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Hello there! About 2 or 3 weeks ago I finally completed Mafia: Definitive Edition. This game is a remake of Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven, an early 3D open world crime game, developed by Illusion Softworks. This remake is made by a succesor of sorts, Hangar 13, who inherited some of the staff from the old studio and their engine, so we are off to a decent start for this story.
Story
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The broad strokes of the story are similar between games. It is the prohibition era and you play as Tommy Angelo, a down on his luck cab driver who, one day, ran into some mafiosi who needed a getaway driver from a hit gone bad. This ingratiates him with the Salieri crime family, but it hurts his job and has a huge impact on him, as a rival gang, the Morello family, are hunting him down to make an example out of him. Tommy, being pretty quick on his feet rushes to Salieri's bar, knowing he would be safe inside and this action also leads to him joining the family.
From here on out, Tommy's life takes an upturn, rising through the ranks of Salieri's gang, marrying Sarah, the daughter of the bartender of the bar, all the while doing odd jobs for Salieri. This is basically the prologue of the story, and I'll stop here, since this is the main attraction of the game, but all in all,it is really well written, weaving in clichees relating to the American Mafia, with ideas lifted from famous movies like The Godfather and Goodfellas (those 2 actually being mentioned by the devs of the original).
Gameplay
The gameplay is pretty standard for this kind of game, and is split into 2 components: driving, on-foot movement. A very important detail is how the game is structured: the story mode is linear, only using the city as a backdrop and as a place to journey through between objectives. If you want to explore, you have to select the Free Ride option from the main menu.
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The game featrues 2 different driving models, depending on the difficulty you choose. Classic difficulty provides a more realistic driving model, having your car feel like a heavy hunk of steel, certain cars even having trouble going up hills or taking corners, which is very appropriate for the era the game takes place in. The other difficulties feature a more arcadey driving model, more akin to games like GTA (had to drop at least 1 comparison between the games).
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The on-foot gameplay features the usual stuff, like walking, running, crouching (with a light stealth system present at certain points in the game), melee combat, taking cover and shooting. All of these feature a thin layer of clunkyness which doesn't really detract from stuff in the grand scheme of things, especially if you only play through the story of the game, but it does kill the experience a bit when you go have fun in the open world.
As a breath of fresh air, the game features a fixed health system, the only way to gain back health being first aid stations scattered in a naturalistic way through the environment (don't expect to find one on the corner of the street, for example).
Presentation
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The game, as can be seen in the screenshots, is indeed a looker. It runs on an upgraded version of the engine used in Mafia II and III. It doesn't boast with any bells and whistles, like raytracing or DLSS/FSR, so it isn't the most technically advanced game out there, but from an artistic point of view it is indeed a gem. The city itself, Lost Heaven, is a mash-up of 1930s-1940s New York, Chicago and San Francisco and also features a really expansive coutnryside with lakes, rivers and a dam, which aren't really explored in the story mode. The cars are all made up, but they represent the era really well, covering both cheap, luxury, and middle ranged cars and trucks, and also a new addition from the original: motorbikes.
On the sound front, everything feels really apropriate. The game features great voice acting, conveying the emotion and stress of the criminal lifestyle which is portrayed, and also punchy sound effects for cars and weapons. The music is also great, both an original soundtrack and era appropriate songs on the radio beaing featured.
To be honest, everything relating to the presentation is pretty impressive, as this didn't launch at full price, but at 40 dollars, which technically makes it a budget game.
Conclusions
All in all, I really appreciate what Hangar 13 have done with this game. It seems they ahve went above and beyond to try and keep the atmosphere of the original, while streamlining the story a bit and modernizing the gameplay and I would recommend playing this game.
Where to buy:
Steam
Epic Store
Humble Store
GamingHD Discord: https://discord.gg/CZSXJwy