Mafia Analytical Review - minimme 

I was 2 years old when this game released and I first played it when I was 17. So the "blinded by nostalgia" comments make no valid argument

I first played it in 2011, abandoned it, and returned to beat it in 2014. Loved it when I gave it a second chance and it's now one of my favourites.

The gunplay is only hard if you grew up with games that were made after 2007 or so. Games that are easy and hold your hand. It's challenging and really awesome. I never did that look around corner camera 'trick' because the game was alright as it was. It takes a little getting used to but it's a perfect challenge

When this game has came out, I was only 18. This game made GTA 3 look like a paper. Graphics, atmosphere and the dark, depressed feeling this game gave you is priceless. Mafia 2 didn't have that dark and depressed feeling. I'm not saying It's a bad game but Mafia The City of Lost Heaven is better. It's more realistic.

Even though a few years back it cost me a keyboard and a mouse (no joke!) - i am absolutely inlove with it! Now please excuse me - i have to install it again. :)

more games should have this enemies and their unlimited ammo breaks the i word

And i noticed it today, after years, thanks to some random dude on the tube. That is a masterpiece of videogame history.

I noticed years ago. A cop started shooting me and after a while, he yelled "I need Ammo!"

gameboy7161 There were so many neat little touches that drew you in. I wish it’d kept that sensibility into the sequels.

This can also happen in the original Deus Ex. Another great classic game.

Copyright

@@randomthingz2showrandomthi208 on some ninety-year-old songs... 🤣

@@PACKERMAN2077 you'll be surprised how many 30-200 year old songs are copy righted on youtube.

@@randomthingz2showrandomthi208 no I know about it it's just still funding on the less especially when you hear a recording of a song that is older than the invention of recording, and it still gets copyrighted

@@randomthingz2showrandomthi208 seriously they cut out songs from steam-like editions? Good thing I have mine on physical media...

Yep, I was there in 2002 and actually had Mafia on pre-order. Frankly, it lived up to EVERY expectation at the time - it was an incredible game.

hermand the gas tank and flat tires features blew me away at the time

@@peaceandwealthseeker4504 yeah it was really amazing for that time.

1940's films are better though (mostly)

It ages really badly, mechanics wise, if it's so realistic, why can't my car that's going 100kph knock over a light pole? The controls are wonky at best and the shooting tries to be realistic but falls flat on its face. Overall it IS a good game, just one I could not bring myself to complete.

i love the fact, that they rebuild existing old cars from that era. Including all the specifications, the way doors open (suicide doors on Lassiter V16), Engine sounds (ulver aistream) etc. Lucas Bertone and Ralpe tell you so many little details about the cars. "they changed the lock" "front wheel drive" etc.

You had to learn how to steal them... every one felt different

I loved those details and I personally loved having to slam on the brakes when seeing a cop turn on the street or having to slam the brakes to stop at the redlight a cop was at. Also, the way you didn't HAVE to kill a cop if you couldn't outrun him right away, you could just stop, get out, and pay your ticket and leave.

And how the fast cars from the beginning of the game were pieces of shit in the end.

Also the bloody manual transmission! I cannot think of any other open world game like this where you have a manual car.

It was the best game ever. People forget what time it came out and what were the other games.

@@copperfronts1679 The lights from the gun when the bullets were fired was so surreal. It surpassed every game that came out. The story telling, the graphics, the music- oh the intro music!!, and great fuckin attention to every little detail. It is what masterpieces are made of.

Sooo true😊

Good on you. Nothing will ever beat Mafia.

beacause its running on LS3D Engine illusion softworks in-house engine

Blew my mind at the time

Yeah, it really stands out. I would never have guessed this game released before GTA:VC.

The character models are pretty out of control given the time.

Vice city has shitty graphics

See you had the console version then lol

killer1one1 - I totally agree! The best thing about the first Mafia game was the music and the incredible atmosphere of living in that city. Brilliant! I wish they would re-create this game with modern graphics but with the exact same characters, story and music! I would buy it and play it all over again!

