Mafia

The Good
Okay, I just started playing this game, but I already got my review.

First of all, the graphics are unquestionably amazing. The characters look finely drawn, and use of colours and textures are great. The cut scenes make you want to stay and watch, their more like a tv show than a video game cinematic. I found that the voice acting was very good. The characters look, well, like the mafia.

The sound was great. Once again, the voice acting was amazing, but what was also great were the sound effects. All the sounds were realistic and great.

The loading time was nothing. I played some games like Freedom Force where you just keep waiting for the loading time, but this game was a breeze on my PC. It was very quick, and there were almost no, no, NO slowdowns at all. Even when there was tons of action on screen, it kept the regular speed.

The folks at Illusion also managed another great aspect, there are many types ofplay. You can drive in a car around the city, shoot people in a Max Payne type style, or race in a track(I HATED THAT). Nevertheless, it was amazing to be able to do so much.

The control layout was good too, using the mouse and keyboard and creating shortcuts on the keyboard, whic were easy to remember.

The Bad
Music sucked. There's no question about it. Sure, it created the mood of the game, but I hated it. Couldn't they have gotten a less corny soundtrack?

Once again, that racing part was too hard!

The Bottom Line
Still, Mafia was an unquestionably amazing title that might just be what everyone had been looking for-until now. I give Mafia a very well earned 5 / 5 .

The Good
The best thing about this game, in my opinion, was the storyline. The characters were extremely well-developed, and the voice acting was excellent. As a driving simulator, it's not half-bad either.

The flow of the missions was very smooth. With a couple of exceptions (detailed in the next section), nothing was too challenging or frustrating, although some missions were a tad on the easy side.

As for the actual driving part, it's a blast. The physics engine has a couple of issues, but on the whole, driving a 1930's era car actually feels like.... driving a 1930's era car. They're sluggish, and handle like tugboats, but later on in the game, you can pick up some real high performance cars.

The <u>Free Ride</u> mode is a fun diversion, it's sortof like GTA3-Lite. You can drive people around in taxicabs and kill gangsters for money. Unfortunately, aside from driving around and exploring, that's all you can do in Free Ride, but it's fun to see how long you can last against the cops in a high-performance sportscar.

The city is also persistent - if you abandon a car on a street somewhere, and then come back hours later (at least, in Free Ride mode), your car will still be there, in the middle of the road. (In addition to about eight million other cars piled up behind it.) So, if you so desire, you can make use of some of numerous empty parking lots in the game to store cars in, when playing in Free Ride mode.

As an added bonus, once you complete the game, you unlock "Free Ride Extreme". There are a number of missions in this mode, and each one rewards you with a special, unique car. These cars can be used in the basic Free Ride mode.

The Bad
As mentioned earlier, some missions are very difficult, compared with other missions. Most noteably, "That Friggin' Race Mission". Completing this mission with keyboard controls is, at first blush, nigh-impossible, and caused no end of frustration. There is also one other mission where it's not really clear what you should be doing; I had to consult a walkthrough for this one.

While the music was well-done, it got repetative very quickly. I mean, very quickly. When toolin' around in Free Ride mode, I try to avoid Little Italy altogether, just because of its ambient music.

Do doot doot do de do...
Do doot doot do de do...
Do doot doot do de do...
Doot do doot doot do!
[.....]
Do doot doot do de do...
Do doot doot do de do...
AARGH! ENOUGH!

I mentioned the physics system earlier; it has one fault. At times, it's possible to knock your car on its side. No matter what you do, you'll never get it back on its wheels again. Ramming it with another car just pushes it around, instead of flipping it back over. Hope you weren't too attatched to that car...

There is one bug I've found with the AI, and it's actually almost a good thing, due to the humor it invokes. Check this out:

I got pulled over by the cops for speeding. I got out of my car, and paid the fine. The two cops went back to their policecar, and one of them got in the passenger side. The second cop opened the door, hauled the first cop out of the car, and climbed in. The first cop got back up, opened the door, hauled the second cop back out, and then SHOT HIM. The surviving cop then walked around to the driver's side, and drove off.

