Mafia III is due to release in a couple of days and I find myself kind of amazed at the amount of preview material available for it. Hours upon hours of gameplay, a wide selection of trailers and short teasers, and two developer-commentated, heavily controlled walkthroughs of pretty significant length, not counting all the social media posts and interviews that have the made the game and its developer Hangar 13 their subject. The frankly overwhelming amount of raw gameplay released (seems like everyone Youtuber and their dog got some hands-on time with it) gives potential buyers a much more informed picture of what the game is actually like than is usually offered for high-profile releases like this. In the wake of No Man's Sky-gate it's refreshing to see a tentpole release like this being clearly and plainly marketed by the publisher and to have so much of the actual minute-to-minute interactions showcased for anyone interested.
What's really interesting about this is that the publisher, 2K Games, isn't sending out review copies ahead of time so there won't be any up by the time the game releases on October seventh. People got upset about this as they always do, even though there are hours of gameplay available to watch on Youtube so you can decide if Mafia III looks fun to you or not. I just find it really strange that people place so much stock in professional reviews and would sooner trust some random asshole from IGN over their own personal judgement. Is it possible that the game comes out and is actually a total bomb? Of course. Watch_Dogs released as an ugly, bug-ridden mess and it went on to sell incredibly well in spite of that (or its story, characters, themes, gameplay, etc.), so it even working on a technical level isn't a sure thing. It's totally possible the game is buggy as hell and boring as shit, but from the ads I've seen - I mean "gameplay videos" - it looks like I'll enjoy this one. If you find yourself worrying about what review scores a game gets so you'll know if you should buy it or not, you really need to ask yourself: Why is that I trust the system (IGN/Gamespot/Polygon/Kotaku) over my own personal opinions and judgement? If you can't even decide which piece of media to consume because one got a 7.8 from Polygon and the other got a 8.1 from Gamespot and everyone knows that Polygon is a bunch of SJWs who knock games down for not having trans options for the protagonist, then Houston, we have a problem.
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