TU DU TU TU TU, TU TU DU. TU DU TU TU TU, TU TU DU. TU DU TU TU TU, TU TU DU. TU DU TU DU TU TU.

I would often stay at the menu screen for a while, just listening to that music and being amazed at how smooth the camera panned around the room. The old projector whirring away, it's light illuminating some slowly swirling smoke... great detail.

in Germany we have a rapper named Kollegah who used the Theme Song for his Song "Alphagenetik"

Me too, where were some hard levels but i was so interested to the story i kept playing. Same with shadow tactics, they are hard and realistic games and its a shame that they get criticized for that.

But that car race though

@@AchiragChiragg The car race is like playing an instrument. With enough practice, you hit all the right notes and there are just a few bits where you really need to be careful so as not to mess it up. By the fifth time I finished the game as a kid, it was one of my most fun levels.

I played this the week it came out I was about 7 lol I remember it was fucking hard man I couldn’t do it

The mission were you sneak into the mansion fucked my head

It's mostly because of Mafia 2 and especially 3.

Yeah and even developers said they never knew about GTA 3. They loved GTA 1 and 2 and so they told themselfs let's do a gangster game but in 3D. The first time they saw the GTA 3 was like 3 months before its release. Maybe if Mafia came first everybody would compare the GTA to the Mafia and not Mafia to GTA. Second and third game was developed under 2K publisher so investors pushed developers to make it more like GTA and it wasn't a Mafia since.

I dont mind it being compared to GTA it was better in all aspects.

well thats the point.

Not to mention this game has started development way before GTA 3.

So does Watchdogs and that sure made it a best seller....

Dude... R U 4 real?

@@lonelyprisoner0174 no yeah it's called sarcasm.

It has clips and empty bullet shells lying on the ground, it has bloody foot steps when you walk through the blood, it has bullet holes in cars, it has broken glass on the ground when you break it, you can play music on a gramophone, you can talk to people on the streets, you can see them doing their daily jobs or listen to what they are talking about, when it came out in 2002 we were in elementary school and our parents thought we are watching a movie, not playing a game, I mean even gta san adreas has worse graphics, only thing I hated is the linear story, I wanted some choice in killing(or not) the cruical characters

Yep, working turn signals. Not the first, not the last.

yeah I thought so too haha, 13:16 for anyone wondering

13:18 - Holy heck

Man, I remember those moments when I was standing face to face with an enemy, both reloading like crazy not sure who'll have the first shot, but knowing there won't be any second shot. Mafia's shootouts were clunky, but also tense as all hell.

Happens all the time to me

You can reload faster if you do a side roll

I can’t wait to play my favorite game of all time. in august 28. (Remake or remade)

F-O-X-N4 Same

Agreed, a masterpiece.

Here in CZ where it all originated. We dont take Mafia 3 as Mafia so please dont use Mafia 3 with even a slight conjuction with legendary mafia 1

I cheated that race everytime😂😂😂

I don't get what the problem is with the race. You could even set the difficulty to your level. Great mission in my opinion. It brings even more variety to the game and tells about how races were during that time.

@@dariolance7637 The version I played (and beat) as a kid did not have a difficulty setting. Pretty sure about that.

If you want to get some of that experience back again, a sort of demo of how Mafia 4 could look & play like in 2019, get the BeamNG game, download Mafia 1 map mod, spawn in one of the classic 50s/60s cars and just enjoy. Play with a wheel for maximum effect. Been playing that for the past few weeks. It's amazing, but also kinda sad as it reminds me of where we could be in 2019 with games had we taken a different path since the release of Mafia 1. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-CkLHOm9DvR0.html the only video I could find.

@@mattmattmatt131313 That seems cool, yes I hope too that in the next years BeamNG will be the default car gameplay for any game ^^ I know this way of feeling about what games became next to what they could have been... Let's hope for the futur !

I agree, i always found it stupid for people hating a good physics

even arma?

well Arma was developed by BOHEMIA interactive, so yeah....

