Six months after release, the first of three expansions for Mafia III has arrived. It promises a new fast and furious adventure for Lincoln Clay, but it wraps up a little too fast.
Mafia 3 isn’t the first game to do this, but it’s a much-appreciated feature that should become standard across the board. However, despite loving the setting in terms of the story, the open world of Mafia 3 definitely feels a bit barren because there isn't that much to do. Mafia III: Definitive Edition. All Discussions Screenshots Broadcasts Videos News Guides Reviews. Nothing unusual but without fast travel its a chore on top of it. Mafia III may have been out since October. Without a Fast Travel system, this in itself can be an arduous task, but if you assign your first district to Vito, you can upgrade his Consigliere.
Faster, Baby!takes place somewhere during Lincoln Clay’s crusade against Sal Marcano in the main game. It does not reference any events in particular, presumably with the intent that the expansion can be played at any point of the game without contradictions. It follows Lincoln Clay as he deals with a horribly racist and corrupt police force in Sinclair Parish, a district newly added for the expansion.
Joining him for the majority of the expansion is the charismatic Roxy Laveau. She is a perfect companion for Lincoln, as she is just as willing to leap into danger and pursue revenge. I enjoyed her interactions with Lincoln. They had great chemistry and a liveliness to their conversations that are lacking in a lot of the dialogue in the main game. I think it is a shame she will probably only appear in this one expansion.
When the expansion was announced, based on the brief description and one piece of art, I was afraid that it would focus on some form of racing. The driving in Mafia III is lacking, as it is in most of the open-world genre, and lacks the finesse needed for racing. Instead, the expansion focuses on car chases and rampages that encourage recklessness. The base game had a few mechanics that supported chase scenarios, but never really took advantage of them in the story. An update that accompanied the expansion added the ability to drop and throw explosives while driving, pressure mines that are perfect for a chase, and a slow-mo ability that makes shooting easier and look cooler.
Faster, Baby! presents situations that make these new abilities useful and fun. I enjoyed tearing through Sinclair Parish without a care in the world, as enemy vehicles made a futile effort to stop me before they inevitably blew up, flipped over, or lost their back tires. There are several areas where ramps are strategically placed to send Lincoln’s car soaring through the air, triggering a slow-mo cut to show him pulling off some cool stunt. Once, an enemy vehicle followed me onto one of those ramps, and I watched as he slowly flipped over and ate dirt while I landed perfectly and sped away. It was obviously something that should not have happened, but I am so glad it did.
That sounds incredibly fun right? It is, but it’s done and over in a flash. I finished every single mission in a little over three hours, but at least an hour of that was basic Mafia III objectives. There are three story missions that make up the bulk of the expansion, and then it lapses back into the main game’s formula of talking to a bland NPC character to get a mission that boils down to shooting stuff. One objective has some places where a car can navigate easily and make jumps, but I only used that space to make a flashy entrance.
Another feature is added to the expansion that ties into Lincoln’s takeover of New Bordeaux’s criminal underworld. A marijuana growing operation opens up, that allows Lincoln to distribute weed and make a substantial profit. Unlike the other operations in the game, Lincoln runs this himself, so an interactive element is added. It’s just a simple minigame that is presented through a series of menus, but weed can be grown and sold to owned districts. There are several default strains of weed that can be mixed into custom strains that have unique stats. The wants of districts will fluctuate, so to rake in maximum profit, Lincoln must take that into account.
I was surprised at seeing this included. I had not expected a unique mechanic to be introduced into the game. There are a couple of problems with it, however. First off, in order to manage everything, Lincoln has to go to the lab. The fact the game still has no form of fast travel, this results in a lot of travel time. The weed actually takes time to grow, so frequent visits are required. And here is the second problem: I have no reason to use this at all. I am done with the main game, as are the majority of the people who would purchase and play this expansion. Not only do I not have anything I need to purchase now, I already had a ton of cash and a steady income that I hardly used. This feature seems much more useful to someone who decides to play this expansion towards the beginning of the game. It is not useful to me at all, and it is too time consuming for it to be the one thing I do in the game. Maybe I will dabble with it some more when the other expansions have released, but I highly doubt that I will utilize it to its full potential.
The Verdict: 6.0 out of 10.
I enjoyed Mafia III a whole lot more than I thought I would. It did have repetitive objectives, but I found the core combat to be fun enough to carry most of the game. Faster, Baby! plays with those mechanics in new and exciting ways, but ditches them quickly in favor of more of basic Mafia III. With a price tag of $15, I cannot recommend the expansion. Even if it drops in price, I think the expansion squanders its potential to be something great.
Riley Berry is an Associate Writer for MONG who has a need for fast and furious speed. You can follow him on Twitter.
The Mafia series has seen multiple hiatuses between games, with eight years between the first two and six between the second and third. It has now been four years since the third entry, but 2K Games is set to remake the first game as part of a new release known as Mafia Trilogy. While that version is not out for a few more months, they recently released the remastered Mafia II along with including the already existing Mafia III that is now known in the collection as Mafia III: Definitive Edition.
