Original vs Remake (list)

[JeffJ]

Full disclosure: I haven't tried the remake myself yet, but I am trying to get an overview over some key differences between this and the original. So far, this is what I've noted - is this correct? And did I miss anything?

1: Can't remove mission markers
2: Arcadey virtual road signs in-game
3: Map isn't overlayed (like you're holding an actual map)
4: Can't carry two long guns (one in coat, one in hands)
5: Can't use trains
6: Can't use trams
7: Locations renamed for no known reason
8: No gangsters in freeroam
9: No money in freeroam
10: All special cars from freeroam extreme are gone

Additionally, some story related choices I've heard about:
1: Racecar is no longer tuned and cheating (hence the namesake of the entire mission, "Fairplay") - so Tommy wins just because he's the best out of all the professional racers?

2: Don Salieri is up front about diamonds? Not deceiving like in the original?

3: If the above is true, then is any other reason for the heist given, since feeling cheated was the catalyst for them doing it in the first place?

4: All missions that had more than one way to do them (like the boat, killing Morello, killing guy calling cops at airport, killing road worker near prison etc.) are now strictly one-way only?

I hope someone can confirm/deny if and how much of this is actually true, and in addition, let me know of any other differences, no matter how minor they may seem. My main concern is the immersion breaking stuff, with a definite number one spot being the mission markers and the road signs, but also gameplay stuff, like the ability to be more strategic about weapon loadout.

[Paul]

Don Salieri is upfront about diamonds, but there are no diamonds, instead there is dope which he was not upfront about.

1) true, will be changed in patch
2) is removed on classic difficulty
3) true, there is minimap and big map pauses the game (I dislike this change compared to original)
4) true, it is stupid
5) true
6) true
7) true
8) true
9) true
10) false, some extreme cars can be found

4) yes, missions are much more scripted and allow no space for player inventiveness

For me, the biggest and worst change when it comes to my experience of the remake is the rewritten ending to be much more cliched, eliminating the actual intention behind the original game's story, as well as much weaker soundtrack all over.

I still enjoyed the remake a lot though. I just wish they were given more time to make it, and did not mess with the stuff that worked perfectly in the first game.

[Stan]

1) True.
2) Not on classic.
3) Haven't notice but okey.
4) True. Really don't mind.
5) True.
6) True.
7) Bit of a eye catcher or thous who play original but not that much of chance.
8) I don't mind. There cops.
9) On what to spend on? We have no yellow pete, no stores or anything else.
10) Not entirely. There was 19 cars in original and this game got 10-12 of the.m Reworked however. Like Crazy horse is no longer flipping.
11) Bonus: Auto aim when shooting out of the car (With infinite ammo in come cases)
12) Another bonus: No longer separate health bars with you, sam and Paulie. Your friends are immortal.
13) You can't shoot your friends or anyone on Salieries bar.

Missions

1) Well you tecticly tune more that european car, hit have overheating now and it won't go straith. Also unlike original there are cops now that can come after you. you.

2) true. In this case when he notice that Tom is on to something he slip another lie that there woul be diamonds instead of cigars. But there was dope instead, very thing he says at the beginning he would never deal with.

3) Well Paulie wanted to leave and wanted money. That's about it. When tom find out that there was dope instead of diamonds he welt like hes been use like in original and go for it.

4) Yes. There is no longer other way of doing things.

5) I'm not sure if this clear but Sam dosen't seem to be 100% loyal to Don since he planted the idea for us for not killing Michelle and instead gives us money to give her to get out of town. Yet in the end he blame us for not killing her.

[dimi]

Originally posted by JeffJ:

Additionally, some story related choices I've heard about:
1: Racecar is no longer tuned and cheating (hence the namesake of the entire mission, "Fairplay") - so Tommy wins just because he's the best out of all the professional racers?

2: Don Salieri is up front about diamonds? Not deceiving like in the original?

3: If the above is true, then is any other reason for the heist given, since feeling cheated was the catalyst for them doing it in the first place?

4: All missions that had more than one way to do them (like the boat, killing Morello, killing guy calling cops at airport, killing road worker near prison etc.) are now strictly one-way only?

1. As far as I can remember the original, you do the same to the new driver's car that later gets disabled in the race, you steal it, Luca works his magic and you return it.

2. He tells the boys before the mission after Tommy gets curious about them stealing mere cigars, which seems small time for them, so Salieri lies about what's inside the boxes. There's no diamonds in the cigars, but dope, which earlier he specifically told the gang nobody should mess with. A really unnecessary change but I guess it paints Salieri in a worse light with it. I guess being a Mafia boss was too subtle for people. He's portrayed more negatively in the remake.

3. See 2. But Tommy asks about this, Sam just responds with "well the don wants it so let's go do it"

4. I think you can do some parts of some missions stealthily, like the beginning of the airport part of Omerta or the end of the prison mission (some guy said on the forums here that you can escape by the sewers, I don't know about that)

Finally, if you're the sort of person who cares about immersion and details like how the map is presented, this game is not for you. This whole game is a rushed to hell action game. They cut out and shortened entire parts of missions and cutscenes, so nothing can breathe or simmer, you're just immediately thrown from one thing to another, so the entire pacing is different from the original.

