Mafia: Definitive Edition review

    Mafia: City of Lost Heaven was one of the stand-out Grand Theft Auto clones when seemingly every game in the business was trying to imitate the success of GTA III. The idea behind this game was that you would play a mobster, Tommy Angelo, and the game would rid itself of all the more absurd elements. Instead of a hyper-exaggerated version of real life, it would be fairly true to the cinematic mafia movies of Goodfellas, The Godfather, and American Gangster. It would attempt to tell a serious story and see if that was possible with the game mechanics of 2002. It worked very well and was fondly remembered even if some of its choices were a little strange like the cops picking you up for speeding.

    The premise is Tommy Angelo is an Italian can driver who is unwittingly pulled into the mob war between Don Morello and Don Salieri in the city of Lost Heaven. Tommy finds himself getting recruited as a driver and later an enforcer for the underdogs in the fight because the money is too good to pass up in the Great Depression. He's also interested in the daughter of the bartender of Salieri's headquarters, Sarah. What follows is an eight year storyline that has Tommy gradually prove himself as a soldier to the Italian mob while also wear away at both his morals as well as friendships. What he decides to do is foreshadowed by the framing device of telling a cop his story but ultimately revealed only at the end.

Beautiful world and eye-catching graphics.

   The Definitive Edition updates the original story of Mafia: City of Lost Heaven with the same technology used to create Mafia III. Tommy Angelo, Don Salieri, Paulie, and others are all recast with new models that reflect their actors' faces. There's also some additional content to make the game's characters more fleshed out, particularly Sarah's role as Tommy's love interest. 

   The game also adds numerous ways of adjusting your playthrough like how the driving is done and even providing the option to skip the lengthy but sometimes boring driving segments. The gunplay and fighting is also much more cinematic but you can choose to play like the original game where it is all too easy to be killed by one shot.

    The primary appeal of the game is the storytelling and atmosphere. Tommy is a likable protagonist but you can tell he's making the wrong decision getting involved with Salieri's mob. The little tweaks to the game's story emphasize they're charming but scummy people, like when Paulie threatens to beat their stuttering mechanic for comparing himself to him. Tommy has lines he won't cross but these are increasingly more flexible and the ones he won't get him in huge trouble with his faux affably evil boss. 

The plotline is a decently written gangster tale.

    If you've played Mafia II or Mafia III, this updated game is very similar to both, but improves on them in most ways. Still, this is a game that doesn't actually need the free roam mode that it comes equipped with. You'll almost certainly just play the game from mission to mission with a minimum of driving around for fun. The city is beautiful and I recommend driving through many missions but outside of it? No. The collectibles are nice but nothing that's really necessary. There are no sidequests either.

    Gameplay wise, the game consists of shooting, driving, and stealth sections. There's a few brawling bits too but none of this is particularly deep. It's serviceable, though, and that's all that really matters. The game is not free of bugs, however, and I remember when I waited for almost twenty minutes for a car to be destroyed by the beating I was giving it with a bat before I realized that I had a bug that prevented me from using a molotov cocktail on it. Still, aside from that, nothing was game breaking.

Gameplay is familiar but solid.

    The 1930s atmosphere of the game is well-done with Lost Heaven feeling like a mostly optimistic and pleasant place to live, if you're a gangster at least. There's hints of the Great Depression and Prohibition going around but very little of the misery. The few times it does intrude like when Sarah is doing her charity, it is a nice reminder of the historical authenticity. Tommy is a man with power and respect but that doesn't mean that anyone around him has any. The racism and sexism in the game is toned down for the period but exists in enough amounts to make it feel like the actual period.

    In conclusion, I think Mafia: Definitive Edition is probably the best of the three Mafia games and definitely manages to avoid the missteps of the others. Tommy Angelo's journey has a lot more emotional punch than Vito's or Lincoln Clay's, even though I liked both of them. It also ends on a great moment that has stuck with gamers for close to two decades. I should probably not give it a perfect score given the bugs and simplicity of gameplay but I'm an overly generous reviewer.

 10/10