Mafia 3's opening segments along with a few other moments are among the best you'll encounter in the last couple of years. However the rest of the game is thoroughly disappointing.

Some genuinely shocking and awfully blunt deaths took me a few minutes to recover from due to some great character development. You're a man with revenge on his mind – not the boring and expected kind of retribution but the kind brought on by an oppressive world, lambasted by ignorant fools and abhorrent racists. The way the narrative unfolds is different, gunning for a documentary style which runs parallel to the brutal acts when you're in control. It's in no way perfect, there are some quirks in the control system that let it down and many of the missions follow a very similar formula.

The year is 1968 and racial tensions are high in America. The 60's were a vibrant, culturally rich time and Mafia 3 captures the southern soul of a Lousiana-inspired city fantastically well. You play as Lincoln Clay, a former special forces soldier who has returned from Vietnam to a very different world, trying to find his place in a family he left behind. He wants to escape the life he had before the war, and heads back home to New Bordeaux to let the man who adopted him as a child know his plans. Unfortunately, that man is one Sammy Robinson, the head of New Bordeaux's black mob and his surrogate father. Before he gets a chance to tell him, everything goes to havoc with a rival Haitian gang causing Lincoln to get involved, affecting fellow mob boss, Sal Marcano. I won't say anymore because it's at this point that things start to get interesting, especially when one of The Rolling Stones' classics kicks in and chaos unfolds.

Through lavishing cutscenes and action, the developers at 2K's Hangar 13 convey the dilemma of a good man fighting against a corrupt system and trying not to become evil while doing deeds of great violence that are necessary to bring down that system. It is an epic story with great characters and narration. The beginning is masterful thanks to flashbacks and flash forwards that show the gravity of the story that is well-crafted along with great voice acting and superbly detailed facial rendering. From subtle context to a character's brow to the natural movement of the way their tongue moves, Mafia 3 has some of the most convincing facial animation in the video game industry, riding a great distance to sell its story as real and authentic.

Unfortunately, as you traverse its open world, you'll realize that while as a sandbox there's plenty to do, more often you don't want to do anything at all. Rather than continuing as a compelling story-driven adventure, it becomes a third person shooter that relies on series of repetitive tasks. A game that with so much promise that collapses under the weight of its own ambition. 

Its core mechanics wants Lincoln to take over the rackets that are littered across multiple districts in New Bordeaux, in an effort to shut Sal Marcano's empire from the bottom up. With every low level mob member you kill, each supply stash you rob, and every shipment of contraband you destroy, you do financial damage to Mafia's organization. Each district in the city varies in its kind of crime it hosts. But the mission themselves remains the exact same folks. You're either killing goons or recruiting them to boost kickback, destroying stashes and robbing money. 

And hence you shoot, sneak, and drive your way around countless regions across the city. The city thrives on its rich colors, from skyscrapers of Downtown to the swampy heat-haze of the Bayou in the south of the map. Depending on the part of the city, committing crimes like breaking into another's vehicle, trespassing unwanted territory or killing any mob in the open will get you in trouble with cops and they'll turn up in great numbers – especially if the region is mostly occupied by white people. 

The issue is that mission scenarios aren't particularly organic. It is backdated as there's none of the open world structure present in games like GTA V or MGS V: Phantom Pain. Rather than taking the time to craft individual missions that plays on the game's strengths – its story, characters and script – Mafia 3 instead insists you take those exact 4 or 5 objectives again and again. And these objectives sometimes can take mere seconds to complete which is just ridiculous. Once you've dealt severe collateral damage to draw out the district leader, everything is simple and down to earth. You pay him a visit, shoot his guys, kill him with exact same cutscene every time. After which you take that district for yourself and hand over to one of your 3 underbosses namely Cassendra, leader of the Haitain gang, Burke, Irish boss and our protagonist from Mafia 2, Vito Scalleta. 

Gunplay feels solid and there's a wonderful sensation in pulling off headshots, with blood splatter that reeks of eerily violent vibe. The walls, floors and everything get coated with crimson throughout each gunfight and brutal takedowns. Car chases and vehicle takedowns sometimes feel grotesquely satisfying other than the braindead police AI chasing you forever. There's a lot to take in while cruising your muscle car through the city's various districts to see ambience and lights. 

There is also a host of technical issues on both PS4 and PC – the latter of which doesn't perform nearly as well as it should even of powerful GPU. 

All in all, Mafia 3 is a structurally derivative and filled with dated game design. Avoid this one if you can.