I'm still laughing about that one.

The only other drawback is that the actual storyline was over too quickly. I managed to complete this game in about a week, and it usually takes me forever to complete any game.

The Bottom Line
Fans of GTA3 may like this game. Even though it's not as freeform, it seems to be a lot more realistic, and the city feels a lot more "real". The excellent story more than makes up for the driving simulator's few shortcomings.

The Good
Nearly everything is to like about this game.

You are Thomas "Tommy" Angelo, a regular day-to-day taxi driver back in the early 1930s. Tommy goes about doing his taxi duties, until one night while taking a break he hears a sound coming from an alley. Two men come out of the alley, one of them is wounded by a gunshot. They hold a gun to Tommy's head and tell him to get in the car and drive them to a certain restaurant. As he drives them, Tommy realizes the two men are gangsters who are running away from their assailants. From here on out the game turns into an awe-inspiring mafia story of epic proportions which basically plays out like a top of the line mafia film.

You have everything you would expect from a mafia story here. You have dozens of beautifully modeled cars with huge amounts of detail that look and drive just like old 30's cars did, and with impeccable damage modeling usage. Do not expect the cars to drive fast as it is the 1930s, the realism factor is very evident here. You have a wide array of weapons (from a simple bat to Molotov Cocktails to pistols and revolvers and automatic weapons and sniper rifles) and all of them are in great detail and operate as they should in real life.

The game revolves around a city called "Lost Heaven" which is basically a real life Chicago or New York back in the 30s. The city design is extremely well done and features high quality rendered buildings and street lights, roads, bridges, and anything you would expect. Since the city consists of certain islands which can only be crossed by bridges or by train, the water detail is impressive, the train tracks are nicely situated throughout the city for easy access. Boats are seen from time to time in the waters and airplanes appear up in the sky. People are walking and talking in the streets just like normal people would. The people models look very different from each other and with different clothing and hats that suit the 1930s era.

The main character models are the best around in any genre or system to date. With superb detail to every little aspect of a model's face or body or clothing. This is backed up with some of the best speech and acting around, to an extent that you can truly relate to and understand every character in the game.

Music in this game is perfectly suitable to the 1930s and it probably won't appeal to everyone (especially teens) as it features old Jazz and melodies of some of the best performers of the time. You won't find Pop/Rock/Rap/Disco/Dance/Soul/whatever here, so if you can't appreciate true music, please stay away. During the intense moments of the game, the game features a kind of dramatic music to increase the effect and it really does the job well.

The game features an incredibly strong and long story that will certainly keep you up during not so few nights, featuring superb car chases and gun-fights in the old style.

You can also choose to play "Free Ride" which is different from the story mode since it allows you to roam the city freely and do whatever you want. If that is not enough for you, once you complete the game once, you get to play "Free Ride Extreme" which basically consists of many little quests that you have to do throughout the city, with every mission you complete you get a new fancy car in reward. Those cars are nothing like the game's regular cars as they are some of the most bizarre cars (and fast too) you'll see.

The Bad
If one had to be VERY picky about this game I would say that it is somewhat disappointing that you do not have enough freedom and other activities to in the city outside of the main story mode.

Another little rant I may have is about the fact the you'll have to spend a long time driving just to start a particular mission and thus just getting to the point where you can start a mission may sometimes be a little tedious.

However, these little rantings should not keep you from missing a game of a caliber of this size and strength.

The Bottom Line
Bottom Line - You need to own this game already. It does not matter whether or not you like action games, this is so good it can appeal to everybody who can appreciate a true art of a game.

This is easily one of the most revolutionary games of all time and one that is at the top of my game list, one that I'll probably play when I'm 60 and one that I will forever remember and enjoy just thinking about. Folks, games don't get better than this and all should appreciate the art that is this game.