mafia-2 posts

We are watching the Scream Awards on Spike tonight. It must be fun to go to an award ceremony and not have to worry about dressing up in a tuxedo.

• Aspyr has announced it will publish the Mac version of Civilization V sometime this holiday season.
• The StarCraft II web site has posted up a new short story, Marauder.
• Blizzard has selected the pro players who will play in the StarCraft II Invitational Tournament at BlizzCon this weekend.
• New Steam bug fix updates have been released for Power of Defense, The Polynomial, Team Fortress 2, Mafia 2, and Left 4 Dead 2.
• The Elemental web site has a new 1.1 dev update.
• Check out the underwater city of Rapture in Minecraft.

Before Mafia II was released, various retailers like Amazon.com, Best Buy and GameStop offered downloadable in-game extras if they pre-ordered the open world action game before it shipped to stores. Now that the 2K Games title is out, all of those pre-order extras are available for anyone to purchase and download via Steam.

There are four DLC packs to purchase for $2.99 each. They include the Vegas Pack, the War Hero Pack, the Renegade Pack and the Greaser Pack. All of them add two new cars each to the game along with some player character outfits. You can read detailed descriptions of all four packs after the jump:

The team at developer 2K Czech continues to work hard on extra content for its recently released open world action game Mafia II. Toda publisher 2K Games announced plans to release Joe's Adventures, the latest DLC for the game (second for the PC and third overall).

The DLC, which doesn't have a release date or price yet, will have the player control Joe Barbaro, the best friend of Mafia II's main character Vito Scaletta. The player will explore new areas in Empire City in the DLC (including a "cathouse"; hide the kids) along with new clothing and collectibles and more classic 1940's and 1950's songs. While there will be a storyline for the DLC (Joe finds out the real reason behind Vito's prison sentence) there will also be some optional quests with arcade-like gameplay.

Even though the Labor Day holiday is over everyone still seems to be recovering from PAX Prime 2010. And we have the Tokyo Game Show coming up next week which, while its mostly about console games, could yield a few game announcements as well.

• The historical RTS game Theatre of War 2: Korea from 1C Company is now titled Theatre of War 3: Korea. We don't know why.
• A new Garry's Mod update is now available via Steam.
• Speaking of which, you can check out what Garry of Garry's Mod thinks about Mafia II.
• And speaking of which you can now purchase the original Mafia from Steam for $9.99.
• You can also get the acclaimed indie game VVVVVV from Steam for both PC and Mac with a 10 percent discount to $4.49.
• Want to play older Direct Draw games like the old Wing Commander titles in Windows 7? This man has a solution.
• Could South Korea ban access to all games that don't get a rating from the government? Maybe.
• Check out this podcast recording of the PAX Prime 2010 panel The Five Wonders of PC Gaming.

For some reason this week brings three major downloadable mini-expansions for three big PC games, including two RPG titles and the first DLC for a long awaited action game.

Mafia 2: Jimmy's Vendetta: The first of what will likely be many DLC expansions for 2K Czech's just released open world action game will cost $9.99 when it's released on September 7. You get to play "clean up" man Jimmy in a series of missions (over 30, in fact) that will show just how much you can do in terms of assassination and blowing lots of stuff up in the game.

Classic car enthusiasts and mob movie lovers have a lot to enjoy in Mafia II. The game puts players in the role of Vito Scaletta, an American immigrant aiming to become a "Made Man" in the fictional city of Empire Bay, which draws heavy inspiration from New York City. The game covers a time span between the 1940s and 1950s, and players watch the world change over from a WWII-era look to a brighter and livelier post-war attitude. Gameplay has a lot in common with Grand Theft Auto IV, which includes the option to steal a variety of cars, outrun the police, and shoot up everything that gets in the way. However, dwelling on those similarities does Mafia II a great injustice. If you look past the often-done gameplay and seemingly cliche plot, there's a very enjoyable action game to be found beneath it.

Download the Mafia II demo
Check out all Mafia II downloads

Even though Mafia 2 is supposedly not selling up to expectations, the team at developer 2K Czech are keeping their promise to release downloadable mini-expansions for the open world crime action game. Today it was announced that Jimmy's Vendetta, the first such DLC for the PC port, will be released on Tuesday, September 7 for $9.99.

The DLC features players controlling Jimmy, another character in the game who apparently is "the guy the other guys call when they need to finish the job." Jimmy takes part in over 30 new missions in the DLC which include "assassination and timed vehicle pursuits". You will also be able to rack up points, combos and multipliers for "precision-timed vehicular power slides, lofty jumps, and supercharged velocity."

[Via email press release]

Mafia 2 is by far one of the most anticipated games of the fall/holiday 2010 buying season for PC games and publisher 2K Games has gone all out to let people know about the sequel to the 2002 open world crime action game. But for all the pre-release hype and attention, a financial analyst believes it's been all for nothing in terms of making money for 2K Games' parent company Take Two Interactive.

According to IndustryGamers, Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter believes that the game's mixed reviews has hurt Mafia 2's sales changes. Also, according to Pachter, "consumer interest appears to be waning, as the game's position has dropped in many best-seller lists in its first week." Pachter believes that those factors will make the game "unlikely to achieve profitability" for Take Two.

The virtual thrill of organized crime was on the minds of Steam users last week. The launch of the long-in-development open world crime action game sequel Mafia 2 from publisher 2K Games took the top spot in the latest list of Steam's top 10 PC games sales list. The Digital Deluxe version of the same game was in the number four position.

Also launched last week was Worms: Reloaded, the turn-based strategy game from developer Team17. It snagged the number two slot on the Steam sales list, followed by the RPG Mount and Blade Warband at number three which benefited from a deep sales cut this weekend. The full list is below:

1. Mafia II - 2K Czeck/2K Games
2. Worms Reloaded - Team17
3. Mount and Blade Warband - Taleworlds/Paradox Interactive
4. Mafia II Digital Deluxe Edition - 2K Czeck/2K Games
5. Battlefield Bad Company 2 - Digital Illusions/EA
6. Pain Sight - Beatnik Games
7. Modern Warfare 2 - Infinity Ward/Activision
8. Left 4 Dead 2 - Valve
9. Counter-Strike Source - Valve
10. Modern Warfare 2 Resurgence Map Pack - Infinity Ward/Activision

Lots of you don't bother with buying desktops from places like Alienware or HP. You would rather build your own PC gaming rigs. Well if you are in the market for a new Nvida graphics card you are in luck as the company has a new promotion that's giving you a new game for free. That game is the just released open world action title Mafia 2.

For an unspecified limited time, if you purchase a graphics card based on Nvidia's GeForce GTX 465, 470 or 480 graphics chip from select retailers you will get a download code that gets you a free copy of the $50 title from 2K Games. Nvidia has already promoted the use of its 3D Vision and its PhysX game physics tech in Mafia 2.

[Via Blue's News]

Download Mafia II Demo (941 MB)