Mafia 3 Notebook and Desktop Benchmarks

For the original German article, see here.

Graphics

“Are you serious?” This was our first question in terms of the graphics after we had launched the ambitious gangster game. A second look at the settings confirmed that “Mafia 3” looks quite outdated even at the highest details.

While the cutscenes actually have a high-quality and convince with very detailed character models, atmospheric environments and good lighting, the real gaming graphics are far behind what is currently possible. Many textures look muddy even on High settings, which is particularly noticeable when you walk around.

The rest of the graphics also remind us of a game from 2010. Weak effects here, clipping errors and pop-ups or flickering objects there: The PC version of “Mafia 3” does not leave a very sophisticated impression.

The developers also deserve criticism for the distance presentation. The drawing distance is okay, but distant objects lack details and there is a strong soft focus. That surface shaders are loaded and removed based on the camera angle, which is also annoying. However, the biggest issue was the initial 30 FPS limit, but it can be deactivated with the patch.

Speaking of settings: There are currently exactly 16 settings in the graphics menu, which can be changed without a restart. Besides the usual suspects such as the resolution, brightness, picture mode and VSync (avoids line shifting), you will also find three presets, which adjust various detail features. You can also adjust everything manually by setting the quality to  “Custom”. Inexperienced users can also let “Mafia 3” decide for itself via  “Optimal”.

But you should be careful: We would not use the video menu outside of the game. Some options are missing here, and the changes are not always applied reliably, so you still have to use the in-game settings. The PC version would require a few weeks or even months of fine tuning in general. The game often crashes or freezes during loading and when you adjust settings. In short: Compared to the predecessor, “Mafia 3” does not have a good start.

So what about the gameplay of the GTA V competitor? After we played the game for a few hours and finished several story missions, the verdict is mainly positive. Even though the gameplay is not the best and the missions are supposed to be repetitive after a while, the game is quite enjoyable except for the technical issues. The shootings with the somewhat usable AI work pretty well, thanks to the decent controls.

It is also possible to finish many missions almost non-violently. Even though the sneaking mechanics are not quite as comprehensive and pretty rudimentary compared to  “real” stealth games such as “Thief” or “Splinter Cell”, we did like the slightly pacifistic action (you are still a gangster after all).

The driving scenes are pretty good as well. If you ignore the slightly awkward collision model, there is not much to criticize. Driving physics are on par with other open-world games (“Watch Dogs” or “Mad Max”, for example).

We think the biggest highlight is the scenario in the late 60s, which has not been used very often before. “Mafia 3” is great when it comes to speakers, character building, soundtrack and the stylistic implementation in general. The cut scenes in particular feature perfectly adjusted music. We already know from this genre that there are radio stations for almost every taste. We can only hope that “Mafia 3” will be able to keep up the dense narrative structure of the first couple of hours, where you are confronted with a lot of story and cleverly implemented time jumps.