It's been six years since 2010's underrated gem, Mafia II. Fans have been waiting eagerly for not only a new addition in the franchise, but also answers to many of the questions raised in Mafia II. Hangar 13 have big tasks to complete with their first release. Especially since their first release is of a sequel to a beloved series and one of the biggest AAA releases of 2016. Let's cross our fingers and see how they did.

In Mafia III, players assume the role of Lincoln Clay, a Vietnam veteran returning home only to find his crime family owes a lot of money to the wrong people. After completing a job for them, Lincoln assumes all debts are paid, but is betrayed and forced to watch the death of his family. Down but not out, Lincoln swears vengeance. And in order to exact his revenge, he needs to recruit like minded criminals. These criminals come in the form of Cassandra, the leader of a Haitian gang, Vito Scaletta, previous main character of Mafia II and all around badass, and Thomas Burke, a father seeking revenge for the death of his son by the Italian mafia.

Lincoln starts out interesting enough. He's a man that just wants to do right by his family, and if that means having to kill some people in the process, he won't hesitate to do it. Lincoln doesn't necessarily want to kill, but it's just something that has to be done in his world. That is until the Italian mafia kills his entire family and seriously wounds Lincoln. Then he becomes just another generic, angry guy out for revenge. Anything that made Lincoln interesting, or even likable, is completely thrown away after only an hour or so of playing.

The entirety of Mafia III's narrative hinges on players sympathizing with Lincoln and wanting his crusade against the Italian mafia to succeed. The problem with this is that none of Lincoln's family are likable, none of his allies are likable (with the exception of Vito), and the villains are so over the top with how evil and dastardly they are that I almost forget that I'm not watching a Saturday morning cartoon when playing through Mafia III's story. Interestingly, Mafia III has the opposite problem that Mafia II had. Mafia II had boring, tedious combat sections, but had a brilliant story. Mafia III, on the other hand, has a boring, tedious story, but fun combat sections.

Race, violence, and oppression are heavy themes in Mafia III. 1968 was a difficult time for anyone who wasn't white, in both fiction and reality. Mafia III's depiction of racial prejudice is much better than, say, BioShock Infinite's disgustingly simplistic depiction of a serious subject matter, but I don't know how authentic it was compared to real life. It was a bit jarring at first hearing the "n-word" being used pretty casually, but I wasn't alive in a time in history where words like that were commonly used. Ten hours into Mafia III and I stopped even noticing that word being used. So either Hangar 13 did a great job taking me back to 1968 or I need to take another trip to the Museum of Tolerance to re-orientate myself. I knew Hangar 13 were afraid to dabble into those themes from the very start of Mafia III. What does it say about the state of the video game industry when we can't even have a game depict a real, appalling matter in an informative way without it beginning with a actual trigger warning?

Every Mafia game had a message. It may have varied from depending on interpretation, but it always came down to, "Crime doesn't pay." It may seem all well and good at first, but it always ends in disaster. In Mafia: The Lost City of Heaven, Tommy Angelo is forced to become a rat for the FBI and is ultimately killed by the mob. In Mafia II, Vito realizes that he may have gotten his best friend murdered by the mob in one of the most ambiguous cliffhangers in video game history. In Mafia III? Well apparently crime does pay because Lincoln gets away with an untold amount of money, guns, drugs, and women from running an entire city through crime. Not only that, but Hangar 13 also had to go and completely undermine the message of Mafia II's cliffhanger ending. Talk about not understanding your source material.

If there's one saving grace for Mafia III, it's the gameplay. As I previously stated, Mafia III's combat section are much better than II's. Where Mafia II had linear corridor cover shooting, Mafia III has larger more open areas allowing for more variety in tackling your objective. Stealth has been improved on tremendously from the last game, but that isn't saying much. Stealth was completely useless in Mafia II unless the mission specifically required it. Even then it was still so barebones that it made Skeletor jealous. Now stealth can be used whenever you want for almost every mission.

The guns feel great as well. Every weapon sounds and feels as weighty as they would in real life, and are just all around fun to use. It's just a shame that Lincoln is built like a tank, but can take less hits than a glass hammer before dying. Effectively turning full frontal assaults into "cowering behind chest high cover until the color on your screen comes back" assaults. Luckily Lincoln is able to carry medkits so that isn't too much of an issue, when you have them.

