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Mafia
by Jolex Del Pilar
Sunday, February 29 2004
An interesting shooter that is somewhat limited as a console release.
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Title:
Mafia
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Platform:
PS2
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Publisher:
Gathering |
Developer:
Illusion Softworks |
#
of Players: 1 |
Genre:
Action
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Origin:
United States
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Expected
Release:
February 2004 |
Grapevine:
In many ways, the original gameplay has been kept intact, and in other ways, the move to the consoles has hurt the title. |
Mafia is a game that will draw many comparisons to the great gangster flicks from the past like The Godfather, or Capone. While it treads upon certain stereotypes of the era, most people playing the game won't be experts of the time period anyway. The story is fairly standard mobster stuff. You're a poor kid trying to make an honest living when you are presented with an opportunity to make a lot more of a living by joining the mob. It's been told before, but at least it's a solid start.
The game actually began its life as a PC shooter last year and was recently ported to the consoles. In many ways, the original gameplay has been kept intact, and in other ways, the move to the consoles has hurt the title, first the good.
Mafia is a very involving shooter. It's different than games like Serious Sam, or even the yet to be released Painkiller, in that it expect a certain mental acuity to play the game. This means your twitch skill is less of a determinent than you logical skill. For some this may be a turn off, but personally, I found it rather gratifying that certain levels had to be solved using strategy instead of gun blazing.
As a member of the mob, many of your missions will involve things like picking up protection money, stealing cars, or even making illegal liquor deliveries. A lot of it is lifted straight from 1920s prohibition era America, for you American History majors out there. Though the game starts out fairly slow, a little too slow in my opinion, it does heat up around the third mission when the boss finally accepts you as part of the gang and starts sending you on more risky missions. The game spans about 20 missions, in well designed levels, with fairly non-annoying goals. There's even a racing mission in the game half of the way through. For the shooter fan in you, there's a lot of that in Mafia. Besides, what game called Mafia would be worth anything if you didn't get a chance to carry around a Tommy Gun.
The action parts of the game are a double edge-sword to me. While they are tense, and definitely fun, I find that the control scheme, and overall control sensitivity is just not there. It's probably has to do more with the way console controller's are compared to PC mice. That's not to say I don't like the controls of any console shooters, Halo was really enjoyable for me even without the mouse, but with Mafia, it just seems the controls are a bit clumsy. You aim with the right analog and control movement with the left analog, but everything just seems too loose and its hard to get a bead. It takes a great amount of patience to get the analog to aim exactly where you want it to, and even with then, it's rare that you get the aim where you want it. With the PC version of Mafia, this problem was non-existant.
Some of your jobs will be simple, like mutilating the car of one of your rivals.
Another problem with Mafia on the PS2 has to do with the load times, which are on the average around a minute long. While this isn't a great amount of time, some stages of Mafia will require multiple loads, sometimes 3. This means there's a bit of time where you are just twiddling your thumbs waiting for the load bar to finish. Again, this isn't a knock on the game's design, as it probably has more to do with the PS2 hardware than anything else.
The visual style of the game follows a very distinct GTA look, which isn't surprising since the game is from the same publishers that house RockStar Games. Mafia's visuals are a bit more edgy, and gritty than the almost cartoony graphics of Grand Theft Auto, but the perspective, and look is almost the same. I do have a complaint about the viewing distance, again a limitation of the hardware, and also there is a slight frame rate problem during some action sequences in the game. The PS2 is really beginning to show its age. The audio side of things is a little on the light side, with small instances of 1930s music playing on the radio every so often. I believe more could've been done here to really set home the feel of the early 20th century, but you can't have everything.
The game has a great option called "free mode", which is basically an excuse to rampage through the city. You can choose what car you have, weapons, and even turn off the police. While it's slightly immoral to go around shooting and pillaging at will, no virtual authority will stop you, especially if you turn off the cops in the options mode.
So where does Mafia fit in the great range of console shooter releases this past year or so? Well it's definitely solid, and with the exception of TimeSplitters 2, and Conflict Desert Storm II: Back to Baghdad, it's one of the few solid shooters available for the PS2. Is it an "amazing" game? Not by any measure of the word. It has slightly clunky controls, though most will manage, and the loads times are problematic, especially compared to the loads times people are getting on the Xbox and PC. However, Mafia is a game that obviously was well developed and deserves consideration for purchase, especially if you're looking for something different in your shooters than sci-fi and horror.
--- Jolex Del Pilar
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