After almost six years, “Mafia 3” has finally succeeded its predecessor in bringing mob violence to consoles and PC. While the story and combat are the most engrossing I have experienced in a game to date, the overall mission structures are dull, repetitive and uninspired.Still, the game is one of the few this year that has commanded my attention and that I have spent five to six hours playing just to get more of the story and to inflict mob justice in its sadistically entertaining form.

The story centers around Lincoln Clay in the fictional depiction of New Orleans, known as New Bourdeaux. Clay is an African American Vietnam War veteran who served with a special forces detachment. After he returns home from Vietnam midway through the war, Clay meets up with his stepbrother Ellis with the intention of resuming the life of the mafia. Before this can take off, Clay, Ellis, Clay’s adoptive father Sammy and a few of his close friends are backstabbed by a gang they pulled off a heist with. Lincoln, the sole survivor, teams up with his old friend, CIA agent John Donovan to take down those who slaughtered the ones he loved.

The first point I would like to focus on is how historically accurate some facets of the game are. As the protagonist is an African American during the civil rights movement during the 1960s, he experiences extreme racism from those around him. It is common to be walking down a street in game and have a random NPC yell the N-word at you. Not only this, but the presence of white-only establishments around the city almost sets you back in time to a much more close-minded America. I applaud the game developers for not ignoring or hiding the deplorable treatment that African Americans faced during an especially turbulent point in history.

Due to the revenge-fueled storyline, “Mafia 3” is full of gut-wrenching ways to dispose of your enemies. In fact, this is probably the first game where I have physically cringed at the sight of what you can make Clay do to people. Whether it is jamming a suppressor in someone’s eye socket, or executing another with a shotgun, there is something for everyone when it comes to violence.

The driving is another thing that I love about this game. It is so fluid, and nothing feels better than pulling off an insane drift while shooting an enemy mobster in another car.

The main thing that plagues the game is the lack of exciting missions or variation in general. It is pretty much entirely “go to this location and kill this man” or “drive this truck of illegal goods to this friendly area.” Even the main story missions are constructed like this. While this doesn’t take away from my enjoyment of the story, and I did enjoy hanging a mob boss from a ferris wheel, I still wish that there had been some sort of decent setup and not just violent satisfaction alone.

“Mafia 3” at its core is a great game because of the thrilling, action packed story that I will be playing for a long time, but until the developers add some spice to the missions, I will remain unimpressed with it in that category.