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An offer you can refuse

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 15 / 28
Date: January 02, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This is a great game. It has great graphics, and good game-play.
It is a lot like GTA III & Vice city, but that's not a bad thing.
What I did not like was that it is plagued with bugs. None that really affects the game-play, none that I've encountered. They're not going to ruin your game-play experience unless you're really anal. One I saw is sometimes when your watching cut- scenes you will see all of a persons eyeball, and the other is when I was in a level I shot this guy and he flew up in the air and was stuck. That was about it. The character models are something to write home about though, better than in the GTA series (except the eyeball thing)
I had fun, and am still having fun with it.
Oh yeah there are no codes so you have to rely on your skills to get you through it.
I love the game but proceed with caution.
If you like GTA then check it out because Mafia expands on some things but is not as diverse in gameplay.

One word: Excellent

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 12
Date: December 21, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This review is based on the PC version, but it's identical for all versions.

The game's graphics are nice, flows smoothly, and is colorful. There's a lot of cars moving around, and pedestrians too.

The game is a lot similar to GTA 3 and Vice City, only better. The gameplay is fun and hard. It's realistic (you run out of gas and need to refill), and has excellent sounds, voice acting, and intense gunfights too.

The sounds and voice acting is great and the story's excellent. You'll keep playing to see what happens next.

The only bad thing is that the cars are a bit slow--they're from the 1930s and move like so. They lose speed when going up hills, and there not fast overall. These cars are not sports cars.

Lastly, a realistic feature is that you can't just steal cars so easily. You need to learn how to do it (the game gives you the ability to do so) and you can't just steal a car in 1 second--there's a meter and it's your progress of picking the car's lock. People actually lock their cars, and you're picking the lock! Realistic!

This game is long and challenging. One of the best games ever made. Enjoy it!

The best game of 2002 enters the Xbox world

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 12
Date: January 17, 2004
Author: Amazon User

My sister's boyfriend recommended me to buy this game, and as soon as I launched the Czech PC version of the game - which is the version that I started with - I found it totally amazing. I am proud of my fellow Czechs who were able to construct this game - a game chosen as the best game of the year 2002 (at least in many European countries). The amount of data (contained on 3 CD's) that the creators had to put together is shocking, and initially it seemed to me that a team of 20 people would need several centuries to finish this task. Well, fortunately they have used a lot of modern technology, for example a system to scan the motion of the real actors which is subsequently translated to the motion of the artificial humans, and therefore the task was doable. There are many hours of "movies" in between the different scenes, and there is a lot of audiovisual effects everywhere. The individuals in the game have pretty good artificial intelligence, and you will be impressed how realistic all these objects and their motion are (unlike the cartoonish style of GTA, for example).
The Lost Heaven City is a completely realistic city, designed according to the actual buildings in the New York City and Chicago of the 1930s. Everything seems to work perfectly in this city - including the gas stations, public transportation, banks, car races, ships, small airport, and so on. Imagine more than twenty squared miles of the urban architecture where everything responds in a realistic fashion, including many things that are unnecessary to fulfil the game's twenty main missions (e.g. you decide jump from the bridge in order to see the ship from another side). There are 60 different models of the cars - that you can steal on the street if you learned how - that were carefully copied from the real cars in the 1930s (but they were renamed). All these cars respect all the laws of physics and they are described by 100 physical parameters each. If you shoot at the car (or use some explosives), it's getting destroyed in a very realistic way.

Moreover, there are about 30 fan web sites dedicated to the game, and the people who understand computers well enough can have a lot of additional fun with modding the PC version of the game - changing the cars, textures on the buildings, music, sounds, and so on. The Xbox version does not allow you to do it, I guess, but it has other advantages over the PC version - it seems that the graphics is even smoother.

The game has a tutorial where you learn how to control Tommy (which is you). On the PC version, the arrow keys and other keys on the keyboard are used for motion (and changing the weapons, jumping, and so on) while the mouse allows you to change the direction where you look (or shoot), and this combination is very natural. You can practice as the taxi driver - you will learn geography of the Lost Heaven City after some time (the map is recommended). The main game has 20 main missions with 106 checkpoints or so where the game is saved, and afterwards you may continue with the "free ride extreme". Nevertheless, I needed about 50 hours to complete the main missions.

