Mafia

From the incredible opening cinematic to the final mission, Mafia is an exercise in realism, tension and white knuckle action.

Mafia is the story of Tommy Angelo, a cab driver turned Mafia goon and his rapid rise through the ranks. Throughout his journey Tommy learns of honour, loyality, inhumanity, violence, and eventually compassion and conscience. The framing device for the plot is Tommy telling his life story to an Irish cop in exchange for protection for himself and his family eho Don Salieri is now gunning for. It works briliantlly on a number of levels, enabling the players to vicariously live out a life of crime but showing it has it's hazards and drawbacks unlike, say, Grand Theft Auto III.

GTA III can most easily be viewed at as a driving game with some shooting elements, but the reverse is true for Mafia. Initial missions see Tommy acting as a mob cabbie ferrying mooks hither and yon later missions will see the player rescuing mob couriers, taking part in gangland hits, assassinating rivals and executing traitors. Lead comes thick and fast so you'd better be ready for it.

Both the sound and graphics of Mafia are amazing, both of which are combined to a great effect in the amazing cut scenes. Whilst initially some of the FMV may seem a little long and redundant, the serve to markedly highten the atmosphere of the game. Cutscenes are rendered with game engine so there is no real break in style. Though some of the figures appear a little boxy an dhave a fearly low polygon count. The faces of all of the characters are amazing and show a remarkable resemblance to both real and fictional Mafia identities.

Overall Mafia is an amazing ride giving the player a massive amount of truly varied missions and a fantastically engrossing story. This is about as close to playing a film as you can get. It's an hounour for every reviewer to review a game like Mafia, one of the best games ever for sure.