Mafia review (PS2)

I’ve been waiting for quite some time to play Mafia properly. Brief bouts on the PC version, which was highly recommended to me as a period version of the latest Grand Theft Auto games, and a short stint at E3 last year on the PS2 version pretty much sums up my experience of the game before throwing the disc into my console and finding the right channel on my TV.

In terms of first impressions, I was not disappointed. A fan of strong cinematic stories, I felt the presentation and lengthy intro sequence captivating and did a fine job of immersing me into the era of 1930s America. A full look at the city in which the game is based is followed by Tommy (your character) entering a café and meeting up with an interestingly voiced cop and asking for protection in return for full details of your illegal exploits and those of the family for whom you have been working for the past few years. It all begins with your simple life as a taxi driver and recounts how you were changed into the all singing all dancing (more all thieving all killing) gangster that you become by the end of the game.

“They pull me back in.”

To be completely honest, when the game itself started I was a little disconcerted at how easy it was to fail the first mission. Cars don’t handle as well as the equivalent Grand Theft Auto machines (perhaps understandably considering the time period) which made me roll my vehicle over many times before losing the tail of the chasing gun wielding lunatics. Naturally, if you roll your car (in this mission at least) you fail and have to start again. Loading times are pretty horrific and when they have to be repeated every time you restart your mission it does get a little tedious and frankly frustrating.

Just when I thought things couldn’t get worse I managed to get the hang of controlling the car and finished the mission. More cinematics were my reward and fortunately they (coupled with an image of my editor’s face if the review simply ended here) did the trick of keeping me playing. A few more simplistic missions in and I’d gained the trust of Don Sallieri who was eager to give me a variety of work. Many missions are time critical and while you do need to push yourself to make the required deliveries and time slots they are always fair.

Scar his face with weapons

The repertoire of weapons at your disposal is quite respectable, from pistols to Tommy guns, from Shotguns to Molotov cocktails and while they are hardly original picks, I can’t imagine any other weapons working better in the setting. Early on you are taught how to use melee weapons (such as the baseball bat) and guns, though even with a superior firing system to GTA3, it still fails to be totally responsive and natural. However, gun firing sequences are a step in the right direction, especially since you can fire out of the car window, auto aiming at the closest enemy.

Some missions will require you to be in a vehicle throughout (including one nice moment of track racing that shows the variety of the game well) and some will demand a more hands on approach, such as waltzing into a hotel, blowing all of the staff away, murdering the manager and setting explosives in his office, escaping over the rooftops and finally blundering into a church memorial service for someone you beat to death earlier in the game. It’s certainly full of ironic justice, much helped by the consistently enjoyable cut scenes.

What did our grandparents listen to?

Musically there isn’t a large variety there, but what there is proves totally reminiscent of the setting, making me smile and almost imagine myself to be in those streets and all that trouble (if it weren’t for the sleek black joypad vibrating in my hands). Enter the café (your home base) and the clinking of cups and chatter will make apparent the attention to detail on the sound side of the game. Voice wise everything works well with a weak attempt at lip sync being the only detraction from the well detailed characters themselves.

The detailing of the city is quite nice too and although the surroundings don’t appear to have a very high polygon count, it is filled with atmosphere, the washed out browns and greys of how we imagine the 30s working well. Cars look unique and fitting (although I don’t have enough knowledge to be sure if they are authentic) but I couldn’t help wishing they moved faster at some points and had better control.

As if a rival family wasn’t enough

Naturally you’ll be contending with the police at every other step and while this is normally handled pretty well, a few choices the developers have made to make the game more realistic have potentially made playing it more of a chore. If police see you speeding, running a red light or even bumping another car they can pull you over and arrest you, which will normally result in having to restart the mission (along with another lengthy load time and the hassle of driving across town again). Fortunately hitting L1 will put a speed limiter on your car that means you can hold down the accelerate button and not worry about speeding, but it still causes problems if you are not used to it and forget to put it on at any point.

Unfortunately, there aren’t that many missions (definitely not close to the amount that the modern Grand Theft Autos have) and while they will still take you a good chunk of time, they are so linear and unforgiving that you rarely get to deviate from the intended route. Fortunately, aside from the normal story mode there is a free ride mode that lets you drive around the city to your hearts content (although there is very little point to it) and a race mode that gives you the chance to play races as and when you see fit.

Going clean

Ultimately, the game is quite a lot of fun, for newcomers and hardcore gamers alike, but unfortunately Mafia will always be compared to the Grand Theft Auto series, to which it falls short. This is no fault of its own, but while this PS2 version is an impressive conversion of the PC original, this means very little to an average gamer who just cares about the final product on his/her screen.

While I would hardly call this the Godfather of all Mafia games, there’s enough 30s fun to keep an open minded individual entertained, at least until the next Grand Theft Auto game arrives.