@@tanveerhasan2382 yes, originally this series was called Operation Flashpoint. And then the same thing with idiocy of the publisher happened. This is really why Mafia 3 is really far from good game and far from the heritage of the series as a failure of Operation Flashpoint Dragon Rising,...

Same mate

Bingo! I thought I was the only one utterly shocked and sad when the two guys walked up to Tommy and shot him dead. "Mr. Angelo?? Mr. Salieri sends his regards." *POP* "You know it... The world isn't run by the laws written on paper. It's run by people... " Oh man... The dialogues were fuckin incredible

@@appleipadcrazy Mafia 1 is in our hearts I feel u bro

Paulie was worse for me

@@appleipadcrazy ”You know, I think it's important to keep a balance in things. Yeah, balance, that's the right word. Cause the guy who wants too much risks losing absolutely everything. Of course, the one who wants too little from life, might not get anything at all.” That line sticked to my skin like flaming plastic.

Hey man thanks for coming and checking this out :) as I said I get your view entirely, I just felt like I had something unique to say about the game and your post was a good starting point. Super glad you enjoyed this analysis though I appreciate that

well maybe mafia 2, 3 was pretty standard for the time.

Jaiver Salazar Ortiz Mafia 3 didn’t look all that great, but the facial animations were fantastic.

That's true, but you need a mod for view distance.

Nowadays that's cool, but the game suffered for it. Mafia was a notoriously a BITCH to play at launch.

It had the best ear graphics for the time. The ears were extremely realistic. I remember playing RDR and thinking that the ears are only a little better looking than mafia 1 despite almost a decade between them

Thankyou! I've also played through it a whole bunch of times too, it's such a fantastic game. The first time I finished it, I immediately started a new game and played through it again haha. And Mafia 2 doesn't even come close to scratching the same itch. I replayed 2 recently for an upcoming video and it's still pretty bad, though it seems to have a cult following of sorts. I regret forgetting to mention Free Ride Extreme, though I wasn't much of a fan of it. The flashing shadows thing you'll notice is only from footage of early game, I found that 3D analyzer program after getting fed up with it :P

I wouldn't consider Mafia 2 bad, I still liked it a lot, but it just wasn't as good. FRE is ridiculously hard at parts, and on modern systems requires limiting the frames on 2 submissions to make it bearable. I still haven't finished every submission.

I love this game and get awfully frustrated on how people don't give it a chance, I remember playing it right after GTA: San Andreas, which mecanically is the most advanced from the GTA 3 engine and the most impressive (it's my favorite from the 3 certainly), but after playing through Mafia I remember being puzzled why it was so ignored (well, the BEAST of a PC required on launch may have something to do with it), but now I get it. One thing that I think that was "missing" from this review was the how the basic systems of the game have a heavy learning curve in which you'll eventually get almost to the level of play of something like GTA, it gives you perspective of being a lowlife rising up to being an agent of the player's will, which most games will give you straight away. It's true in the beggining that moving around town is mostly a chore as you're a lowly mafioso, but as you rise through the ranks and the skill level you'll be driving almost like in GTA by the end (the Silver Arrow is a beast, fuck speed limits) which, to me, is why the gameplay and not giving a fuck is SO ENJOYABLE. One thing about the gunplay which I thinks is heavily forgotten is how diverse and enjoyable are the setpieces in which the firefights take place and while mechanically dated as fuck, even to the time, I really felt engrossed by fighting through the traps you'll have to face as a rising thug, the robbery and the last stand at the end of the game has a sublime background, worthy of a good mafia movie.

I remember there was a 70's mod in development for Mafia which had some great car models and an incredible-looking model of a Pan-Am airliner landing at the airport (it had onboard lights that realistically lit the tail, wings and interior for night landings). I don't think map editing was possible, though, so they couldn't update the city, just retexture parts of it. Also apparently the physics model, while good, was tailored for 1930's cars. If they tried to "realistically" make a rear wheel drive 400bhp muscle car it was uncontrollable.

good job lmao, you've completely missed the point of this comment.

