Beaten: Mafia The Old Country (PS5)

Like many other gamers, the news of Grand Theft Auto VI being delayed until next year was not unexpected but still disappointing. Many of us surely looked at other upcoming releases for comfort, and I found the release of Mafia: The Old Country as a definite substitute for that kind of fun.

However, Mafia: The Old Country is like Mafia: The Definitive Edition, a linear game taking place in an open world. Completing each mission starts the next one, rather than the player having a list of quests or missions to do in the meantime. Sure, you can veer off the main path sometimes, but the story was so good I only touched on that part once, to make a side trip to the vendor of cars and horses.

Taking place in early 1900s Sicily, which is The Old Country, the player escapes slavery in a copper mine owned by one family and is taken in by their another family. Working your way up from stable hand to enforcer, the third-person action and gunplay is pretty standard. Boss fights, though, are always knife fights for some reason. The knife-fighting is fun enough, but grew tiresome by the game's end. The last two boss fights I tried button mashing, and it worked. 

Since it is the early 1900s, vehicles come in two types: horses and cars. I have to say that these cars are the oldest I've driven in a videogame, and they were classy, long autos with challenging handling. Both horses and cars can be purchased and upgraded, I think, from that one vendor down the road.

Getting back to the story, it was a pretty good adventure. However, knowing it's a Mafia story, I was expecting a tragic ending all along, and was not disappointed in that regard. All the characters are well-written and even the minor ones show unique personalities, adding to the depth of the story. I knew not to get attached to them, though, as life in that time and era were tough.

The graphics are gorgeous, as expected, and a version of Mt. Etna is in the background, sometimes rumbling, but for the final boss fight, it put on a nice, historically-inaccurate eruption. I've loved all the Mafia games so far, but this one is the best. A future patch promises to do more with the open world, but the main game, with its setting and story, was enough for me.

Beaten: Heretic (Series)

They are remastering many classic 1990s first person shooters these days and I am here for it. I’ve recently enjoyed Powerslave: Exhumed and Quake, but one series I had no hope of seeing redone has finally emerged with the complete series in one collection, with new add-on levels as well. Heretic + Hexen was a surprise announcement a few weeks ago with an immediate release at a low price. For me, it appeared on XBox's Super Elite Platinum Plus Game Pass thing, so it was there as a part of my subscription.

I had only played the spin-off game Hexen previously, on a great Nintendo 64 version, but I found it pretty cool and will eventually go back and beat it too. But first was Heretic, because I like to play series of games in order if I can. In essence, Heretic is a re-skinned Doom game, using a modified version of the Doom engine, that plays like Doom with a few exceptions. 

There is now an inventory and items that can be used at will, rather than as it was in Doom where the item activated once you picked it up. They were fun to use and added another strategic dimension to the whole thing, where I would hoard them and then use them in a panic as needed. 

Just like Doom, there are secret areas to be found, and the game totals your kills and the percentage of secrets you found at the end. The magic weapons are fun to explore, and like Doom, get better and more powerful as you go. Ammo is not unreasonably tight in supply but shortages can happen if one relies on one particular weapon too much, as I did the green crossbow.

It was long enough to be fun but short enough not to wear out its welcome, so I will definitely be back to beat Hexen sooner rather than later. With all these remakes of 1990s first person classics, won't somebody remake Redneck Rampage? I only got to play a few minutes of it back in the day so I'd appreciate an update of that one too, if any game companies or their AIs are listening.

Snapshot: How Far We’ve Come