Video Game Review: Mafia III Rivals - You are the Boss

Developer CAT DADDY GAMES
Publisher 2K
Genre RPG
Game modes Single Player
Players 1

Constantine104

Published October 21, 2016

I generally try and stay as far away from the hype train as I can, nothing good ever comes from letting yourself get swept up.

I’m always reminded of a quote by Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory “A mind that’s been blown can never be unblown” and no truer quote regarding hype, especially in the gaming community, has ever been spoken.Now as I’ve said I’m usually quite good at turning a blind eye to the hype but when it came to Mafia III I found it exceedingly hard to not let myself get even just slightly swept up.

It felt like I couldn’t watch a video on YouTube without hearing THAT song, THAT song that sent shivers of excitement down my spine and just screamed “Mafia III is coming – get ready”

But that was Mafia III and this is Mafia III Rivals, the mobile counterpart. Same name, completely different game.

Available on Google Play Store and Apple App Store it’s a free to play, micro-transaction friendly game. And it is just about as entertaining as you’d expect, in other words just not all that entertaining at all.

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not A BAD GAME, in fact, it’s actually rather visually refreshing, decent voice acting, good music and a generally painless gaming experience. It just gets boring really fast.

The gameplay works on a Rock, Paper, Scissor concept, each character is assigned a symbol (in this case Heart trumps Diamond, Diamond trumps Club, Club trumps Spade, and Spade trumps Heart) and your goal is to kill the opposing mob with a mob of your own to progress.

You battle to gain and keep control of New Bordeaux. You need to assemble your crime family, equip them with weapons, items, armor, and vehicles.Takeover local businesses, recruit, and level up the skills of 40 crime bosses from the Mafia III universe.

You also have the option to battle other players around the world to improve your rep and if that’s not enough you can add friends to compete for ranking in the online leaderboards to earn special perks.

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Now if you want to simplify it then the game can be broken up into stages: you have your preparation stage where you choose who you want in your fam, then your customization stage where you make sure your fam is equipped with the right weapons etc, and then you have your prep stage where you can level your fams skills. Then you choose your battle and go into the battle arena.

Unfortunately, it’s this ‘stage system’ that adds to the tediousness of the game, to progress you need to replay the same missions over and over and over again hoping to get all the special loot that drops at random.This loop is only broken by the game itself, each time you do a mission your fam gains a certain amount of ‘heat’ and when you reach 10 heat you can’t play until the timer runs out OR you do microtransactions to get rid of it. The same goes for leveling up your fam, you either have to spend your life farming and praying for drops or pay to win.

You are made to be painfully aware of this the moment you try to play against a real opponent and see just how helpful the micro-transactions truly are.

But as with all games, what it comes down to is taste. What seems dead boring to me might be absolutely wonderful to you.

Now excuse me while I go and check if my fams Heat has died down yet.

I generally try and stay as far away from the hype train as I can, nothing good ever comes from letting yourself get swept up. I'm always reminded of a quote by Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory "A mind that's been blown can never be unblown" and no truer quote regarding hype, especially in the gaming community, has ever been spoken.Now as I've said I'm usually quite good at turning a blind eye to the hype but when it came to Mafia III I found it exceedingly hard to not let myself get even just slightly swept up. It felt like I couldn't watch a video on YouTube without hearing THAT song, THAT song that sent shivers of excitement down my spine and just screamed "Mafia III is coming - get ready" But that was Mafia III and this is Mafia III Rivals, the mobile counterpart. Same name, completely different game. Available on Google Play Store and Apple App Store it's a free to play, micro-transaction friendly game. And it is just about as entertaining as you'd expect, in other words just not all that entertaining at all. Now don't get me wrong, it's not A BAD GAME, in fact, it's actually rather visually refreshing, decent voice acting, good music and a generally painless gaming experience. It just gets boring really fast. The gameplay works on a Rock, Paper, Scissor concept, each character is assigned a symbol (in this case Heart trumps Diamond, Diamond trumps Club, Club trumps Spade, and Spade trumps Heart) and your goal is to kill the opposing mob with a mob of your own to progress. You battle to gain and keep control of New Bordeaux. You need to assemble your crime family, equip them with weapons, items, armor, and vehicles.Takeover local businesses, recruit, and level up the skills of 40 crime bosses from the Mafia III universe. You also have the option to battle other players around the world to improve your rep and if that's not enough you can add friends to compete for ranking in the online leaderboards to earn special perks. Now if you want to simplify it then the game can be broken up into stages: you have your preparation stage where you choose who you want in your fam, then your customization stage where you make sure your fam is equipped with the right weapons etc, and then you have your prep stage where you can level your fams skills. Then you choose your battle and go into the battle arena. Unfortunately, it's this 'stage system' that adds to the tediousness of the game, to progress you need to replay the same missions over and over and over again hoping to get all the special loot that drops at random.This loop is only broken by the game itself, each time you do a mission your fam gains a certain amount of 'heat' and when you reach 10 heat you can't play until the timer runs out OR you do…

Video Game Review: Mafia III Rivals – You are the Boss

2016-10-21

Constantine104

Total - 6

60 6

At the end of the day, you can do a hell of a lot worse than this game, it runs well and it offers enough content and customization to be able to keep you busy for a quite a while.

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Constantine104

Arielle "Constantine104" Pieterse, is a walking, talking, breathing contradiction to the age old insult that girls can't game. Yes she's for at playing The Sims, but she's also pro at other games... Or so she's said. She is a co-host of the NAG podcast and the full-host of a YouTube channel that can be found somewhere on the Internet machine. Her mother is her biggest fan, and her only viewer.

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Article Tags: 2k · 2k games · cat daddy · Constantine104 · mafia · mafia 3 · mafia 3 rivals · mobile

Article Categories: Video Game Review