Cooper I'd say it is comics rather than a book 😃. But still, it is a good comparison.

What? Book without illustrations are the most common and popular books out there.

perhaps a physics textbook

Thiago Vidal Yeah, that's what I was about to comment. Not a good comparison.

It’s best game ever everyone adores it

It's a shame you can't re-enter locations used in missions. Some of them were beautifully modelled

@@michaelmartin9022 I mean, you can reload the checkpoints and play them again. Not the same of course.

My mind was blown, when I discovered with the free ride mode how huge the world is. I got places that weren't even hinted at during the story mode.

I agree with you.I liked the fact in Mafia 1 you can manually shift and even slip the clutch off the line in those cars.Amazing detail with the buildings, weapons and period music equals a great immersive experience.!!!

Agree with you ;) Mafia 2 felt so emty after Mafia 1, but Mafia 3 was disaster, they ruined mafia game series for me. But this dude didnt even mension a free ride mode after the story was finished. You could do some tasks and missions in a exchange for hot rod cars, and put them all in your safe house jard, and after getting all those hot rods, the jard was full with fast and crazy cars.....ahhh it was great times in mafia 1. I dont understand why this dude said that there are no roads out of the city, but there was. After finishing story mode and unlocking all hot rod cars, in a free ride there was so many country roads outside lost heaven!!!!!! I loved the concept in mafia 1 where you were able to park all stolen cars in a parking space behinde bar, it was such a feeling, that there was so many exclusive cars in one place, not like mafia 2 and 3.....on small garage and just scroll down to look at them - so stupid. Hope some day there will be another game like Mafia 1 :(

Good for you. They lowered the difficulty in later releases and patches though.

LA Noire was made by huge studio, Mafia was made by small studio in small country with great story and full of Czech famous actors that gave the life to the characters and even 12 years before LA Noire, you cant comoare these two games...

@@G59METH How's the fact that the country has a great story and is filled with famous Czech actors relevant to anything?

Man, have they listened to the community. I can't believe it's happening. Can you?

@@zaxlorax7605 Sadly they didnt fulfill his wish :(

Good plan, Mafia 3 is bad. And yeah I didn't like 2 as much either, seems the first remains unmatched

Tbh Mafia 3 is okay now when The problems have mostly been fixed by patches.

Just bought Mafia 3 today. 10 bucks without dlc

Well... Look out for the remake!

It wasn made by Dan Vavra the cc reator fo first Mafia he is unhealthy perfectionist for detail. czech out his next game called kingdom come deliverance. You will see same elvel of detail for living world like in mafia.

The world in Mafia 3 is realistic man. Come on. True not to the extent to the previous ones but enough.

Godmason Frustrating as hell, I ragequit and uninstalled. Mafia1 is probably my fav game of all time.

Great game. Completed The Saboteur 4 times and once for a full 100%. Underrated and one of the greatest, I still own my Copy of the Special Edition which features the Strip Club with naked callgirls.

lol that's funny

Btw, I loved this game so much as a kid that I infected a friend of mine with my enthusiasm, and together we made a hugely ambitious (for our 14 year old selves) mod designed to spice up the disappointing Free Ride (my whole time thru the game I had assumed Free Ride Extreme would have more than it did). It was called the City of Lost Dreams mod, and PC Gamer actually put it on one of their discs one month, which was awesome. We added stuff like randomized assassinations, street boxing and racing you could either participate in or spectate and bet on, you could call taxis by whistling and pick from a long list of landmarks or addresses as destinations with a makeshift menu system, you could save at phone booths, added a bunch of enterable buildings both from the missions and also from modelers and more advanced coders who over time joined us and made us a little team. Also, various gangs in different regions, for ambient gangfights at the edges of territories, or, say, like, Hoboken was outright hostile in some parts. Was pretty cool, really, getting that whole team together, I still wonder what happened to some of those folks. I tried once to find the mod fairly recently though and all I could find was some incomplete earlier version, which was too bad. Not that it was ever complete, but I couldn't find the most recent version. Enjoyed the video btw, gotta agree too - what makes it fun is the simulation aspect, the unnecessary level of detail, that's all what did it for me. The whole mod we did was an attempt to preserve that illusion into the lackluster Free Ride mode, based on our mutual disappointment with it.

