Mafia

In 2002, Take-Two released a period-piece action-driving game by the name of Mafia. The game offered PC gamers a beautiful, well-organized and engaging story about an ordinary guy swept up in the Italian Mafioso lifestyle. That game was tough, perhaps tilted a little toward the hard side of games, but it captured gamers' imaginations because, despite the natural comparisons to the Grand Theft Auto series, it was true to itself -- the characters were engaging, the story driving, and overall, it was well presented. You felt like you were actually playing The Godfather or Goodfellas in the most genuine way.

In 2004, Take-Two's port of Mafia to the PlayStation 2 and the Xbox brings most of those excellent qualities over, but it also carries over an elephant-sized crate of problems. Mafia for both consoles is the same core game, with a few additions and alterations to appeal to console gamers, but it suffers from just about every technical problem a port can on either Xbox or PlayStation 2. What's worse, the problems that could be overshadowed on the PC version because of its freshness and beauty are instantly lost on the Xbox, a system on which players have sharpened their teeth on a select cache of visually impressive games, including last fall's Grand Theft Auto Double Pack and True Crime: Streets of LA, both of which are more interactive, dynamic and open by design.

The Xbox port of Mafia is still a good game. In many ways, it's a superior game. But you have to be generous, forgiving, and very patient to enjoy it. Are you up for a great story and movie-like presentation? I suspect the answer is yes. Well then, be forewarned of a surfeit of load screens and graphic glitches, primitive controls, a more linear gameplay design, and a very different pace altogether.

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Gameplay
Mafia's strength lies primarily in its story and presentation. I've never felt as close to playing a movie -- in the best sense of the phrase -- as I have with this. And that is, despite the major graphic technicalities, the best reason to play this genuinely intriguing game. Told in the same fashion as Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas, from a reliable narrator recalling his time in the Mafia and admitting his story in order to seek protection, Mafia takes place during the 1930s. You play Tommy Angelo, a taxi driver who's forced to help two gangsters out of a serious situation and who, by strange serendipity, joins Don Salieri's organization as a mostly full-fledged member.

From his initial test run as a runner and a thug, Tommy gets intimately involved in the family's business. That being the Mafia, his duties include everything from collecting money and providing protection from small businesses, knocking off territorial intruders, blowing up buildings and in short, keeping the Salieri organization profitable. Thus, the gameplay missions are probably familiar to those folks who have played oh, say, The Getaway, Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, True Crime: Streets of LA, or even Driver. You escort folks, recover stolen goods, get sent on missions to kick some ass, kill people, blow up buildings, transport whisky and more.

What's so appealing about Mafia then? Oddly enough, it's the game's slow pace, its atmosphere and great crowd of characters. These are the days of bootlegging liquor, streets that had no double yellow line, when cars could barely drive 60 MPH and when a baseball bat, a knife or a hunting rifle were the preferred weapons of choice. You get to know the characters because of the genuinely spare dialog, the care and time you spend with your new "family," and the prospect of earning even more respect in the Salieri hierarchy. The characters are eccentric, sometimes dumb-witted, or in the case of the family mechanic, Ralphy, a kind of stuttering autistic who's excellent with cars, but not much else. If anything, Mafia re-creates a superb atmosphere that's so true it carries players' interest right to the end.