Mafia Review (suniki)
Despite the enormous bloodshed, Mafia is ultimately a very charming game. You really feel like a part of the Salieri family, as you work together with your buddies to get things done. Tommy is a relatable character, because he doesn't start out as a criminal. It kinda happened to him, though at the same time it was his own choice. Many times, the story will make you ask the question "Is it worth it?"
The developers put in a lot of effort in bringing the game to life. The voice acting is above average for its time, each character has their own gestures and body language. Most interesting subtle detail is, every time you go to Vincenzo he's always doing something else, and walks to his table once you enter. It takes some extra time to get to business, but it gives you this sense that he's a real person doing his own stuff when you're not there.
There are also traffic rules. You can get fined if you run the red traffic light, even though it doesn't mean anything since there's not really money in the game. I think this is an interesting mechanic, because it makes the traffic lights real, rather than just props.
The 1930's are iconic, cute cars with tiny chassis, gunmen wearing suits and hats, iconic weapons like the Colt 1911 and Thompson submachine gun.
I wish public transport was a bigger part of the story, because it was a lot of fun to take the train and see the city from a different perspective, and it was also nice that I didn't have to drive for once.
Speaking of driving, Mafia has surprisingly good driving mechanics, though it's a little less surprising once you know that Mafia was originally conceived as a racing game.
But there are 2 small problems I have:
1. it switches back to automatic transmission every time you reload a checkpoint. so I have to manually switch it back to manual gearing. at some point I just gave up.
2. there's no cockpit view. most of the time you're using the bird's eye camera, which feels less immersive, and also very slow. It doesn't help that there's a speed limit of 40 mph, and police will chase you if they see you go 41 mph or more. Luckily it's often easy to lose the cops. And police cars show up on the radar so you can adjust speed accordingly.
The shooting in this game feels very awkward by modern standards. There is a lot of recoil, that takes a long time to recover. But this is compensated by the awkward AI that very rarely hits you. The typical hitman has an accuracy of 10% or so. They also don't really know how to be aggressive, and you can often just shoot their arm while they can't see you. Even so, I've died a lot of times. There's not many health packs around, so you have to do everything to not get lose HP.
The game is a little buggy, but nothing too game-breaking. At one point I had a kneeling cop floating in the air at the airport. Very random.
All in all, a very impressive game and story. The boat mission was my favorite.
It's cool they have a Chinatown, even though there's not much there.
The biggest downside is that you can't look down on the city from Oak Hill. It just looks like an ocean.
That's why I can't wait to revisit Mafia in the Definitive Edition.