@@MrDoctorColossus wow that's amazing. I can't remember anyone who could do such advanced stuff at age 14.

Me too. :)

Me too, I think I managed to win first try :)

@@knusprigundfrisch That's crazy.

for the first time I played this in about 2004 I had to call my friend to pass that mission for me. When I played it recently I got it maybe on the second try :)

@@DanielAppel It's similar for me. I think my dad did it for me back in the day. Nowadays I can do it without much trouble.

Mafia 1 is a masterpiece yes. But 2 was disappointing. It's like it tried to recreate Mafia 1 but it was boring.

Rainhands22 how so??

@@bunnell6335 it had 0 replay value, the combat was distinctly average, story wasn't close to the first, the map was small and uninteresting. I didn't like it much, most people only praise it because console players never enjoyed Mafia 1.

@@Rainhands22 I replayed Mafia 2 more times than first part. There is lost potential in that game so it could be total masterpiece, but still, for people interested in time, genre and style, it's a great game.

hard-as-shit too, I have nightmares from the racing and mansion missions

Was true in RL too GP cars were hitting over 200mph in the 30s utter insanity compared to the best road cars at the time.

@robuk1981 Those were the Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union GP racers in the second half of the 30s (the original "silver arrows"), the cars featured in this game aren't quiet as fast as those were, altho it's still generally true that the sheer power output and power/weight ratio difference between racecars and public road-going vehicles was a lot more significant back in those days.

The Carrozella!

@PartiZAn18 a.k.a. Bugatti Type 53 in real life ;)

I played this on 630MHz celeron with TNT Riva 2 with about 15 FPS, but still it was mind blowing to me at the time

I want a remake

@@a.g6399 look at that, it's actually happening.

"I played mafia on release and I still play it through today." You definitely have a good taste. ;)

It is one of the best video game theme songs of all time it deserves to be in the big gangster movie

Lol

Thanks :)

@Angad Menon holy shit I forgot I even wrote this LMAOOOOOO. Thanks for reminding me 😂. Damn I've been waiting a long time for this

@Angad Menon I didn't play Mafia 3 as I wasn't really interested in the time or area settings. I heard it was pretty mediocre but got a lot better after a bunch of updates. I enjoyed Mafia 2, but not as much as the original

@Angad Menon the main thing I didn't like about the first game was the lack of interactivity in the world. Some mini games or some customisation would've gone a long way. Also wasn't a huge fan of the vehicle handling on the faster cars. The story was just incredible though.

@Angad Menon Exactly, adding a little more interactivity, maybe like a not-so-comical San Andreas type deal would send the replay value through the roof. It's been years since I played the original Mafia and I can't wait to dive back into it

@Angad Menon honestly I wasn't even aware there was gonna be a gameplay reveal until you mentioned it. PC games haven't made any announcements of any publishers pulling out from what I can see. Can't wait to watch the stream

Maybe it's because everyone knows it's great. ;)

Thankyou! It's growing super fast tho which is mad

Uncle Kitchener hands down

In all of gaming!

It bothers me that it used to be on Steam and now it aint, it should be widely available legally

It's now on steam and gog. 15 bucks. I would reccomend getting a physical copy though, since they took out the music. Or if you can, find a way to get it and put the music back in.

That clarinet music, ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-y0SEHAgXF3U.html I bet anyone who played Mafia remembers this music very well :)

RetroDeath Reviews on the GOG forums there is a method to get the music back in the game. Also goes without saying that a wide screen mod is reciommended. Haven't finished it yet, but a great game so far.

Central Island of course. Damn, all those memories.

Vietcong has a very immersive gameplay and original missions. Definitely try it.