This year has seen its fair share of remasters and remakes, with major titles like Destroy All Humans and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater getting some time in the spotlight throughout the past few months. Mafia: Definitive Edition is now getting its own time to shine, and while it certainly has its fair share of rough edges, it manages to bring the classic game to a new generation mostly successfully.
Mafia tells the story of Tommy Angelo, a cab driver turned mobster in the fictional city of Lost Heaven as he recounts his time in the Salieri Mafia family. It has all the makings of a crime drama in the same vein as The Godfather, though pumped full of shootouts, car chases, and other high octane moments to spice things up.
Games about the Mafia are few and far between these days, and while Mafia 2 and Mafia 3 had HD re-releases earlier this year, few other franchises have attempted to tell compelling stories about life in the Italian Mob. To its credit, Mafia manages to convey Tommy's story well enough. It's well-acted even though Tommy doesn't have much of a personality, it authentically sells the 1930s setting, and the campaign has its fair share of memorable set pieces.
However, it's yet another game where a player's actions take away from the narrative itself. Tommy's character doesn't like harming innocents, which becomes increasingly important as the game goes on. But he shows no remorse for the maniacal collateral damage he causes in Lost Heaven, from blowing up cars to side-swiping pedestrians as he drifts around a sharp corner. Mafia sticks to the original enough to feel authentic to the first game, so it's hard to fault it too much for the disconnect between the player's actions and the story simply because of how far narratives have evolved since the original launched.
Less excusable is Mafia's core gameplay, which still feels dated despite being a remake. Combat, which players spend a significant portion of the campaign engaged in, feels clunky. The most common weapons, pistols, have large, circular reticles that are frustratingly imprecise, especially during prolonged segments where players shoot at enemies from a distance. Ammo for bigger weapons like Tommy Guns and Shotguns is relatively sparse, but not impossible to come by. They can also be a bit unwieldy, specifically the Tommy Gun, but they're far more satisfying to use than other weapons in the arsenal.
That combat comes coupled with some lackluster movement controls and an okay-at-best cover system. Much like storytelling, cover-based shooting mechanics have come a long way in the 18 years since Mafia originally released, but Mafia: Definitive Edition frequently feels like it could have launched alongside Uncharted 2, even though it adopts the mechanics of Mafia 3.
That certainly isn't helped by things like health, which players have to find in medicine cabinets throughout the world to recover. While combat segments are the game's weakest element, they are still serviceable and are carried by enough legitimately entertaining segments to see the game through to the end.
For the most part, the game has players driving between locations, finding an item or assassinating a target, and then escaping with a shootout and a getaway chase. Throughout its runtime, though, Mafia breaks that formula up, offering players a selection of different locations, or a twist on the objectives they're used to. For instance, one segment fairly early on has players sabotage a rival crime family's race car, then has the player partake in the race. The race itself is different from anything else in the game, and even one of it's best segments. That feeling is replicated in a few other places too, though not as excellently crafted.
That may be because driving in Mafia is surprisingly fun. Not every car is perfect – some slide around like their wheels are made of butter – but the selection of 1930s vehicles make the world feel believable, and unlike any other game out there. That's good because the only thing that players will do as much as combat is driving, but even then then it won't be for everyone. While solid, the old cars are usually slow to accelerate, and certain sections have players driving large trucks that don't always want to cooperate on turns. NPCs also frequently get in the way of things, which can lead to some unfortunate mission failures during chase sections.
Cars did have their fair share of bugs, too, but hardly ever the player's car. The most common one caused vehicles to fly off as if they were suddenly hit by an unstoppable object. Typically, this would manifest when rear-ending an NPC's car, but also sometimes completely randomly. It's a mostly harmless, though completely absurd bug that popped up semi-regularly during the campaign.
Visually, the game bounces back and forth between strikingly impressive and surprisingly lifeless. Cutscenes in locations like the dimly lit Salieri's Bar or of two characters having a conversation inside of a car can seem like they were taken from a 1980s Mafia movie. On the other hand, as players race through the countryside, grass and foliage pop in just a few feet ahead of the car, which is virtually impossible to not notice. It's a weird give and take of peaks and valleys. Mafia certainly isn't a bad looking game, but it isn't a great looking one either.
Even with its flaws, Mafia packs in a fair bit of charm. There's just something about it that keeps it engaging through to the end, which most players will reach in about 10-12 hours, including some time to backtrack for collectibles and to hunt around the environments. It's a mixture of the suits, the drama, and the honor-bound criminal deeds that will keep players around, even if there are far better video game stories out there.
Those looking for a nostalgia trip will find it here, but there are some huge asterisks to consider before diving in. Mafia: Definitive Edition is just right for those looking to kill a few evenings before the fall's bigger games start rolling in, or those that have fond memories of the franchise. It's got a pile of problems to sort out, but at the same time, it scratches an itch that few other games can.
Mafia: Definitive Edition releases September 25, 2020, for PC, PS4, and Xbox One. Game Rant was provided a PS4 code for this review.