When Mafia III was originally released, there was certainly some controversy about the change in setting. While the prior two games had the traditional Italian mafia akin to Scarface and The Sopranos, Mafia III was taking a different route by having an African American protagonist that is not part of the traditional mob seen in the first few games. Instead, Lincoln Clay is a soldier that has just returned back to the fictional New Bordeaux that is based on New Orleans from Vietnam and agrees to help some family and friends with the Haitian mob that have come knocking. Soon after he tries to work out a debt to the Italian mafia that his surrogate father has accrued. This ends up going very poorly and leaves Lincoln wanting revenge against mob boss Sal Marcano and his mafia family. This leads Lincoln to having to gather a unique crew of different partners to help take them down, which is the central focus for most of the game.
The story is largely carried by the incredibly captivating Lincoln Clay and the other characters around him, with a solid story surrounding them. Mafia III: Definitive Edition was not afraid to tackle much more intense and dark themes than in the past, which still holds up well now four years later from the original release. While it is definitely a different style than the first couple games, the story is very much worth experiencing here and may be the best of the trilogy in that area.
Where Mafia III suffers most though is the very unoriginal game structure as you play through Lincoln’s story in a once again large sandbox open world experience. The original city of New Bordeaux this time around is larger than both of the first two games combined, but that kind of is a hindrance in some ways as you’re consistently having to drive across the map for new missions. New Bordeaux itself is split up into nine different districts across nine chapters, each of which have a story mission that is split up for you to complete. The repetitive nature of these missions though is where the game really struggles.
Within each district, you have to take over both of the rackets that are found in that location. Once you have successfully done this, a third mission within the chapter will open where you have to take out the person in charge of that district. There is a little more to do in the later chapters, but the biggest problem is that the structure is especially tedious and will have you growing tired of everything in no time. This feels like a course correction from the emptier world found in the previous games, though they may have gone a bit too far in the other direction.
On the plus side, Mafia III does introduce side missions this time around, a major flaw of the previous game. While not available right away, you’ll eventually get access to side missions that branch off from the main story. These include things such as helping out the underbosses by completing tasks for them to gain favor. While they aren’t that most involved overall, they are better than having nothing extra to do like in Mafia II.
The gameplay itself is really nothing to write home about either, albeit a little more refined here. One of the somewhat frustrating elements of the previous game was that you had to press A to leave cover every time, but now you can move much more freely when trying to move between cover or be stealthy. You have the option to adjust aim assist to the level you prefer, which can make the game a bit too easy. There are plenty of guns to choose from here though, with the ability to set them to a wheel and choose between them.
Compared to its predecessors, Mafia III has a major edge in the visuals department. The recent Mafia II: Definitive Edition was definitely more polished visually, but there is still no real comparison between it and Mafia III. Mafia III: Definitive Edition looks great all around, with the character models and environments looking much more realistic. The performance on Xbox One was pretty solid most of the time, with some slowdown here and there when too much was happening on screen. Thankfully, the character movement in general felt much more natural than in the prior games.
While Mafia III: Definitive Edition is literally supposed to be the same game with a new name and all DLC included, somehow Hangar 13 completely messed up one aspect of this game in the included update. Mafia III was given Xbox One X and PS4 Pro support after the release of the game, which added HDR and 4K support to the game to make it look even better. In what is a baffling mistake, somehow this latest update has completely removed this support, now giving you no way to use 4K on consoles. This is something that absolutely has to be patched in, but there is no way it should have ever happened in the first place, especially when this was a free “upgrade” for those that already owned the game.
Mafia as a series has always had a great soundtrack to match the time period, but Mafia III takes this to another level entirely. With the game being set in the late ’60s, the music was ripe for the picking from the era and Hangar 13 did not disappoint. These include songs from artists such as The Rolling Stones, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Johnny Cash, as the game offers over 100 different songs in total. The stellar soundtrack will constantly have you taking longer routes in your vehicle just to finish an entire song, which at least somewhat helps the fact that the game lacks fast travel.
Mafia 3 First Person Mod
Mafia III: Definitive Edition somehow managed to improve in one way by including all of the prior DLC, while also taking multiple steps backwards by somehow removing support for Xbox One X, even as a mistake. The story of Lincoln Clay is still enthralling and handles some very dark themes quite well, but the lifeless open world structure found in Mafia III: Definitive Edition really hinders what could have been the best game in the trilogy.
The Verdict
Mafia Iii Fast Travel
While not anywhere near as glitch ridden as the Mafia II remaster, Mafia III: Definitive Edition adds nothing more than the previously released DLC along with the very strange removal of Xbox One X support that was added to the original release after launch. Lincoln Clay’s story is still well worth experiencing a first time, but there is no real reason to venture back to New Bordeaux with this latest release as part of the Mafia Trilogy.
GAME DEALSGet Twitch Prime For Free Right Now and get in-game items, rewards, and free gamesMafia III: Definitive Edition
- Available On: Xbox One, PS4, PC
- Published By: 2K Games
- Developed By: Hangar 13
- Genre: Action-adventure
- US Release Date: May 19, 2020
- Reviewed On: Xbox One
- Quote: 'While not anywhere near as glitch ridden as the Mafia II remaster, Mafia III: Definitive Edition adds nothing more than the previously released DLC along with the very strange removal of Xbox One X support that was added to the original release after launch. Lincoln Clay's story is well worth experiencing a first time, but there is no real reason to venture back to New Bordeaux with this latest release as part of the Mafia Trilogy.'
