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Dom Robinson reviews
Take 2 Interactive
- Price: £39.99
- Players: 1
- Widescreen: No
- Dolby Digital 5.1: No
- 60 Hz: No
In short, Mafia feels like a 1930s version of the Grand Theft Auto series – both have a strong storyline that see you as a lone drifter fall in with a bad crowd, both allow you to go beating up old ladies with a baseball bat, but both also seem to take forever to transfer to a different platform.
You play Tommy Angelo, a lowly cab driver trying to make a living but it’s not long before you hear a crash and are ‘gently persuaded’ by two mobsters to drive them back to the bar owned by mafia boss Salieri. It’s a good way of getting you used to driving about, as is the next stage which sees you driving a few more people around, Crazy Taxi-style – albeit on a set route, thus limiting the feeling of freedom, as does actually having to stick to the speed limit here otherwise you’ll attract the wrath of the cops.
The gameplay area is a cool 12 square miles, but unlike the PC version which had no loading times, due to the entire 1.8Gb being installed on the hard drive at once, the loading times here are rather a pain, even down to simply crossing a bridge – things never took quite that long with the GTA games.
There are 20 missions altogether, the next two seeing you run for your life to Salieri’s bar as your taxi is attacked by those you tried to escape from in level one; and then doing a job for the big cheese himself as you drive to the back of a diner, smash up cars with a baseball bat, throw a firebomb or two and then escape back to Salieri’s.
Now, I did get back after several attempts but the bloody police caught up with me as I didn’t exactly keep a low profile (my car was on the verge of breaking down and I had to steal another and – D’oh! – I picked on a sodding police car!). Still, when they cornered me I figured I’d rather torch everyone, including myself and Paulie who was with me, with a Molotov cocktail than give myself up for arrest 🙂
The graphics look pretty good, but it’s been 18 months since the PC version was released and things have moved on. Also, the gameplay’s still just as slow as it ever was, in that I mean it just took too long to get anywhere. Part of this is due to the fact that you’re driving around clapped-out bangers as opposed to high-speed sports cars in GTA so fails to interest a second time.
Perhaps it’ll be of interest to those who haven’t played it before and like ‘slow burners’, but do bear in mind also that it can be quite infuriating when you just don’t feel like you’ve got the control of your character or car that you need. However, the sound is fine – shouting, gunshots and twee 30s music in the background.
SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC
PLAYABILITY
ENJOYMENT
OVERALL 
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.