Joe's Adventures fares a lot better. For one, Joe is an actual main character of the game and so the DLC not only revolves around a familiar face but you also meet a lot of familiar faces. What's more, it's set to fill the gap in Mafia II during Vito's imprisonment, and it does it well. You find exactly how things went during Vito's absence, and how Joe became thick with some people (Eddie, the Falcone family and Henry) and despised by others (Luca Guerini).
Unlike Jimmy's Vendetta, Joe's Adventures offers a balance between run-of-the-mill missions and Mafia II-like cutscenes and story missions. I think it can be reduced to 4-5 big and nice story missions with cutscenes and voice acting and 15-20 missions where you're told what to do and how. The DLC starts out exceptionally well with a new area, a crazy car chase over loose ice shelfs in the winter and good cutscenes...so it's a little disappoint to see that that is only one little aspect of the DLC and he majority isn't that new. But it must be said, all the story missions are very good and set in some really nice locations - a shootout in a cathouse for example. Really cool. All in all, with some aspects of the main game's brilliance (voice acting, cut scenes) and a likeable main character like Joe, the DLC stands out way better. It's not perfect by any means, but if you can nab it at 2€ or less, by all means. It's worth it. 3
out of 5On a more general note: having played through these DLC's which involves a lot of driving from mission to mission, I have come to appreciate the magnificence of the Mafia 2 engine once more. It really is a tour de force how easily the engine handles such a beautiful city. I sincerely hope the engine gets used by other firms. It looks highly moddable (ie, like it doesn't take long to build new areas using the existing tools) and it is simply gorgeous. I can only imagine what it would be like if a game like New Vegas used to Mafia 2 engine, which seems perfectly capable of handling huge areas without loading screens and looks a lot better. For all Mafia II's lesser points, the city of Empire Bay continues to wow even by just driving around in it.
P.S. because I was a bit fed up by car chases by guys leaning out of the window shooting me when I can't do the same, I decided to jack an armored van (money transport) and wanted to take it to the tuning shop...no luck.
You can't get a van or any other large vehicle into a bodyshop, so you can't change their color or tune them up. By the same accord you can't store them in your personal garage. Sucks pretty hard. I did end up using it on a few missions, and God is it awesome. Bullets from anywhere but the driver's window just bounce off, and it seems nearly indestructible. 
Statistics: Posted by Rinox — Sat Jan 08, 2011 5:10 pm
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I have hope that Joe's Adventures will be better. But Jimmy's Vendetta..I give a 0.5/5
so far. Jeez, did I catch Derf's cooties? Two bad gaming experiences in a row!(and I thought the price for the DLC on sale ie a buck or 2 bucks was the price any DLC should be...no way I'm ever paying 7€ for DLC unless it really adds something, and it almost never ever does)
Statistics: Posted by Rinox — Tue Jan 04, 2011 3:08 pm
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Statistics: Posted by Rinox — Tue Nov 23, 2010 6:40 am
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Statistics: Posted by Satis — Tue Nov 23, 2010 6:31 am
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Still, I loved driving to the observatory for the final showdown in the pouring rain at night, with a 50's ballad softly playing on my car radio. It had a certain whistfulness to it.
Overall my thoughts are the same as above and as what you said: it could have been so, so much more with not even that much effort. And I really hope the engine is used for other projects because it is without any doubt stunning beyond belief (and very smooth-running, too).Looking back, Mafia II may not have been worth buying on release (altho I got it at 35 instead of 50 which isn't too bad), but only slightly. Can't say I'm disappointed with my purchase, but it is pretty sad that they failed to do so much more with it!
Statistics: Posted by Rinox — Tue Nov 23, 2010 4:28 am
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But...it's so incredibly linear. Half of the time it's more like watching a (good) mob movie than playing a game. There's already not much point in exploring the city outside of the missions and it's hollowed out even further by the lack of quicksaving, since anything you want to experiment with will have you drive all the way over there again from home or wherever your last autosave was when you die or get cops behind you.
I went shopping for some suits and went for a drink once, but that was pretty much it. I never even needed to buy a gun! You get everything else you need during the game. And what's the point of having the lockpicks store on the map if you can do an entire game with one pair of lockpicks (which you pick up early on)? And there isn't that much to see in the city anyway. In Mafia I you could ride city trams and trains, in Mafia 2 the train stations are all just backdrop. I even heard from a friend who finished the game that there's no "free ride" mode after the game ends (like in mafia I). That it just, y'know, ends. That's a big oversight as well.So, opinion so far: a great game, but pretty much stripped down to barebones. A missed shot, perhaps.
Statistics: Posted by Rinox — Mon Nov 22, 2010 4:09 am
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Statistics: Posted by Satis — Wed Oct 27, 2010 12:32 pm
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I'll play it when I'm done with New Vegas, probably. But that may be a while.
Statistics: Posted by Rinox — Wed Oct 27, 2010 9:52 am
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