I downloaded the Mafia II demo for both Xbox 360 and PC (via Steam) yesterday and did a few playthroughs on each platform. The PC version is amazingly smooth! 2K Czech is obviously proud of the work they’ve done on their PC engine and they have every right to be. Performance didn’t scale quite as well on the 360 engine; it could definitely use more optimization (which I don’t see happening this close to release date) but it’s not bad by any means.
Graphics are quite good for an open world game; better than GTA4 on probably every point, and make no mistake: GTA4 will be what everyone compares it to. It also has PhysX (only Medium and High settings) which I had never seen fully functional until now. The environmental texture interaction with PhysX was amazing! Start moving and Vito’s jacket would “poof out” slightly from the air catching it, and the corners of his jacket sway in the breeze. With PhysX on, smoke actually reacts to your movement through it whereas with no PhysX it’s a static particle effect. I ended up leaving PhysX disabled because this PC is my first ever with an ATI video card, so PhysX calculations are offloaded to the CPU which caused a performance hit of roughly 20 to 30fps.
Controls were a mixed bag on both platforms. On the 360 the default controls (I did not check to see if controls are changeable) use the Halo “press RB to reload” which I intensely dislike, and the Gears of War “press A to enter/exit cover” which is fine except I’ve been spending so much time in Red Dead Redemption and GTA4 lately that Rockstar’s controls are far more intuitive for me at the moment. On the PC, it may just be that I do the majority of my gaming on the 360 now but it took me awhile to get used to controlling Vito with mouse and keyboard. I have no problems with MMO’s and FPS’ so I am inclined to stand by my opinion that PC developers just don’t “get” third person shooter-style control. Driving was atrocious for me on the PC. I thought I was a poor driver with analog thumbsticks but driving with WASD? No wonder racing games have all but died on the PC, it’s atrocious! I’m sure PC gamers who spend more time with action games that use vehicles would get comfortable with it faster than I did, and a few key re-binds would probably serve me better than the default controls.
Audio is great as well. The story takes place from in the early 1950′s so era-appropriate music plays on the radio stations — Buddy Holly, Elvis, and many more — as well as commentary from the fictional radio stations. On the playthrough I just completed, for example, the DJ was talking about the new invention of the “computer” (quoted because of how the DJ annunciates every time he says the word) as big as a house and eventually scientists hope to make them small enough to fit in a garage. Voice acting is also well-done, and features liberal use of F-bombs as we would expect from an M-rated game focused on the Mafia. My only complaint was the audio engineering. There was a little too much bass on Vito’s voiceovers and the mixing made his voice seem too all-encompassing rather than coming from his location onscreen. As usual, the audio engineer (Do game studios even have audio engineers? Maybe that’s the problem!) didn’t think to adjust the music and other sounds during dialogue, but I can’t think of a single game ever that did this properly off the top of my head so I can’t really fault the guys at 2K Czech for being industry-consistent.
A recent trend in practically every video game genre is collectibles and Mafia II jumps on the bandwagon as well with a number of Playboy magazines (featuring actual centerfolds from the era) all over the city of Empire Bay for Vito to find. The demo includes five magazines, which I have included locations to in my slideshow. Considering how innocent of an era we consider the 50′s to be, it’s almost amusingly disturbing to think that these shop owners leave Playboy magazines on their countertops in plain view of everyone though.
I just may end up buying Mafia II, though probably not for awhile because I’ve already spent quite a bit of time with GTA4 lately, finishing both Niko’s story and The Lost and Damned DLC and my current obsession has been Red Dead Redemption (92.2% completion of all tasks at the time of this writing!) and Crackdown 2 is waiting on me as well, so my plate is a bit full on open world games. Despite the better performance on the PC, I will be getting the 360 version of the game for comfort (RSI on my mouse-using wrist, remember?) and the achievements. Yes, I’m an Achievement Whore, what of it? 
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You got one thing right.. you are a whore. lol
Dude, you need to slow down or I’ll never be able to catch up. Your “Red Dead Redemption (92.2% completion of all tasks at the time of this writing!)” is killing my 12% completion if it’s even that far. lol Don’t forget GW2 is coming and your still suppose to be playing STO with a bunch of us other MMO losers so you can’t be picking up anything new or I’ll never get my achievement score up to yours.
Also, MNC is out today and if its decent, I do expect you to be picking that up.
I liked the demo. I’ll probably pick it up months from now.
I’m never entirely sure when I’ll be on my Xbox, but I’ve got MNC too now and I’m itching to try out the multiplayer. Surprisingly, I prefer the Support to the Sniper so far.
As I Tweeted the other day, I traded in five or six games (including Frontlines) in exchange for four or five others. I was amazed that I got more trade-in value for Battlestations: Pacific than for Dragon Age, but I guess that’s because it’s more rare. Anyway, the games on their way include Orange Box, Bioshock 2, Too Human and Full Auto. The last are mediocre, but I got them for cheap.
Dragon Age is just too slow and bland. I never enjoyed the combat. And what little story I could bear was B-grade cliches (despite the unique race backstories). I’m sure the story improves deeper in, but it’s simply not my kind of game. I love fantasy, but the action-heavy Mass Effect 2 is much more my style.
I think that ATI is the best graphics device…