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Reviews Who thought life in the mafia could be fun?, October 15, 2005 Rating: 7.0/10 By Mitch Mafia was originally a game that was released in early on for PC, and at the time, was visually stunning and had unique
gameplay. It had its minute of fame, and was of course often compared to Grand Theft Auto 3. Only this was one of the
first imitations, and it didn't fail. Mafia is a great game for fans of the free roaming genre, as well as Grand
Theft Auto.
Mafia takes place in the very early 1900's, at the point where Mafia corruption was sweeping the east coast. You assume
to the role of Tommy, a lower class cab driver in the city of Lost Heaven. The city can be compared to New York, however
there isn't much evidence that is directly based on the city itself. Lost Heaven City takes over a portion of a mainland
to the west, and two islands expanding to the east. After an introduction scene, another movie sequence carries on, showing
Tommy standing alone in the night air outside of his cab. Suddenly, he is approached by two armed and suited men, who
force him into his cab and give him directions to Salieri's Bar. This is where the game takes off, and you drive the
taxi through the streets of Lost Heaven, with the challenge of outdriving a couple cars stalking close behind you and
shooting. After the mission is completed, Tommy is offered a job by the two thugs, to work under Mr. Salieri in the mafia.
Needless to say, you accept.
Mafia begins each mission with an opening movie sequence, with slightly impressive graphics and detailed dialogue. You'll
feel more like you're watching The Godfather than actually playing the game. As you progress, you'll go through a
few different storylines, a majority of them revolving around Salieri's enemy, Mr. Morello, another mafia boss struggling
for control over Lost Heaven. Each mission usually revolves a mixture of driving and shooting. A lot of the escapades of
shooting take place in doors, in some impressive looking buildings, such as a church, a hotel, a warehouse, and more.
Lost Heaven is a fairly detailed city, with some Mafia controlled suburbs, a Chinatown, industrial district, business
district, and some small rural areas. Many areas like this, such as an airport, and a large country side are only
able to be accessed within certain missions.
There are wide range of vehicles in the streets of Lost Heaven, and capture the beginning of the 20th century feel...
but this can also be a bad thing. If you're a fan of fast paced racing games, the driving in Mafia might not be
for you. In the beginning, you'll start only be able to jack a low number of cars with unimpressive specs. Some of these
cars can't break 40 MPH on the speedometer, and occasionally you'll be unlucky enough to jack a car with barely
any gas left to get you around. As you progress though, most of the cars hosepower stays the same, but the max speed
difference is immense. One mission in the game has you stealing an old race car, which reaches 120 MPH fairly easy, in
around 10 seconds, and is very hard to control. Mafia has a good sense of speed, and you won't want yourself going over
50 on a public road. Conveniently, you're able to enable a governor type system that doesn't allow your car to go over
60 MPH, mainly because that won't attract the cops. That's right, Lost Heaven has its own fully functional police force.
It's fairly realistic, and for speeding, they'll stop you just to give you a speeding ticket. In more extreme situations,
they'll pull you over to arrest you, or perhaps if you've committed a heavier crime, they'll shoot at you.
Mafia has a decent array of weapons, but most of them are pistols, ranging from small calibers to larger ones. They go
as creative as a molotiv cocktail, but of course, a Tommy Gun is featured in the game, and is extremely powerful against
you as it is against them. The guns are picked up by the character at the beginning of the game. Right at the start of a
mission, you begin in Salieri's Bar, and move out to the yard where you can choose a vehicle to start off with, as well
as visit an old storage office to choose which weapons you'd like to bring with you.
Mafia does have free roaming options, but, sadly, they are terrible. The first free roaming option is to cruise Lost Heaven,
but there are no absolutely no police, which makes it rather dull. There are enemies to find in the street, rival gangsters
who drive black cars and wear black suits, and kill them is all you can really do. The second option is explore the
country side, an area not present in the normal game. The country side is huge, is covered with small gas stations, farms,
bridges, and roads. There's plenty of cars to steal, and the scenery is actually quite peaceful for a game.
Despite being like GTA:3, Mafia isn't as good as it seems. It has almost no replay ability at all, but the missions can
be entertaining. Once you complete the main storyline, there isn't much to do. Not worth buying, but it is a very good
game to rent. There are many interesting missions to keep you busy for at least one week.
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