The same can be said about vehicles as well. Every car feels different and has a nice mix of real world car physics and arcade car physics. This makes car chases feel cinematic without going over the top. Speeding around a corner and watching your pursuers from your rear view mirror slam into a building at high speeds is always enjoyable. Vehicle laws are supposedly in place, similar to the first two games, but I never noticed them. I found myself speeding and crashing into cars and other objects in front of the police, but was never chased until I killed a cop.

Remember the surprisingly in depth hand-to-hand combat from Mafia II? Where you could chain together light and heavy attacks to form devastating combos? Well, good news! Just tap the melee button three times to win every time in Mafia III. What a strange omission. Hangar 13 give Lincoln the build of a brawler, but restrict him to simple punches and kicks? That fighting mechanic would have been much better suited for Lincoln than Vito. I have to admit that I'm curious to see who would win in a hand-to-hand fight between Lincoln and Vito in his prime.

So what's the catch for gameplay that's actually enjoyable? Tedious, boring mission structure. With more of an emphasis on gameplay, you would think Hangar 13 would build missions that would take advantage of that. Instead you get another helping of Generic Open World #72521. Damage racket, kill racket boss, damage racket, kill racket boss, rinse, and repeat. 10 hours later and you've completed Mafia III. It may sound like I'm over simplifying Mafia III, but I'm really not. Every mission is either destroy some stuff or kill some guys with an occasional car chase to break up the monotony. I found myself turning the game off every other mission because I was getting so burnt out doing the same thing over and over again.

The graphics really are the difference between night and day. They don't look too bad at night, and seeing the lights of the city bounce off of buildings and cars will cause you to drive a little slower to enjoy the view. During the day though, lighting is flat, textures are ugly, and the framerate dips out of nowhere. Outside of cutscenes, Mafia III looks like a game that could easily run on PS3 and Xbox 360.

That's unacceptable for a AAA game. It's been 6 years and Mafia III only manages to look just barely better than II? Perhaps this is only something that afflicts console versions, but if Mafia III looks this bad on consoles, it can't fair much better on PC. It can't possibly be hardware limitation because, for example, a like Grand Theft Auto V not only looks better, but was also ported from 7th generation consoles. I repeat, a much bigger game from 2013 looks better than this state of the art of AAA release from 2016.

Don't make the mistake of looking in the rear view mirror for too long during the day. You'll quickly notice an orange void consuming the world. You can't out run it. No matter how fast your go or how hard you try to hide, it's always there. I know it's October, but I didn't know this was a horror game. Yes, the view distance seen in the rear view mirror is shockingly short. It's like the fog wall from the Silent Hill HD Collection constantly following you.

One tradition in the Mafia series Hangar 13 managed to continue in Mafia III was the great soundtrack. Instead of the light classical and smooth jazz from the first two titles, Mafia III features early rock from the 50's and 60's. It feels good driving through New Bordeaux at night with Paint It Black by The Rolling Stones playing from your stolen car. The soundtrack fits the time period and, surprisingly, fits the mafia vibe in a new way.

I'm hesitant to even call Mafia III a "Mafia game." Just because a crime family happens to be in a game, doesn't mean it's a "Mafia game." If that were the case, any of the GTA games can be retitled "Mafia." What made the first Mafia game unique was that it was one of the first playable mafia simulators. Everything you would attribute to mafia films and the mob in real life were present in Mafia: The Lost City of Heaven. Suits, ties, old timey setting, long sitdowns, and Italians. Even Mafia II, with all the content that got cut, had all that and more. Mafia III has very little to offer in that regard. Sure, there are some characters that wear suits with ties, 1968 New Bordeaux is an old timey setting, sitdowns were few and far between but did still happen, and italians are present as the main villains, but none of those things are the main focus. The focus of Mafia III is a generic revenge tale under the guise of a Mafia game.

In the end, Mafia III is incredibly disappointing as a Mafia game and taken on its on merits. A dull, uninspired story, mixed with repetitive missions and graphics that would hurt a blind guy's eyes can't be saved by decent gameplay. Mafia III is without a doubt one of the most disappointing releases of 2016 and not worthy of the Mafia name.

