The Mafia series had hit a snag in the last few years, which started with the abysmal launch of its third entry into the series, Mafia 3. As with all of the games in the franchise, the story was fantastic but had suffered from numerous bugs, performance issues, unfinished visuals, and boring gameplay. Following that debacle, when the definitive edition of Mafia 2 was released just months ago, fans felt that it wasn’t much of a jump from the original version of that title. This issue raised more questions as to what would be expected in the new definitive version of the original Mafia game. While Hangar 13 did a lot to bring Mafia Definitive Editon to modern consoles by rebuilding the original from the ground up, it has a list of shortcomings. With that being said, it was a treat to retread the fantastic story that launched the series to where it is now.

Story

Mafia Definitive Edition is a gritty tale about a cab driver named Tommy Angelo who becomes wrapped up in the local crime families of Lost Heaven. You’ll follow him from his first encounters with the Salieri family and his rise through the ranks. The majority of the story revolves around the tensions rising between your boss, Don Salieri, and your rivals of the Morello family. There’s never really a dull moment as the story focuses mostly on the critical story beats that lead from one scenario to another.

Being someone who was really too young when the original version of the game came out back in 2002, Mafia 2 was my first real experience with the series. I’ve always wanted a chance to see the story so I’m extremely satisfied that I’ve finally been able to do so. It does a fantastic job of giving us a look at Tommy’s world and his family that he watches out for. There’s a great duality between his related family and the family he serves in the mob.

I will say that some of Tommy’s reactions to what he has to do don’t make sense in terms of his intentions. He won’t kill a rival gang member who tried to sexually assault his love interest yet he just wasted about 20 unknown gangsters just moments before. Things like this don’t happen too often but when it does, it’s very noticeable and odd.

Gameplay

When talking about the gameplay elements present, there didn’t seem to be anything new to shake up the formula. If you’ve played an open-world story-driven game in the last 20 years then you’re definitely going to find it easy to jump right into this one. Even though it doesn’t revolutionize the wheel it does give us a new era to play in which was admittedly pleasant. I love the 30s as a Mafia setting because that decade was so fraught with issues due to not only the downfall of the economy but the corruption happening on the streets.

When comparing it to the last 2 Mafia games it’s actually a really barebones experience. Mafia 2 allowed us to go into mechanic shops and customize our vehicles, go to suit shops to get new digs, run into gun stores to pick up better weapons, and even walk into diners to cause some trouble. Mafia 3 introduced a van that pulls up so that you can unlock and upgrade weapons, you have the option to play different challenges to maximize your mob empire, and again, it allowed you to wander into restaurants and hideouts to cause trouble.

For this entry, it’s extremely watered down compared to the earlier titles of the series. It strictly focuses on the story and nothing else as a majority. You can take part in the 20 chapters of story missions or play freeride mode. What separates these two modes is the fact that while in story mode, you always have an objective that needs to get done and you really never take a break. That’s not to say that the game is very demanding in the missions you actually carry out.

For most of the story, you’re actually just driving around from point A to point B. They fill in this driving time with exposition between characters that is really enjoyable. The thing for me that got a little old was the fact that there was so much of the city and country portions of the map that just aren’t utilized. You’re always going to be driving through the same parts of the neighborhoods over and over again. Luckily, the driving is superb so it didn’t bother me too much but it did wear on me by the time the credits rolled.

You have a few difficulty options to choose from which also impact the driving mechanics. There’s a standard which is the more fun way to drive around Lost Heaven as it allows you to carry out some really cool driving sequences. You also get the chance to use the “simulation” settings which make the cars feel heavier and their engines more realistic due to the limitations of the time. Using simulation is really cool because it felt like the developers put a lot of detail into every single car to make them drive the same way they would if you were to go back in time to that decade.

When you aren’t driving these boat-like Model-Ts through the neighborhood, you’re painting the streets in rival blood. Combat overall felt a little lacking for me though. There aren’t a lot of weapons and the controls just felt clunky. Weapon recoil was laughable as well as the melee combat. This was a step back for the series when comparing it to older titles. It never felt fulfilling but often became irritating. It’s disappointing to see such sub-par combat when this franchise has been around for such a long time and has done a decent job up until this point.

I will give props to how they designed the difficulty of the AI. The bad guys will take cover, circle around you, and eventually try to rush you head-on. Even when I tested it on the easy difficulty, the enemies wouldn’t let up or decrease the amount of tactic used. This at least helped to curve the disappointment entirely. The gunfights also visually look awesome. At times it had the makings of a Tarantino film because of the sheer amount of craziness going on at once during a given gunfight.

