Made Man follows the story of Joey Verola as he progresses through his life of becoming a made man in the Mafia. The plot, written by acclaimed writer David Fisher and overseen by retired Mafia member Bill Bonanno, will intercede Verola’s life through three time periods, from his tour in Vietnam to running the streets of Brooklyn. During his tour in Vietnam, Verola meets Johnny ‘Eggs" Biondo, who eventually introduces Verola into the life of organized crime.
A demo (186 MB) was released today featuring an intro video and one level from the game. (I’ll admit right now, the game didn’t impress me – but I’m not here to bad-mouth the game, I’m just here to preview it). The video opens up with Verola (presumably after he became a made man due to his overall badass-ness behavior) retelling a story of unearthing a coffin full of gold, for whatever reason. In the middle of reaping the rewards he is attacked, and this is where the level kicks in. The gameplay is as standard as the next third-person shooting game; firing weapons at enemies until they die, using cover to avoid death and progress forward, and that’s about it. One mechanic the game features is the ‘jump to cover’ system – which by now is standard in any game, but in Made Man, it’s pretty useless due to simple crouching. When you’re near objects that can give you cover, a little targeting icon will appear and Verola can use it for cover – brilliant! But I found that just crouching behind objects to be easier and quicker.
Another reason the cover-element is fairly useless is because the enemy AI is pretty bad. Enemies, when you’re in plain view, will sometimes just stand still allowing for an easy pick-off, or will just continue to fire at a ten foot wall when you’re standing behind it easily in cover. The game says it’ll use a proprietary physics and rag doll system as well, but I haven’t seen anything resembling it. Sure, objects fell over, but due to the pretty blatant clipping issues things will just fall through whatever is in the way.
Weapons included in the demo were pistols (can be dual wielded), a sawed shotgun, an Uzi and a sniper rifle. Melee weapons will be available in the game as well, from chair legs to crowbars, and from knives to hand-to hand combat. A stealth system will also be featured, but the demo didn’t showcase any of it.
Made Man will feature a rewards system which will award Verola for performing specific types of hits and kills. When he performs these kills, he’ll be rewarded with new abilities and new skills. However, if he kills innocents his skills will decrease.
If this game is a budget title, then the game may not fail completely, but if it’s a full retail release I fear for the game’s performance. At least the story seems interesting…
Made Man was originally scheduled for release last month for the PC and PS2, but due to several delays the release date is now TBA.
