Mafia Reviews

a good old classic i gotta say, but i just suck at time limits

I got filtered so hard. Couldn't even get to the racing mission everyone loves before I gave up.

ONE HELL RIDE OF A GAME WITH AMAZING STORY AND CHARACTERS even if the shooting aged really bad and the driving which you spend the entire time doing it still worth it

The year is 1938, mafioso Thomas Angelo sits down with a detective and makes him an offer he can't refuse. In exchange for the protection of his family and himself, Tommy will tell his story. A story spanning eight years of how an ordinary cab driver fell in with one of the most powerful organised crime families of Lost Heaven, their dealings as well as his own involvement... And his personal conflicts with the business. Mafia is an American gangster take on the open-world/crime genre that features some of the most interesting mechanics i've ever seen that have never been replicated in other games before or since. Set over the course of eight years in Prohibition era America, Mafia's story takes a thrilling fish out of water approach with our protagonist as he's thrust into the life of a mafioso and quickly earns favor among his peers and the Don. But the life isn't easy, as threats rise with a rival family in the city as well as the crooked cops that patrol the streets, on the take from both families. Each mission is rife with risk and danger, scaling with the stakes of each job Tommy's tasked with. Tied in with the Salieri family, Tommy will work alongside Paulie and Sam who are fellow mobsters within the family. Often times Tommy will be paired up with Paulie to build up a friendship between the two characters but Sam will join in on the more bigger jobs that Don Salieri tasks the trio with. The Don himself is a tough but fair leader, rewarding his soldiers with praise and respect for completing work while constructing plans to poke the bear against the rival Morello family. Next to the Don at all times is his Consigliere, Frank, who takes caution initially with Tommy's introduction to the family but eventually warms up as the story progresses. There's also Vincenzo who keeps the Salieri family armed for jobs and stuttering Ralph who keeps looking after whatever cars the crew needs to take out and ones that the player can bring back and save to bring out on story missions. Mafia's gameplay is certainly a product of it's time with how rough it can be for a new player. From a third person camera that sticks to Tommy's back to the massive amounts of recoil with weapons, the vehicle physics that can be chalked up to how semi-period accurate the cars are and how health is regenerated from rare to find medical cabinets in each story mission. The car physics are put to the real test in one of the earliest missions of the game that puts you in a race with turns you HAVE to slow to a crawl for and other racers that will deliberately smash into your side and cause a disastrous spin out. But once you get used to how Mafia plays, it's a really good game. The police/wanted system is also interesting to me. Instead of other games of the genre where police will ignore minor infractions of the law and immediately start shooting when you do get their attention, Mafia aims for a more realistic approach. Speeding or running a red light in front of an officer or a police car will draw their attention to try and issue the player with a ticket. Stopping and paying the fine is a good option as the chance of the police upgrading their status to try and arrest you for not stopping is fair and they can be annoying to try and lose. Stay in their sites for too long in a chase and a general alert will be issued meaning nearby police cars will join in on the chase just for you being in the rough area they exist in. The only time police start shooting is if the player shoots first. Having a gun out in your hands just makes the police default to try and arrest the player. Mafia also keeps track of how much fuel is in your car. Run out and you'll stop dead in your tracks, but there are a few service stations to get refuelled and continue on your way. It's the little touches like this that make me appreciate a game that bit more. The city of Lost Heaven is a great setting. Keeping in mind that this is a game from 2002, it's impressive with how much scope and thought was put out into it's layout and the era appropriate architecture and set dressing. Streets are fairly narrow and public transport is everywhere. You probably wouldn't be able to go a few minutes in one direction in this game without seeing a streetcar or two going off in either direction. And what's impressive for a game of it's time is that both streetcars and trains can be boarded and take you around the routes they go on. Very rarely does the game take you off the main map but that's only during particular story segments. But Mafia doesn't just come with it's story, there's also the Free Ride mode where you can earn cash from killing hostile gang NPCs, speeding above 70mph, destroying cars or even going back to Tommy's old ways of legitimate cash and taxiing people around the city. This cash can be spent on saving your Free Ride game, restoring health, repairing your car or buying guns and ammo. Free Ride will also give you access to any car that Ralph or other characters have shown you how to steal. Completing the main story will also unlock Free Ride Extreme which is a separate mode that contains a set of discover-able missions that reward some really uniquely designed or vastly upgraded versions of cars available around town. There's also an entire "Carcyclopedia" that provides a sort of showroom view of all the cars in the game as well as some basic stats about each car. However Mafia's not a game without flaws. On a technical aspect, the fog that shields most of the map is gross to the eyes and makes some of the Free Ride Extreme missions a little difficult with how it looks. Two missions in the Extreme mode also completely break if your FPS is any higher than 15-20. Both of these can be fixed with mods, thankfully. Mafia's also quite a tricky game. Some missions that are combat heavy will just not have a single medical cabinet and your health gets drained quick so death may happen often. Checkpoints can also be few and far between, the final mission in particular can be daunting if you didn't gear up prior to attempting it as it's a bit of a slog until you finally get a checkpoint close to the end of it. But overall, Mafia is a really good game. From story, to mission structure and gameplay and the little details that sets itself apart from most other games of the genre, i enjoyed my time playing it and recommend it to anyone interested in the series weather from a fresh perspective or comparing it to the Definitive Edition.

Mafia is the quintessential difference between other gangster games and in this game the story gives reason for the action to exist, It doesn't work the other way around. With a compelling story line, and one ingenious mission after another, Mafia has enough firepower to keep you playing until the end. Mafia is dripping with style and class and it is a cult classic underrated masterpiece in gaming history imo. 8/10

23 years later it's still one of the best and most advanced open world games ever made.

Top game. Very well made for 2002, but if you want it, think carefully because even that same GTA is much easier to pass than this, the police here will interfere with you so much (exceeded the speed by 1 mile, crashed into a pole, ran a red light, they are already chasing you) and besides this there are 3 types of police: 1 pedestrian, 2 by car, 3 national guard, NPCs on missions react to you in a split second and it is impossible to complete the mission without taking damage. so if you like to go through difficult games or when you are in pain, I highly recommend it

After almost 23 Years still a great game to play with a thrilling story. Yes the graphics are a little bit old but its definetly the best game of the series you have to play if you like video games!

Love the story thus far and would like to keep going but there is simply too much driving and it's not very good.

One of the legends. One of the few. And the only game where I would tell you to play it with Czech voice acting even if you don't understand it. I grown up playing this and now, 20 years later, it's still so good that the old graphics doesn't really matter. The game doesn't start on 64 bit systems (be it Linux or the Microsoft thing) by default, it keeps launching setup.exe instead of game.exe. The solution is Widescreen fix. It doesn't only fix widescreen issues, despite the name, it fixes the whole game and adds some nice configuration options via *.ini files. [b]Then launch it with[/b] the following parameters (Linux) to load the widescreen fix/mod: WINEDLLOVERRIDES="d3d8=n,b" %command% Last but not least, it runs on an RX 7900 XT with maxed out settings :)