Mafia: Definitive Edition Review - Welcome to the Family.

By Sam Coles:

Seems to be the year of remakes and remasters, but that doesn’t mean it is a bad thing as games age they tend to start to show their cracks. The original Mafia that was release all the way back in 2002 was ahead of its time, with a well written story and voice acting that was and still is really good. However gameplay is rather archaic these days, and to be honest was at the time coupled with the ridiculous difficulty spikes. Here we are in 2020 where Mafia has been given a complete remake in the form of the Definitive Edition, and it is fantastic. Let’s get into it.

You step into the innocent shoes of taxi driver Thomas Angelo, or “Tommy” as he is affectionately called. He is working late one night where he is confronted by two mobsters named Paulie and Sam, who are associates of the Salieri crime family. They need to get the hell out of dodge because they have crashed their car while trying to avoid their pursuers, and Tommy helps them not out of choice as he is staring down the barrel of a gun. He helps them escape where is offered a job with the family, but Tommy politely declines, until he is ambushed by the rival crime family and has no other choice to get involved with organised crime.

The story is very faithful to the original basically retelling it scene for scene, however it adds new scenes which helps flesh out the main characters as well as characters that were not as involved in the original. The performances from all the actors are superb, which had me emotionally hooked throughout.

Gameplay has been given a massive overhaul, Hangar 13 have taken elements from their previous project Mafia 3 and have injected elements of it into this remake. For starters the shooting compared to the original is much better, with the added ability to take cover instead of awkwardly shuffling behind doorways. The shooting feels fantastic, it has a nice weight to it as you pull the trigger each time coupled with the visceral feedback as blood spirts out of your enemies.

Driving also feels much better, but they are still stiff to drive but this is thematically appropriate as the game is set in the 1930’s so cars aren’t exactly fast or agile. However it is much more manageable when turning tight corners, plus they have added period specific motorbikes which I thought was a nice touch.

What I love about the gameplay experience is that the game will let you customise your difficulty in different areas; this makes the game replayable in my book with different difficulty tweaks. This can range from changing the driving physics to realistic; changing how health works to my favourite how sensitive the police are with your crimes. This is fantastic as it caters to different play styles and opens the game up to everyone, whether you want a hardcore experience or just want to explore and enjoy the story.

The presentation speaks for itself the game has been given a complete graphical overhaul especially the character models, they look very believable coupled with the full body motion capture performances. They manage to capture every subtle detail on character’s faces from a slight smirk to their eyes darting back and forth with worry. The world also looks beautiful, with the warm sunny days lighting the pavements to the wet and neon lit roads at the dead of night. This world looks beautiful and feels lived in coupled with the exquisitely detailed cars, with some fantastic damage modelling. The soundtrack is godlike in my book; the booming orchestra as you gun down gangsters is magnificent as well as the iconic main theme that plays during the opening credits!

Are there any issues with the game? Yes a few, for starters let’s talk about the framerate as it is a problem on base consoles. I played this on a standard Xbox One and oh boy does it chug in places, this would often happen in busy firefights when there are lots of explosions and particle effects and can get a bit annoying. The loading times were also another grievance, but honestly they were not as bad as Mafia 3. Melee combat felt a bit underwhelming and lacked impact; it didn’t feel like I was decking someone with a baseball bat more like slapping someone with a wet fish. Finally the game does suffer with pop in on the Xbox One; this can be textures showing up late to the party or NPCs popping out of nowhere. These issues were somewhat annoying, but fortunately they don’t happen often enough to sour my experience.

Mafia Definitive Edition is a beautiful remake of the 2002 cult classic, it managed to modernise the formula while staying faithful to the original. Sure it has some technical issues, but the fun gunplay and engaging storytelling had me hooked from start to finish. This is one of my favourite games of 2020 and I urge you to go out and get!