Mafia

[Çloud§trife]

:extra7: if you dont know what this game is or dont know anything about i suggest by the time you look at this you should search for this at any gamecube or nintindo web site this game goes beyond GTA3 . Hell! GTA3 cant hold mafia i cant wait for this game and the best thing is its coming out this fall!


heheh if you think alot of people traded in their Ps2's for ResidentEvil this game will go beyond that BUT! thats if people only know about it and if they dont they will just miss the best game since GTA3 and on second though i dont think any thing can top Resident Evils blow out sale heheh i couldent find one copy the 1st day it came out and i was like checking in the mornings and lunch time and man they were out already


But this game is very good i want to know your opinions about it

Sorry dont have any attachments but maybe! our big new hotshot TS can get us some

[TrueSayian]

Hey Spell my name out Cloud, ur use TRU. Aight...


But ya I will get a bunch of pics up. and maby a good preview.

[ViVi Phantasia]

Mafia never hurd it

[TrueSayian]

aight I will go get a preview and a bunch of pics.

[TrueSayian]

Due to circumstances, some need for refinement, and scheduling issues, Mafia (minus the La Cosa Nostra now) had its release date pushed back. Enough back that they weren't about to tell us when the game was actually going to be released. The publishers would say nothing about it. We would say, "Yous guys gotta tell us about this game, see?" And they would say, "No." Which of course would be followed by our, "Mnyah, see!" comeback. Of course neither our horrible gangster speak nor the horses heads we sent in the mail as "presents" could convince them to tell us how the game was progressing. All we could get was halfway confirmation that it was progressing. Then we received a letter one day from a reader saying they saw Mafia's release date as August 27, 2002 on our own damn gamestore... so we moved our tactics from mafia cliches to constant whining and nagging. I guess annoyance works a little better because they've finally let the cat out of the bag. Gathering of Developers brought a version of the game by to show us how its looking and even let me get behind the controls and slip into the persona of Tommy, a lowly cabbie that just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

Tommy was just a regular guy with the regular dreams and a regular life. He was a cab driver wishing that he didn't have to work for a living (making me instantly relate to him, the sorry sod). The beginning of the story has him pulling over and taking a fateful smoke break. Meanwhile, a few streets away, the soldiers of the mafia families in Lost Heaven are having a little bit of an argument. Instead of flinging insults and words around, they're flinging bullets and driving like maniacs through the streets. While Tommy is leaning against his car, the mobsters on the losing end of the argument crash their car and run from the scene, right into Tommy and his cab. Through a little gun toting persuasion, the chase begins anew and this time Tommy's behind the wheel.

Immediately you're dropped behind the controls of Tommy's less than agile taxicab with two of the Salieri family mob riding shotgun and the game begins for real. It's now in your hands to escape and deliver both of these men alive. The trick here is, your cab is a pretty crappy car. But rich rewards await if you can drive through Lost Heaven and get your passengers to safety.

And so begins your career and eventual rise to made man in the golden age of gangsters, the depressing as hell 30's. While there are a few games out there that hearken back to these days, Mafia's style of setting players as a singular foot soldier in an ongoing war for control over the seedier side of a Chicago-like city sets it apart. The prohibition was a tough time for all, but a lucrative time for the mob as you'll find out on your rise to the top. But being a gangster isn't exactly all perks. You get shot at an awful lot and when you mess up you get hit in the head with a baseball bat. Around IGN we only use soap in a sock and that hurts a lot... I don't think I'd like the baseball bat.

The time period is brought alive with some amazing model and texture work from the Digital Illusion art team. Everything in this game is amazingly detailed, colorful, and has almost a washed out sort of feel you get when you think of the 30's. It'll instantly remind you of gangster flicks like The Untouchables. All characters wear the right clothes, the 60 classic cars you'll find in the game are all faultlessly modeled, the music and background noise is appropriate to the time (and very well done), and the attitude and personality of the characters in reflects that awesome 30's gangster mystique.