The story seems as a good piece of literature - you are a taxi driver who accidentally becomes a member of Mafia, and you are getting increasingly difficult tasks. Well, you will have to shoot a lot of people, but from a moral perspective, I am sure that at the end you will agree that being a mafioso is not the best (and easiest) option for your life - especially because your friend will betray you, and you will have to kill him. After the war, they will kill you anyway.

The game was banned in Italy for some time in 2002 because the authorities viewed it as a perfect textbook to become a criminal. The most natural audience for this game are almost definitely Americans like you, but the publisher company of the PC version did a bad job when they promoted this game in the U.S. and the success in the U.S. was much weaker than the game's achievements in Europe. Therefore you are sort of lucky to read this review. Mafia might be the best game ever (so far, as of January 2004), and it is much less known in the U.S. than it should be (so far). Don't get manipulated by the advertisements of less perfect games. Buy Mafia, and you will be impressed.

AWSOME!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 6
Date: January 26, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game is spectacular i had it for pc and it was great.
The enviroment of Lost Heaven is so detailed.The missons are filled with gun shootouts! and alot of explosions.I reccomend that anyone who is upsessed with Mafia History should get this game!

A Mafia Masterpiece!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: March 14, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Mafia the [edited] of the 1930's. Great deep story about a Mafia family. The Xbox version is alot more better than the PS2 version. The load times are very fast. It's fast like [edited] on Xbox. Graphics look 1,000 times better than PS2 version. Everything looks alot more cleaned up, and the details in everthing look a ton better. The levels are alot more clear than the PS2 version. When it's night time in the game you can see where your driving. In the PS2 version it was hard to see cause it was so dark. I haven't seen any draw distance so far. PS2 version had a big problem with that, where things would just pop up out of no where and you'd crash into something. Controls Works great with the Xbox Controller S. The game dosen't freeze either, the PS2 version froze alot for me. I think it was worth the wait, it's a whole lot better than the PS2 version. If your a fan of [edited] , or Mafia action check out Mafia for xbox or PC.
Don't waste your time on the PS2 version.

Very GOOD

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: March 22, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game is great. The graphics could be better, although, not real bad. It is a lot like [edited], but the A.I. in this game are much smarter, more realistic, and challenging.
In this game, you're playing the story that your character has to tell to the detective. It's very interesting, great story line, and there are many different types of missions to go through. The game takes you through blowing up cars, a car chase, collecting protection money, and up to my point in the game, RACING! I honestly can't say if this game was worth the [edited] or not. I think it'll depend on how the story broadens and what other missions the Don sends ya on. I think it's a very promising game though. It was slow at first, and the graphics kinda chased me away, but I gave it an honest chance, and it really is growing on me. Great game!

Could have used more blood!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: March 24, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game is fun. Lots of variety and different faces. Way better than [edited] , Which I think has bad graphics and is very repetiteve. You bash, you brawl and blow up cars. just one problem. Where's the blood? The game would be more satisfying if there was more gore. Also, Live would have been nice

good fun

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: March 25, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I rented this and played it for 4 days straight. The game is long and the sound production is one of the best Ive ever heard with the surround on. Not as gruesome or realistic as the Getaway, but the controls are way better. A few missions are kinda pointless like drive from point a to b, but the rest of the missions are very well thought out and impressive. Then theres the cars. If your tired of the same old vehicles you'll be quite intrigued by these oldies.

Clunky

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: March 25, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I was dissapointed by the "clunkiness" of this game. The framerates are choppy, controls were stiff and the aiming stinks. Not a comparrison with [edited] but I could see this game having some fans. I would rent first.

DONT BUY

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: March 27, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Dont buy this game. I hated this game unless you like slow old cars and driving by the rules. I say if you want a game like this to by [edited]. I didnt like how the cars were and the camera angles.

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