There are a few filler missions throughout the game such as “beloved” tailing missions, weak sneaking sections, and search the area segments. This is the kind of stuff that really makes the game feel dated. These types of things are tropes at this point, most developers try to stray away from including them entirely. There aren’t any missions in the game that seemed to amp up the suspense or did anything creatively.

You can also find collectible comics, cigarette boxes, and more around the city as well as take cars out of your garage to drive to your next mission. Instead of going to a mechanic to change the options of your car, you do it from your garage. You can change the color and interior of just about every single car in the game which is fun to play with. I did find it a little odd that they give you so many vehicles in your garage from the beginning. What I didn’t like is that the game never saves what car you were using last for your next mission.

The other way to play the game is the freeride mode. This is a free-roaming version of Lost Heaven that allows you to play around in the world at your own pace. Here, you to change Tommy’s outfits, which the story mode does not allow you to do, and try to find some secret missions around the city. You can also take cars from your garage and search for the collectibles I mentioned before. Besides that, there’s really nothing to do in this open-world.

What I did come to realize by playing in free mode is that it doesn’t allow you to explore too much. For example, Grand Theft Auto V allows you as a player to go just about anywhere you want so that you can make the experience your own. In Mafia Definitive Edition, you’re bound to the areas that the game allows you to be in. This is just another part that makes this game feel extremely dated. It’s sad that GTA V came out 7 years ago but still feels way more relevant than a game that came out 2 weeks ago.

Visuals

The developers did a good job in the visuals they delivered. Nothing is ground-breaking but it is a fabulous looking title. Characters’ faces do a great job of presenting the actors’ fantastic performances. The vehicles look historically accurate and well polished. Some locations look more aesthetically pleasing than others but it’s most of the time that the game’s art style works in its favor than not. It can look dated at times but this is considered a budget title, so I’ll let up on this aspect.

Audio

My oh my are the actors superb in this game. I have to give credit where credit is due. The standout character performance was in Paulie as his voice actor just did such a fantastic job of bringing him to life. He’s a side character but seems to be what I’d call the “main-side character”. A majority of the story overall is surrounded by Paulie’s bond growing with Tommy and sets the final steps of the story in motion. Audio as far as guns and vehicles are concerned are great too. Everything has a cinematic quality to it to make it feel like those mob movies we used to watch back in the day.

Replayability

Once I finished the story, I felt underwhelmed. I’ve played countless hours of Mafia 2, and as far as it goes for Mafia 3, I haven’t finished it because I’m so busy just driving around and getting into trouble. In regards to this title though, I just couldn’t for the life of me enjoy playing too much more after I had finished the story. As I said, the world feels restrictive and there really isn’t anything to do once the story is over.

What It Could Have Done Better

I’ve already listed my issues with the game’s dated gameplay but it goes a little further than that when considering its pitfalls. I encountered visual and performance bugs from start to finish with this title. I had issues with screen-tearing constantly during cutscenes and it really got in the way of my enjoyment with the story when this would happen. Textures would pop in and out consistently in certain scenes and would continue even while I’d actually be playing the game.

A few other oddities I’d noticed was a flash that happened a handful of times during cutscenes, engulfing certain characters in the shot. My car hovered a couple of times and I noticed some weird motion blur that really just looked like the character was shmearing its shadow upon the screen behind it. Nothing directly impacted gameplay but it all did negatively impact my overall judgment on the game. Yes, this is a budget title but that doesn’t mean that it should be littered with bugs. You’d think after the disaster surrounding Mafia 3 that they would’ve made sure to make this one better than perfect.

Verdict

It pains me that Mafia Definitive Edition just ended up being, in my opinion, mediocre. This was probably my most anticipated game of the year as I’m such a die-hard fan of this series. Being someone who hadn’t gotten the chance to play the story of the original, I am at least satisfied that I was able to finally experience it with a new gloss of paint. Without the story and characters, this wouldn’t have even kept me interested past the first few missions. It isn’t overtly bad by any means but it is a disappointment in execution. Is it a remake that improves upon the original title? Yes, but it still doesn’t feel up to the standard of a game for this genre in 2020. Especially with what’s going to be available with the next-gen consoles coming out so soon, I expected to see more from the developers.