After giving a quick tour of the game, I pushed my way in front of the controls because I couldn't take just sitting by and watching someone else play anymore. Before too long, I had Tommy running and gunning. Controls are easy enough to learn for anybody that's played a game before, and probably some that haven't. Use the arrow keys to move around (or remap to WASD like a normal person) and the mouse to look and fire. Double tapping strafe keys cause you to do a roll dodge while crouching will give you cover and allow you to aim a little easier.

Mafia is all 3rd-person perspective, much like the recent May Payne, and the camera looks to work just about as well. When your back is to a wall and the camera would normally cause you fits, you'll see Tommy go transparent as the camera moves into first-person. This is the only time you can get into first-person in order to keep the game looking more like a cinematic experience.

And it really is cinematic. From the bit I got to play, cutscenes, both the cinematic ones and the ones that flow within the gameplay, are done very well and add to the excitement quite a bit. They can be pretty surprising sometimes and get the adrenaline and stress level flowing before you actually start into the action. More on those in a second.

The missions themselves are pretty linear, though some do have different solutions. You'll move from objective to objective as you follow the story and climb up the ranks. While the entire city of Lost Heaven has been modeled here, you aren't going to be running around haphazardly like in Grand Theft Auto III. Everything has an overall purpose to the story making the experience much more focused. There will be some opportunity to just wander around the city however, stealing cars, riding the railway, heading out to the countryside, and basically taking a tour. But you aren't going to find any hidden jumps or too many of the extra little things like was in GTA III. The times you'll be able to wander will be when you already have a mission that isn't immediate or under a time limit.

[TrueSayian]

While we skipped around the levels a bit so that I wouldn't be able to understand the story or be able to ruin everything for those that buy the game, I got a really great look at the wide variety of levels in the game. The first I was treated to was actually very near the beginning of the game, before Tommy had really leaped feet first into a life of crime. The guys that were chasing the mobsters that Tommy drove away in his cab, weren't very happy about his involvement in the fiasco. So they decided to pay him a visit for a little payback. Okay, a lot of payback judging by the baseball bat and guns. Seeing as how he's still a cabbie at this point without weapons or any experience fighting gangsters, he quickly realizes his only option is to run like hell. So he breaks away and control comes over to you, and you get to help him run like hell while the bad guys run after you shooting at you the entire time. While you don't have any real active combat in this portion of the game, it was actually quite entertaining and a little stressful trying to escape to the Salieri Bar.

From here we moved on to combat oriented missions. The first was a quick visit to a farm where an illegal whiskey pickup has gone horribly wrong. Shotguns and Tommy Guns (which each have their own quirks and kickback) show up in copius amounts in levels like these and you'll soon be rolling around, hiding behind obstacles and trying like hell to keep from getting shot. The action can get pretty intense at times. Two of these levels in particular that I was able to play were both pretty challenging and a hell of a lot of fun. They take place later on the timeline after Tommy has gained a few ranks. One takes place in a car garage where you go to meet with a whiskey dealer to broker exclusive rights to purchase his merchandise. One of the slick interrupting cutscenes fills in here where your conversation is interrupted by two cars full of rival mob members screaming up and dumping out soldiers with tons of ammo. Bullets start flying all over the place, things start exploding, bodyguards fire back, your mob friends fire back, you're trying not to get killed while taking out the bad guys, and all of this begins and ends with a certain ferocity. It's exciting as hell and a whole bunch of fun.

Another takes place in a restaurant as you sit with Don Salieri. Enemy gangsters roll up with their guns in tow peppering the place with bullets and even toss a grenade in. After the initial barrage (in which quite a few innocents got in the way) Salieri instructs you to try to get out the back and flank them while he holds down the burning restaurant. After getting behind them a brutal firefight incurs. The trick here is, they will kill the Don if you take too long to wipe out the enemies. It's a tricky mission and one where you'll definitely feel the need to dispense a whole lot of violence really quickly.

