cars and bikes

In Mafia, you play a lowly taxi driver who slowly moves up through the ranks of the local mob. It's a blend of Vice City with 30s era Chicago.

First, your environment. The maps of this city are HUGE and are sort of a mish-mash of all Italian cliches you can imagine. You've got bits of areas from New York City, from New Jersey (home of the Sopranos), from Chicago, and a few other cities thrown in as well. The resulting fictional city seems exceedingly authentic.

The maps are huge, detailed, and you can go down every back alley and around every corner. The downside to all of this is that the load times to move from area to area are simply AMAZINGLY long. I don't think I've played a game in years that has had such tedious load times. This is DEFINITELY a game that you play with a glass of wine (Chianti, of course) and plate of cheese in front of you, so you can snack and drink while you wait. It's a lesson in patience.

The graphics are quite nice, although not stellar. The cars in particular are a bit "shiny" most of the time and objects really appear to have painted-on skins rather than having textures. Still, you quickly learn to adapt to the look of the game and get drawn in by the plot.

The plot is where MAFIA shines. Other similar games have plots that often feel very contrived. You're being dragged along into missions just to achieve a cool stunt or go through a series of obstacles. In Mafia, you really get to understand the main character, his choices, his dilemmas. He doesn't always do what he's told. He's not an angel, but he tries to stay true to what he believes in. The maps' being large helps with the feeling that you are a real person making real decisions. There isn't any "Go directly left then go 2 steps forward" - you can take whatever route you want and if you take the wrong one, you have to figure out how to get yourself out of it.

This also makes replayability fun, because there are 80 different ways to handle each situation and you never know which one might be the most ideal.

There are a good collection of era-appropriate weapons (tommy guns, sawed off shotguns, etc) and a large number of cars for you to learn how to break into. The starting ones are, as in any game, the typical low-milage, low-speed clunkers. As you learn more about cars, you get your hands on better and better models for your garage.

The AI is reasonably good. If you're perched in a window, the enemy will figure out how to get behind you and shoot you from there. They will cover each other while approaching you. We did hit a few glitches where you aimed directly at someone from point blank range and the system jumped so it "missed". There were a few clipping issues too with the graphics, but that happens in just about any game.

Overall, the game is reasonably long, and can easily take a few weeks to play through if you go for quality over race-though-and-miss-everything. The free roam mode helps keep the game interesting for even longer. This is a game that is fun to blast away in, but also gives you things to think about and characters to relate to.

Recommended!

I think Mafia is a really fun game i mean its sorta like Grand Theft Auto 3's Mafia only you stick with the Mafia the whoel time and not going from gang to gang it also has a very good story which kept me wanting more not only that but the missions were thought out and potrayed well on detail i never played the pc version but still this game is awesome and i looked on amazon.com and thought why is the overall review 3 stars no way i think the over all review is 5 because that is what it really is this game is a masterpiece

Pros
Very Thoughtful Missions That make You actually Feel like you are a part of the mob

A Very Good Story that makes you play on for hours

Unlockable Cars as you progress through the game

A Nice Choice Of Guns For Everlasting Fun

Cons

Cars take some time getting used too

The beginning of the game may seem a little boring but just hang in there

..........but all in all its a great game i love the missions alot better than Grand theft Auto 3's missions and Vice City's if you are looking for a good Mobster game and you want to kill hours of time then this is for you

This is one of the best games I have ever played that took place in the 1930's (actually only.) You play as a taxi driver named Tommy who is pretty much down on his luck (you can imagine because of the great depression.) So it all starts when "Tom" is at his taxi waiting for a customer when he hears a couple of gun shots rang out and he realizes it's a gang fight. The Mafia guys need to get out of there quick so the abduct Tommy and force him to drive him to their hide out (by gun point.) So that's what happens first and you know I don't want to give out anymore things lol. Anyway the game starts off a little slow but if you stick with it you'll love it. Oh yeah the cars are a little slow at first but, again, if you stick with it you'll get faster ones.