For example from the top of my head, Omerta and Lucky bastard feels super cut down, Visiting rich people, any challenge and therefor tension is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ thrown out the window, you have like 4 guards in a "maze" that you can easily eliminate with a press of a button, you see them on the minimap, so it feels like a wii game made for the elderly. And this is indicative of almost all of the missions imo.
Since they cut out almost all the driving you do, you can't really enjoy the work they put into the city. You no longer start at the bar and listening to Salieri on what to do on the mission. No, sometimes you just get the briefing in a car and you're like one small drive from the mission. They barely gave poor Ralphie any lines or relevance, the lockpicking lessons are gone, expect for like two I think, plus they wrote a mean insult from Paulie in the beginnign toward Ralphie for no reason. I guess not calling Ralphie a cripple and presenting him like a pathetic fool wasn't edgy enough for H13.
Plus as others mentioned they pretty much cut Lucas' car stealking missions from the story mode. You can still steal the cars, but only in freeride, you collect 5 postcards (all are available at the same time) that show the location of the cars.

[halfmonkey]

7. The names of the neighborhoods on the east side of the map were/are all parts of New Jersey.
Since we know Empire Bay is Mafia's version of New York, the change makes sense to me.

The other changes are disappointing, but at least the city looks great.

[dimi]

Originally posted by halfmonkey:

The other changes are disappointing, but at least the city looks great.

This is what's so maddening about the pacing to me. You don't get the chance to absorb the city by doing the driving missions. There is an option to disable "unnecessary drives", which I haven't tried, but I think it's pretty much makes it so you skip ALL the simple driving from A to B and maybe only the chases are left. It's like they want you to play their game less...who the ♥♥♥♥ thought that was a good idea.

[halfmonkey]

Originally posted by dimi:

Originally posted by halfmonkey:

The other changes are disappointing, but at least the city looks great.

This is what's so maddening about the pacing to me. You don't get the chance to absorb the city by doing the driving missions. There is an option to disable "unnecessary drives", which I haven't tried, but I think it's pretty much makes it so you skip ALL the simple driving from A to B and maybe only the chases are left. It's like they want you to play their game less...who the ♥♥♥♥ thought that was a good idea.

I'd say that 2K is to blame. Hangar13 gets a lot of flack, but the publisher has been known to force bad decisions based on numerics and not on player feedback or developer advice.
2K wants a strong seller with as broad an audience as possible and is mistakenly under the impression that younger people still have the buying power to drive sales. They don't care how "good" tne product is--only that as many people as possible buy it because of all the flashy bits.
Apparently no one told them there's an epidemic on and now adults over forty have the most purchasing power...

[JeffJ]

Thank you guys so much, really appreciate you taking the time to answer with such detail!

Originally posted by Paul:

1) true, will be changed in patch

Has this been confirmed officially by Hangar 13, or is it something we're just hoping for?

Originally posted by Paul:

For me, the biggest and worst change when it comes to my experience of the remake is the rewritten ending to be much more cliched, eliminating the actual intention behind the original game's story, as well as much weaker soundtrack all over.

I still enjoyed the remake a lot though. I just wish they were given more time to make it, and did not mess with the stuff that worked perfectly in the first game.

Thanks for sharing. I totally get it. As a huge fan of the original, I've been very much on the fence; on one hand, I really want it to be good and relive all the coolness, on the other, so many of the changes seem to be for the worse, without giving a lot of stuff in return. Motorcycles are cool, graphics are obviously much better, and I'd imagine combat would be better as well. I also like the ability to change outfits and customize cars. But, as far as I've seen, that's about all the stuff that's been added - where a lot of other stuff has been axed, so to an extent, it seems like more has been taken away than has been added. Then on top of that, some of the story and character changes are just... Well, clearly from very different people with very different mindsets than those who made the original.

Originally posted by Stan:

2) true. In this case when he notice that Tom is on to something he slip another lie that there woul be diamonds instead of cigars. But there was dope instead, very thing he says at the beginning he would never deal with.

Hm... Interesting take. Not sure I love Salieri being into drug dealing in this version, that's quite a big character change, but at least it still makes sense.

Originally posted by Stan:

5) I'm not sure if this clear but Sam dosen't seem to be 100% loyal to Don since he planted the idea for us for not killing Michelle and instead gives us money to give her to get out of town. Yet in the end he blame us for not killing her.

Wauw, that's pretty stupid. Again, seems like some of these character changes are... Well, I wouldn't exactly call them an improvement. That's a shame.

Again, thank you so much for elaborating, I really appreciate it.

At this point I don't think I'll get it until they at the very least let us disable waypoint markers. And even then, might wait a big sale. Shame, I really, really wanted it to be good. The saddest thing is that, a lot of the changes that are for the worse also kind of signals a lack of understanding of what made 1 and 2 so good, and with that in mind, I genuinely fear for how the 4th entry will turn out.

[dimi]

Originally posted by halfmonkey:

Originally posted by dimi:

This is what's so maddening about the pacing to me. You don't get the chance to absorb the city by doing the driving missions. There is an option to disable "unnecessary drives", which I haven't tried, but I think it's pretty much makes it so you skip ALL the simple driving from A to B and maybe only the chases are left. It's like they want you to play their game less...who the ♥♥♥♥ thought that was a good idea.

I'd say that 2K is to blame. Hangar13 gets a lot of flack, but the publisher has been known to force bad decisions based on numerics and not on player feedback or developer advice.
2K wants a strong seller with as broad an audience as possible and is mistakenly under the impression that younger people still have the buying power to drive sales. They don't care how "good" tne product is--only that as many people as possible buy it because of all the flashy bits.
Apparently no one told them there's an epidemic on and now adults over forty have the most purchasing power...

In terms of who deserves the most blame, well the guy who has the most responsibility and that's the publisher/owner of the ip and the head managers/directors. But the developers are not blame free either. The problem is that you don't know the details behind these private projects. The devs might've had a tighter budget in terms of time or money, but they might've just made stupid design decisions and therefor a flawed product.
So my point is that yes, generally publishers hold the most power and therefor the blame, but the devs who work under them shouldn't be free of criticism either.