So what happened to this alleged "middle market?" Well there's a couple of factors that contributed to its inevitable decline. The biggest, and most noteworthy, is the increasingly high cost of developing a video game. There was once a time where you could create a best selling hit with your lunch money. Now, with the advent of photo realistic graphics and the need for marketing, video games are incredibly expensive to develop and market. Games like Destiny and Grand Theft Auto V set records with their astronomical development and marketing budgets. The middle market started experiencing a noticeable decline in around 2009. In 2009, we were well into the PS3 and Xbox 360's lifespan, and that's around the time that video games were becoming "mainstream." What, mainly, appealed to mainstream gamers at that time was graphical fidelity and how many advertisements they saw for said game. If your middle market game couldn't appeal to either of those two things, mainstream gamers wouldn't give you the time of day.

Partially one of the other reasons why the middle market of games is fading away is because of big name reviewers publicly crucifying them. Instead of comparing a middle market game with small budget to a similar middle market game with a small budget, they would compare a middle market game with a small budget to a hyped up AAA game with 20x that budget. Causing gamers to pan said middle market game because it isn't the next Skyrim or Witcher 3, and thus allowing that middle market developer to close their doors because they couldn't turn a profit. "BUT SIMON!" I hear you cry, "you've compared middle market games to AAA games before." The difference? I've only ever compared the strengths of a middle market game to the weaknesses of a AAA game. Which is the only way a review should compare a middle market game to a AAA game. This isn't a two way street. It is absolutely unfair to compare the strengths of a game with a multi-million dollar budget to the weaknesses of a small budget title that's lucky enough to even get onto Steam or consoles.

Now that isn't to say that every middle market game is immediately good just because it's middle market. The same rules of review still apply, but don't go into a game like Bound by Flame and expect Skyrim. Bound by Flame is still a fantastic game, an underrated gem of sorts, but it doesn't have the same scope or graphical fidelity of Skyrim. So it makes up for it with meaningful characters and a deep, tactically based combat system which seamlessly blends with traditional hack and slash gameplay. Along with better writing, RPG elements, armor and weapon customization, enemy variation, and overall combat, but that's an article for another time.

Why is the middle market so important? Because most of the biggest AAA developers today were the middle market developers of yesteryear. Bethesda before Morrowind, Rockstar before Grand Theft Auto 3, and CD Projekt Red before The Witcher 2 were all once unheard of nobodies before they finally made their first breakout hit. Now they're some of the biggest names in the video game industry. Whether or not the quality of each game has dwindled since becoming big name developers is up for debate. The point is everybody started somewhere. No developer just started out as AAA from the get go. Well, nowadays, that's not necessarily true. AAA publishers have really started seeing the potential of indie games. Without naming names, big name publishers will take an indie developer they see potential in under their wing. While there's nothing inherently wrong with that, they've unknowingly created another grey area. Now that indie team has a blank check written to them by a big name publisher as well as the added benefit of said publisher's marketing team. So are they still an indie studio or a new AAA developer? The indie team may still be the same size, but they have the money and marketing of a AAA developer now.

Let's get back on track. Furthermore, the middle market is where you will find the most original games for sale. Indie games are trying to be the next Minecraft without changing much, and AAA games are trying to be the next Call of Duty or Assassin's Creed without changing much. That's because they know those types of games sell and the name of the game is to make money, right? Well yes and no. Of course you have to turn a profit to continue developing games, and money is nice, but is it worth it to sell your soul and originality just to make a quick buck? Ask EA or Ubisoft. Middle market games have found a happy middle ground in this predicament. While it's hard to be completely original when almost every idea has been done to death, middle market developers are at least trying to be original. Not just changing the names of characters or places and tacking on useless mechanics in a vain attempt at "originality." Middle market developers know they can't match the same level of graphical fidelity or scope of story that AAA developers shoot for, so they instead make up for it in other ways such as writing quality or gameplay.

With a title like "The Fall of the Middle Market," you'd think I was implying that the middle market is dead and gone, but that's not true. Even though it's still an endangered species, the middle market is still around. Some of my favorite developers, which are also noteworthy middle market developers, are Spiders and Frogwares. Spiders for their underrated gems such as Mars: War Logs, Bound by Flame, and The Technomancer. And Frogwares for their amazing Sherlock Holmes series of games. Besides both being middle market developers, they have another thing in common. They both have, at one point been under the same publisher: Focus Home Interactive. Focus specializes almost entirely in the middle market, and just browsing through their published games will open you to a world of games you may not have heard of, but will quickly become some of your favorites. Focus Home Interactive aren't the only ones publishing middle market masterpieces. Browse around Steam, or whichever service you prefer, and you'll probably find a world you've been missing out on for years.