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Creepy privacy policy and offensive full screen issues

An issue that should not happen in a remake so important. I fixed it by deactivating full screen compatibility over the .exe file of the game, that was giving me black screens. This type of problem is common with older games BUT are not expected from a remake made only a couple years ago.
An EULA mixed with a privacy contract popped when running first time, you can see it by clicking here. I paid for the game, but they're gonna be sharing my information or something, companies are no longer afraid to do such things in the light of day. At least, unlike Street Fighter, GTA, Elden Ring and other games, Mafia allows you to click "I disagree" and then let you play, so I guess that's good?
In my opinion, we should demand companies to always make it optional. Both situations costed some points from the final score, as the instability also broke presentation.

The story still is good and new graphics flies immersion up

Some of the Noire vibes came right after---I like the story as much I like the immersion, and the remake did some effort to boost that. I can safely report it is not only intact as I remember, the context and events also preserved and the sweet flow remains, intensified with better art about the radio era.
The writing itself was always good and its also preserved---but because of that, animators were probably forced to consider better technology to tell the story. Decent facial expression tech was added, along with decent graphics, so they hit a great note with that in particular.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3483679938
Must be the only open-world criminal car game that gives you the option to use realistic steering simulation, you can even pick manual shifts---between other very interesting difficulty options, only helping the immersion to hit these higher notes. On foot gameplay was also modernized. They made the 30s street to hit the vibes very well, but there is a weird catch to that I'll mention later.
Yes, it makes the infamous car racing track even harder than the original's.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2LTr9r4gYM
Sadly, innovations ends there a bit. I don't see the same effort to sustain other things beyond what I just mentioned. While modelling is good (cars, fictional locations) gaps could have been filled with more accurate game engine technology as well. I sense the lack of new open-world activity, side quests or else, could've used some density to level it up.
While some voice actors are good, others aren't. While some few sounds and looks real, others are simply cartoonish. Body capture in cutscenes sometimes are generic video-game acting, but at least the story is impeccable, that's enough for some cases. It could be worse and it isn't, and somehow after all those years the magic remains so that's interesting.
1- Visibly boosted general car dynamics (specially if chosen in difficulty) adds to the first Mafia game.
2- Melee and gun firing together with AI behavior flows great together.
3- Music is something special, both radio and most of the cutscenes situations.
4- I don't remember about free driving outside main story, so I guess they added it in the menu.
5- They tried attention to details enough to feel satisfying, apart from some visible limitations.
6- Character development gets better as story progresses.

Its very game-ish and trying not to be

Some stuff have aged badly but I guess in order to preserve the original, they probably couldn't fix much. But this isn't 2002 anymore and Mafia was just trying to do something in the early Playstation 2 era. Things like, mandatory stealth take downs before proceeding a level, when you could easily take down no one and find a entrance.
At first it strikes this Martin Scorsese's top notch gangster movies. Slowly however, things fades into a pretentious, very naive or innocent vision about Mafia's methods, worsened by naive gaming stuff of the time. I think it lacks Hollywood contacts or maturity to the theme (like Rockstar does) to properly reach that high---except for the plot writing.
The criminal lords and some events in Mafia mostly don't look like Mafia. Was it trying to be a fantasy of the thing? The main character is often boring, hardly gets interesting, just another dark brown-haired middle-framed game hero, voiced like any generic such and obvious personality. Many ridiculous situations overplays (or downplays) actual Mafia.
You might get better vibes at the writing and immersion as a whole---the saving grace. As for gameplay, Music, radio, locations, even a few better and believable NPCs---that much they managed to do right and its great. I just expected an less outdated notion and lots of things overlooked.
1- Restoring checkpoins causes strange bugs, like damage to cars never used and recovering ammo that was used.
2- Too much "press X" context is bad. Some actions should be auto-touch, such as opening doors.
3- Its a bit weird they don't move when talking or arguing inside cars.
4- They preserved the original game way too much, some inconsitency plays 2002 still.
5- Sometimes, cutscenes music plays dramatic even when nothing is happening. At least it sounds great.
6- Dynamic range is a cancer in gaming. You need to turn it off in options specially if using phones.
7- No screenshot mode I know of. I had to improvise and to mod.
8- The physics don't understands how physics works. Ex; You touch a wood on the floor and it explodes.
9- Pedestrians tries the 30s vibes, but they're glitchy often bug, blocking traffic or getting confused where to go.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3483722907

This remake is not a cheap cash-in, but it is not very daring neither

When I played Mafia in a Playstation 2 around 2003, character models didn't even blink. So we have come a long way and I'm aware of all that. This time around though, I had less of a big impression as I did before. It might be spoiled experience from the old stuff, so take my words with grains of salt please.
They corrected lots of mistakes such as awful driving dynamics straight to simulation, so that impressed me the most, and depending of the vehicle and side-activity such as racing. I expected MORE attention to details, but this can be my biased view because of my Rockstar's games experience after RDR2. I'm aware it is unfair to compare but... 2K Interactive comes from Take-Two's branch from which these companies belong to.
Still, Mafia 1 is in my opinion, one of the best if not, in the mafioso genre we got.

Final Score: 7.3/10 Nice remake, but limited to live inside a bird-box

When Rockstar remastered the first GTA trilogy, games came up all ugly and they're still trying to fix it. Mafia's remake is not the case, and with 2k's efforts, you can rest easy the remake is far better here, honoring the past enough as they should. I think the OG gamers can get a safe nostalgia dose, just don't expect a lot of extra density.
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