Some levels will require a little more sneaking and thought then the run and gun levels, meaning you'll have to be careful about what you're holding. Your coat can hide one large weapon (like a shotgun or Tommy Gun) and a couple of pistols. More than that and they'll be in your hand for everyone to see. If you haven't noticed, guns tend to scare people a teeny bit. Having people running around screaming gun won't help your situation. One level in particular gives you the care of a locksmith as you try to break into a rival Don's mansion and steal some papers. Not only will you have to sneak and try not to be seen, but you'll need to protect the locksmith so he can break into the house and the safe with you. Gunfire is unacceptable here, as guards will come running, so a bat and a good follow through are your best friends. Of course, not everything always works out the way it was planned to. Then there's the puzzlish levels like one where you're on a steamboat to assassinate a VIP. You'll first have to figure out where he is, where the gun that's hidden for you on the boat is, and how to get him out of his room. After all of that, you still have to be able to take him out with only a few bullets in your gun and armed bodyguards everywhere on board and escape via a lifeboat afterwards. Good stuff.

On the levels with random people in them, which is most of the levels, you'll be able to talk to each of them by running up and clicking the right mouse button, which is your default activation key. (This also allows you to pick up items on the ground.) They'll all have something different to say and often have a few different things to say. Actually finding the right people to talk to also makes a difference to getting through some of the levels successfully.

Some of the missions, or their submissions, will require some driving skills as well. One bank heist mission involves you robbing and then trying to escape from the police. You'll get to choose your own getaway car (I unfortunately was stuck with the crappy taxi thanks to a developer joke) for the heist so you better choose a fast one. The cops have some of the best cars in the game and aren't afraid to ram you off the road. All cars take damage and will eventually cease to function. Tires can be shot out, bullet holes appear from shots, and scratches and dents appear during driving. No matter where you are in the car, you can always hang out the window and take a few shots back at your enemies as well.

The 60 different cars vary from Model A crap boxes to the fast and furious race cars of the day that can get up to a whopping 100 mph. It may not seem like much, but handling on these things wasn't exactly like today's Ferraris so those speeds are pretty excessive. At least you'll have a map of the city with a X marking where you're supposed to get to in these missions. There'll be shortcuts to take as well, but if all else fails, following the map will get you where you need to go.

If you're being followed by the cops, you can always try to hide as well. Your wanted level will slowly decrease over time until the police have forgotten you just robbed a bank and murdered 20 people. Often times, you'll also have to employ some slick driving skills to keep your partners alive. Cops aren't shy about throwing bullets your way and they'll go through the windows and into your buddies, if you're not careful, meaning you lose the mission.

For having been out of the public eye for so long, and not totally in it for a long while before that, Mafia's comeback into the spotlight is well appreciated. It looks really good and from the hour and a half I had with it, plays well too. If the story turns out to be as well orchestrated as they claim, this may turn out to be one of those must haves for the PC this year. Gathering of Developers is telling us the end of August for release and our gamestore still says the 27th, so expect this one to hit gold soon and hit stores around that date. Make sure to keep you eyes open for the announcements.

[ViVi Phantasia]

! ai yai yai to much to much

[TrueSayian]

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[Çloud§trife]

jesus Tru are those all pics?

[TrueSayian]

ya

did you read the preview.

[Çloud§trife]

what you think? did u see the size of that thing?

[TrueSayian]

ya, I think I know how big it is. I said I would get a good preview.

Did you like the pics.

[Çloud§trife]

WOW !

the 1st pic iv looked a most but i dident know you could even go out in the country on that game lol

[TrueSayian]

Yes this game is huge cloud.

[Çloud§trife]

and at ign it says it will be out this fall to

[Koenma]

heheh secret code to unlock Hitler and his mercadies benz

[TrueSayian]

lol it wont be out this fall. Try early next year.

[Koenma]

its not that bad of a wait ill be busy with others as it is

[TrueSayian]

True. It's looking a lot better then GTA 3. And I like it's style a lot more.