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No Mafia III Review Copies Ahead of Launch

Bluecondor

Member
Pretty much all of those videos were made or set up by the developer. They're commercials. Don't make purchasing decisions based on marketing, because even a bad game can be shined up in ads.

I guess I can see why you are cynical toward marketing video, but your criticism doesn't apply to Joe's video. They are just playing the game and having a good time while playing it. Nothing about his video has been "shined up" by the developers in any way.
 

Cheever

Member
FYI, I heard there were no advanced copies for the whole game because any reviewer should have the same chance to post a review before the big outlets do. Has anyone bothered to look at what other 2K games have done this already?
 

Corpekata

Banned
FYI, I heard there were no advanced copies for the whole game because any reviewer should have the same chance to post a review before the big outlets do. Has anyone bothered to look at what other 2K games have done this already?

None, and that line sounds like PR nonsense.
 

Trace

Banned
FYI, I heard there were no advanced copies for the whole game because any reviewer should have the same chance to post a review before the big outlets do. Has anyone bothered to look at what other 2K games have done this already?

Bunch of BS. You can give out enough copies to review that you have more than just the "big outlets" reviewing it.
 

Ooccoo

Member
FYI, I heard there were no advanced copies for the whole game because any reviewer should have the same chance to post a review before the big outlets do. Has anyone bothered to look at what other 2K games have done this already?

The game is so good it does not need reviews!
 

DirtyLarry

Member
Been on my GameFly rental queue for almost a year now.
Always been a highly anticipated rental for myself.
It still remains so.
 

bishoptl

Banstick Emeritus
It's fine. And worth your money from what I've played.
Just in side missions OtherJoe and I were having ridiculous amounts of fun, just as in GTAV:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zDnuZ2OUBA

There's a danger of slight repetition when taking down rackets, as you have to cause X amount of monetary damage before a "boss" will come out to end that mission to take over a district but so far all the main line missions have either been pretty entertaining or slow intentionally for atmosphere.

I've no idea why they wouldn't give review copies to the "Big Guys" like IGN and Gamespot, maybe they felt bad since they didnt give them to the smaller outlets and went for parity?
The feeling I get was that it's just 2K being EXTREMELY paranoid and overprotective about Pirated Copies since its a high value triple AAA single player game that 2K has very high hopes for. They had the game on mobile PS4's under 2 layers of lock and key when they were traveling around to various outlets who couldn't make it to their HQ.

Is it as good as GTAV?
I can't tell from only 4 hours played but I can say there's no way this game is "bad" and posting buggy funny gif's is just as easy as with GTAV, so that's no real indicator, hell those things are in our opinion good for the game as it makes for funny videos! (as long as those bugs are infrequent as they seemed to be)
After playing it we felt it was a pretty easy buy in our minds, but can only say for sure after a full review.

I estimate that outlets will give it between 8-9's, maybe one or two 7's on the low end. Im sure the press will dock it for no multiplayer since they will compare it so closely to GTAV.
Cool. Good to hear.
 
Such a strange move since they've been marketing the game a lot but who knows maybe it will be another Doom.

However for those who have it pre-ordered I'd say cancel it and wait for review or gaf impressions
 
FYI, I heard there were no advanced copies for the whole game because any reviewer should have the same chance to post a review before the big outlets do. Has anyone bothered to look at what other 2K games have done this already?

Um, guys........if anyone would know why there weren't any advanced review copies, it would be Cheever.
 

gfn21

Neo Member
I'm not too worried about this. Everything I've seen on the game has interested me, and I haven't seen any reasons to be nervous. The hype has also been pretty low on this game in the groups of people I talk to. Not many of my friends have kept up on it, or gone out of their way to look up gameplay. It could benefit from some really good reviews later on and a burst of excitement past launch.
 

jg4xchamp

Member
Wasn't fond of the second game as it absolute rubbish. But, the third game has a lot of narrative potential. Albeit the gameplay looks run of the mill.
 
FYI, I heard there were no advanced copies for the whole game because any reviewer should have the same chance to post a review before the big outlets do. Has anyone bothered to look at what other 2K games have done this already?
Oh please. What a silly excuse.
 

J_Viper

Member
FYI, I heard there were no advanced copies for the whole game because any reviewer should have the same chance to post a review before the big outlets do. Has anyone bothered to look at what other 2K games have done this already?

You're right

Just look at Evolve and Battleborn, 2K is on a roll!
 

Corpekata

Banned
Evolve and BB at least had multiplayer focus as an excuse for any late reviews. There is a justrifiable reason why they would not want reviews based on server issues, a limited player pool, etc. Single player games not so much.

