferocity. You see this with people gambling.

Winning Streak!
Gamblers have a winning streak, (gaining balls), and eventually have a big loss, then end up loosing everything, trying to win it all back. Many times in Scarface, I've run into a gun-fight with my balls meter full and ended up getting clipped before I have decided to use it. It gives you this 'false-sense-of-security', so acting all-hard-like, you go in with guns blazing!

A Find Friend.
A Friend of mine, when driving, often used to undertake other cars and use the bus-lane illegally, without ever getting caught, or so he thought. He was gaining balls! Using his deceased fathers car for two years, registered at his fathers old address. Little did he realize, that CCTV cameras were recording and issuing tickets, till one day it all caught up with him. He ended up in prison for false declaration of motor vehicle details and thousands in unpaid fines! (His balls are now in prison)!


Explore and Discover! 
The great thing about the bonnet (blue 'X' on 360) - engine start thing; and the fist fight, blue button taunt thing, (even perhaps the triggers-engine-start thing in GTA), is that you were not told about them in the game manual! You have to discover them for yourself! You had better watch out, if I can ever get a game built, because I'd have lots of this kind of stuff. I'm not going to mention my ideas here, because they are like game secrets that I intend to incorporate.

Walk Through.
No-doubt some-people cannot resist using walk-through's. I ask you, what's the point, you are missing out on the fun and frustration side or exploring and discovering everything for yourself. I never use those walk through's until I've played the game at least once (and ofter three times), on my own, because they spoil the exploration side of the game for me.

Sneaker!
I particularly enjoyed the stealth missions in Mafia 2, like where you sneak around in the mission where you steal the gas-stamps in Mafia 2. This was done before in GTA-SA with CJ's burglary missions, Metal-Gear-Solid did it best. But another Solid Snake hand-me-down, is moving, dragging and hiding of bodies to avoid detection in Mafia 2. I have many ideas for kidnap missions, warehouse and business premises robberies, using stealth to kill or knock-out, hod-tie and gag, drag and or carry bodies.

See all of the great gangster films and horror films for ideas to make someone disappear!

• Give them some concrete shoes (dead or alive) and drop them off the pier! 
• Stash bodies (dead), in skips and bins.
• Stuff bodies, (dead or alive), in the trunk of a car for disposal in the car crusher! 
• Dig a hole and bury them (dead or alive), or drop them into cement foundations and fill with concrete. 
• Brick then up in walls (dead or alive).
• Stuff bodies, (dead or alive), in the trunk of a car and drive it into deep water, a dock or the sea!
• Get someone drunk, knock them out, soak them with alcohol, put them in a car, (up to four people at once) and push it into a dock like they have had an accident!
• Get someone drunk, knock them out, soak them with alcohol, put them in a car, (up to four people at once) and set it alight!
• Put dead bodies under other bodies in sealed-casket burials, when you own the funeral parlor business.
• Dispose of bodies in the hospital incinerator, the crematorium, the meat and pie factory, etc. 

The possibilities are endless!

I feel I must point out.
This is not my sick mind at work, these ideas are just taken from films I've seen on TV in the last year. Its not as though this is some-kind of unknown shocking activity.
Don't forget these are adult gangster games!.


Hog-Tie!
I think the ability to 'hog-tie anyone', from GTH, is fun and could be very useful in any future GTA style game and should definitely be used. You should be able to transport up to three people in the boot of your car when they are hog-tied. Great fun and I have many mission ideas for later!

Dockland.
I love the dockland area's both in GTA4 and in Mafia 2. The types of jobs people are working at are logical to some extent. In my version of a GTA style of game, you would see people doing the jobs and actually witness progress. In Mafia 2, you don't really see this, you can see guys endlessly hammering nails into the same place on a crate, or carrying boxes to nowhere! Whats that about?

How it should be!
So, whats my answer? I don't know technically how to make what follows work, but I know someone must know how to make this work! ... When you see people working at a job, they will actually produce something that will add to a stockpile. Or, if loading a vehicle, the vehicle will actually fill up and move off, then another will take its place. You would always have the option to put goods into an empty container for export and various companies would earn money for being a part of the chain.

Example Business; The Pallet Co. 
The pallet company buys in raw materials of wood 2-by-4's and planks that get delivered to the docks via ship. You arrange the delivery, via one of three transport and haulage companies, (that you can also own), you make the pallets at your factory, that can be sold to other factories that produce other stuff that need to be stacked on a pallet. You also can export any excess produce by filling a container and getting it delivered to the docks.

GTH - Crate Worker.
In Red Dead Redemption, (a game I call Grand Theft Horse-O), there is a chap working at the Las Hermanas train and stage coach station, who opens a crate with a crow-bar, counts the stock inside, (perhaps these could be boxes of shoes from your factory or cigars you've imported), then he puts the lid back on and hammers nails back in to seal the crate!

Just the Ticket!
This is another perfect example of what I mean about working and jobs. You see those guys with the clip-boards in GTA4, this is what they should be doing!

VIDEO of GTH Crate Opener!


If it is a job that you can work at in my version of the game, then this is an opportune time to collect hidden drugs shipments. Perhaps a shoe-box of cocaine!

You've got the list, check it twice!
Obviously, you would make sure that the crate was full. If not, this could spark-off another mission to do with being short-changed, when receiving raw-materials of goods or stock you've purchased.

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Spray-Bay.
In Mafia 2, I love the paint shop for re-spraying your cars. This is where GTA fell short. OK, they did get the time-frame right! In Mafia 2, there is no effective way to measure the passage of time, so I suppose spraying your car and it being almost instant, is acceptable. In GTA4, three hours pass when you get the car re-sprayed. That's good and actually about the right time-frame for a quick re-spray. I know, because I used to spray cars for real, at my brothers garage.

Spray that Again Please!
Where GTA falls flat on its face is that you have to drive in and out of the spray-bay, over and over, to get the color you want, each time, advancing the clock by three hours. That is really stupid! Mafia 2, nearly got it perfect. You should have time measured in minutes and hours like in GTA and you should be able to select your color before using the spray-bay.

OK, enough for now, this post is much longer than I expected, but I needed to say most of what is on my mind. There are lots of positives in Mafia 2 that GTA should have had, like the lock-picking and fixing your engine when it won't start, or the running out of fuel in a car. We will get there one day, when the games designers or someone like me, actually make a game that composes all of the best of the logical activities from the top GTA style games.


Niko 'Mafia-Mobster-Boss' Corleone-Bellic.

TAGS: Niko-Mafia-Mobster-Boss-Corleone, Spray-Bay, Mafia 2, Scarface, Mafia, GTA My Way, GTA4, NewGTAgame, New GTA Game, Lift and Carry Jobs, Crate Opener Job,

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