Helping 2K Debug Mafia II

Mike Rohde, Executive Editor

March 13, 2010

The Executive Editor of GoozerNation says, The 2K Czech Producer stood over my shoulder as I played Mafia II. At one point, I heard him say to his 2K buddy, "I've never seen that happen before..."

Leave it to me to find ways to break a game. All I did was purposely try and cause as much chaos as possible in the 10 square miles of Empire Bay. And much chaos was caused.

We were in San Francisco yesterday, about a block down from GDC, where 2K was hosting the media for some hands-on time with Mafia II; set for release sometime between August and October. Let me start by saying that this game is graphically looking sweet with awesome animation and characters. For those of you who don't know yet, Mafia II takes place in an Eastern-style US city (it's NY or maybe Jersey) in the 40's and 50's. That's right, the game spans two decades. The game has different seasons such as winter and summer. The music, weather and atmosphere all contribute to the open-world aspects of the game. The story focuses on two main characters. One of whom is on leave from the war and the other has connections and friends. We're talkin' the Mob. Needless to say, the soldier never goes back to finish the war.

Now that you've got the background story, I'll tell you how I broke the game. The preview demo that the press was treated to was a toned down, easier version with minimal police interference. Well, I managed to get the police chasing me around almost every corner. Apparently, local law enforcement doesn't appreciate it when you drive on the sidewalk, knockdown light poles, smash through sidewalk cafes, run over pedestrians and shoot people at random. It's the same stuff you can do in other 3rd person open world games but it's still fun and Mafia II executes it well.

Like I said, this was a toned-down version where only one cop at a time is supposed to chase me. Well, by the time the coppers caught up with me, I managed to cause enough damage to the car that the hood was smoking and I could barely get it to move. So, I ditched the car and started gunning for the cop. I pulled off a couple of headshots and disposed of the law rather efficiently. I then stole their car.

Meanwhile, at the table across from me, I see another member of the press playing the game. He was casually driving down the street all calm and peaceful like. He didn't have blood splatters across his screen from having shootouts with the cops. Humph, to each their own I thought as I jumped back into my game.

I manage to wreck the squad car that I stole, so I jacked a parked car and realized I had a mission to complete. I had to find a phone booth to get my directions. I found the phone booth easy enough by using the map located at the bottom right of the screen. The thing is, I couldn't just walk up to the phone booth, that would be too easy. Along the way, I had to see how fist fights work. So, I sucker punched a random guy walking down the street. He didn't like that and decided to fight back. This is when I discovered the first bug. After the dude started clocking me, I couldn't fight back. I couldn't dodge. I couldn't do a light hit or a heavy hit. I was too busy reeling back.

After some time, I eventually stopped reeling back enough to pull out my pistol and shoot the guy. Of course, by now, the police had shown up and I was in the midst of another shootout. After the smoke cleared, I realized the phone booth had been obliterated and I had to find a new one. At this point, I paused the game a moment to talk to the 2k rep. I described what happened and that I couldn't fight back during the fist fight. He said that during the fist fights, if you or the AI reel backwards, then that's the set up for the finishing move. To me though, that's highly frustrating when you can't fight back. I asked if that was a bug. He just kind of looked at me, shrugged his shoulders, and said yeah.

Ok, so I'm back on track with the mission. I get a new car and drive to the destination. For some reason, unbeknownst to me, a cop starts chasing me again. I guess I developed quite a rep in Empire City during my first 20 or so minutes in town. I did try bribing the cops by calling the chief on the phone while in the phone booth, but apparently not all the cops are on the payroll.

Anyway, I decide to ignore the pursuing police and continue on to the destination. The cop didn't like that I wasn't engaging him, so he started ramming my car. I do eventually reach my destination, but my car is smoking, I have a cop on my tail and I wind up crashing into a tree. This is when I get a wonky camera angle and all I can see are tree leaves and bushes. That's when I realize the Producer of Mafia II is standing behind me watching and makes his remarks to his buddy of never having seen that before.

I run for a bit and eventually the camera rights itself. One headshot later (the police were still chasing me) and I'm continuing my way to the mission on foot. I won't spoil the mission itself, but I'll just say it involves Tommy guns, Molotovs and wreckin' the joint. At the end, the other guys that I joined up with want me to follow them to the next destination. The only problem is, I don't have a car. I left it smokin' and rammed into a tree. There were no other cars available. I had to run back to my crippled car and take that to follow the AI to the next part of the mission.

Overall, I'm looking forward to the game.

Watch video clips of the demo that I played.

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