Not saying that it's a sign of doom here, IIRC Dying Light barely got review copies out the door in time (though that has more of an MP focus than Mafia 3, it at least is a game that feels more or less complete in single player).
 
For all of you saying not a good sign, have you actually watched the youtube gameplay vids?

Plus, you can't go wrong with the Best Buy GCU deal.
 

J_Viper

Member
Not saying that it's a sign of doom here, IIRC Dying Light barely got review copies out the door in time (though that has more of an MP focus than Mafia 3, it at least is a game that feels more or less complete in single player).

Yeah but Dying Light isn't very good either

For all of you saying not a good sign, have you actually watched the youtube gameplay vids?
I was actually excited for this, prior to this news dropping. If they are actually confident inthe game, they wouldn't be hiding.

Look at Gears 4. The embargo is being lifted prior to release, that shows confidence.

No Man's Sky should've been the breaking point in the whole "f-fuck the reviews" mindset. If you wanna gamble 60 bucks, more power to you. But don't put down others for showing some caution.
 

FFgamer20

Banned
Again, IGN has the game so IDK whats up. And according to Marty, they dont have an exclusive deal for this review
CtoW7e_XgAA1Yjs.jpg:large

they arent the only outlet that has the Collector's edition either. Maybe just a polygon thing?
 

BTA

Member
This isn't worrying as much as it is a little annoying. I'm interested in the game but not intensely, and would have waited for reviews/people I trust talking about it anyway. More importantly, as I should probably play on PS4 due to my aging computer, I have to wait to see how well it runs on there.
 

dex3108

Member
Good or bad it means they have no confidence in their game. So why should the consumer?

To be honest when there are hours of gameplay out there I don't need reviews to tell me if I would like game or not. But that doesn't mean that it is not stupid from 2K to block them. Only thing that could be an issue is performance of the game on different platforms, everything else you can already see and decide if game is for you or not and if you want to pre-order it or not. Hangar 13 was even open enough to say that pre-order items will be free to everyone after 30 days. They also detailed post launch content.
 
To be honest when there are hours of gameplay out there I don't need reviews to tell me if I would like game or not.

No one is going to watch enough videos to confirm things such as: the strength of the story arc, quality and variety of missions, how well the gameplay holds up over the course of the game, etc. So reviews are quite important to me.
 
I mean, a lot of people do exactly that

I don't think that's true at all. Literally no one outside of reviewers knows how good the story arc is. You can't know that without experiencing the whole story. I also don't agree there's enough video out there to truly gauge mission quality and variety, how repetitive (or not) gameplay becomes, etc. Thus, reviews are useful for many of us on the fence.
 

Card Boy

Banned
I guess this means there is no review embargo on the game then if reviewers get the hands on a store selling an early copy? If it does have an embargo why would people honor it?
 

Jb

Member
I guess this means there is no review embargo on the game then if reviewers get the hands on a store selling an early copy? If it does have an embargo why would people honor it?

The embargo is only for people who signed a document in exchange for an early copy from 2K.
If you can get the game early by getting it from a store you can do whatever you want with it.
 
Well the principle applies to any game pre-release, really.

Sure, but why are your pre-release opinions so important? If you want those things you're asking for, why not just wait until after release with every game? Video is always going to display that stuff better than text will. Is day one really that important?
 
Not a good sign but only been hearing good things about this game, this is even worse than doom though as imagine the campaign takes a hell of a lot longer to complete so looking at reviews way after the game comes out, hopefully this is jsut due to a patch to servers for leaderboards or something silly and not cause they are not confident of there game and dont want pre orders affected by reviews, we will see.
 

Lashley

Why does he wear the mask!?
I don't mind repetition as long as it's fun. I've enjoyed quite a few open-world games that had a lot of repetition in the side-activities. It doesn't make or break the game.

Yep, I agree. Shadow of Mordor was my favorite game of that year and it was repetitive, but fun.
 
With so many gameplay videos online not made by 2k (i think) obviously showing the flaws of the game (bad physics, average animations, terrible IA etc), I don't really understand what they would want to hide, besides a very ballsy mission like the torture in GTA V or something like that.

Even with reviews released, I never know if I will like a game or not, even after reading 20 reviews. So that doesn't change much for me to be honest. I can't think of any huge flaw the reviewers could point out that would make me not want to buy this game (would they let youtubers make videos of the game if it crashed every 5 minutes, or if it ran at 15fps ? I doubt it but maybe i'm wrong).

If I listened to reviewers I would never have bought Kane & Lynch 2, Alpha Protocol or Papo & Yo, games considered average or bad by a lot of reviewers but that I love.

Even badly reviewed games are loved by a lot of people.
 
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