Mafia – PS2 – Review

When
Mafia was released on the PC in the late summer of 2002, it offered a deep,
involving story, gorgeous graphics, and extremely authentic driving and became
the sleeper hit of the summer.  Now, the game is hitting consoles, first on the
PS2 and then the Xbox (the Xbox version is set to come out next month).  The PS2
version still retains much of the atmosphere of the PC game.  However, it falls
prey to many of the same technical shortcomings that plague most PC-to-PS2
ports, like lousy graphics, unintuitive controls, long loading times and bugs
galore.

Mafia
takes place in the Lost Heaven, a seamy city in the 1930s.  It follows the story
of Tom Angelo, a taxi driver who gets forcefully shoved into the mob and then
builds his way up from a two-bit hood into a well-respected Made Man. You meet
many different characters throughout the story, some are loyal friends there to
help you and some are enemies out to kill you, and some fall somewhere in
between…

Mafia’s
action gameplay is a cross between third-person on-foot shooting areas and
automobile driving.  I know what your thinking, but this game is astronomically
different from the Grand Theft Auto series.  The gameplay is very story driven,
making the game extremely linear whereas the GTA series main appeal is its
“go-anywhere do-anything” gameplay.  The driving missions however are very
similar to GTA, meaning you run hit missions (you kill people), steal cars, be
the getaway driver, and a host of other criminal activities to progress through
the game.

When it
hit the PC, Mafia had all the trappings to be just another GTA clone, but what
kept the game from being GTA: 1930 was the incredible depth of atmosphere.  The
cars were authentic in design, physics and handling, meaning that you couldn’t
hot rod your way through the city (most of the cars top out at 60 MPH) or turn
on a dime.  The huge city was extremely detailed and brought to life by
well-rendered characters walking the sidewalks, great looking cars and amazing
lighting effects.  The authenticity of the game’s atmosphere coupled with the
great and engaging story made the game a compelling quest.

However, now I must go into the PS2 version.  Due to porting problems, Mafia
loses a huge chunk of the atmosphere presented by the PC version.  The stiff and
unresponsive controls and weird collision detection make the gameplay a shell of
what it was on the PC version.  Manually aiming is extremely difficult, and
although you can counter this with the auto-aim buttons, these only serve to
make the shootout scenes too simple.  Plus, the collision detection is very
buggy, as you can shoot an enemy point blank and they won’t even react, or you
can shoot an enemy from a long ways away without even really aiming and they’ll
keel over.  The AI is terribly dumb, making stupid mistakes too often giving you
the upper hand.  If all of this wasn’t bad enough, the 45-second load times
between areas and missions is so disjointing that it interrupts any fun you may
have been having with the game.  All in all, various porting issues keep Mafia
on the PS2 from being fun for very long.

The
graphics in the PS2 were probably the biggest casualty of the porting process.
When it was released (and for the most part, even now), Mafia was one of the
most gorgeous games on the PC.  The character models were extremely realistic,
with facial features and emotions, the lighting effects were great looking and
the city itself looked authentic and felt alive.  However, the PS2 version
forfeits most of the luster of the PC version and comes off as an unpolished
mess.  The character models (while still pretty darn good in the in-game
rendered cutscenes) look extremely simplistic, the blurry textures look like
they were rendered on the original PlayStation, and the framerates are very
jumpy.  The graphics fall prey to many bugs, as well, with jaggy textures,
clipping problems and nearly complete loss of lighting effects (the night
driving levels are so dark that most of them are nearly impossible to complete
without hitting something).

At
least the sound effects were ported over quite well for the most part, which is
good because the sound and music in the PC version were phenomenal.  The voice
acting is superb, bringing the characters to life with their own personal quirks
and idiosyncrasies (like Ralphie, for example, who nervously stutters his way
through every conversation you have with him).  The music is great, featuring a
mix of original scores (the main theme reminds me of Road to Perdition for some
reason) and music from the era, with songs from Louis Prima, Django Reinhardt
and the Mills Brothers.  However, there is some inherent bugginess in the sound,
like a bizarre delay between the point that you crash into something and the
noise it makes and a few instances of sounds cutting out or being distorted.

Mafia
is a great game on the PC, representing some of the best work ever to come out
of Take-Two’s The Gathering development house.  This makes the PS2 version even
more of a tragedy, as it had all the potential to be one of the next big things
on the console.  The bugs are too plentiful to overlook, and when compared to
the PC version, the game is a lousy mess.  If you only have access to a PS2,
then rent Mafia if only for the great story.  However, if you have at least a
mid-range PC (or an Xbox, in which case, you could wait for the game’s Xbox
release in a month and read that
review), then pick up the PC
version, which I should note is now budget priced for about ten bucks.

Reviewer’s Scoring Details

Gameplay: 6.5
The
sense of atmosphere and ambience from the excellent PC version is all but gone
from the PS2 version, with stiff controls, dumb AI, long loading times and tons
of strange bugs.  Overall, the gameplay is a shell of the PC version.

Graphics: 7.0
The
graphics are very watered down.  The in-game rendered cutscenes are still very
cool looking, but just about everything else, from the framerates to the plain
character models to the lousy textures make the overall appearance of the game
look too much like a PSOne game.

Sound: 8.5
The
sound effects are great, ported well from the PC for the most part.  The voice
acting and dialogue is very good and the music is great, with original cuts and
music from the era.  However, there are some nagging bugs in the sound, like
delays between collisions and the noise and some instances of cutting-out and
distortion.

Difficulty: Medium

Concept: 7.5
The
excellent story of the original is largely left intact from the PC version,
although the presentation is mired with bugs and a general lack of polish.

Overall: 6.9
Mafia is another sad example of a great PC game done wrong by a bad port to the
PS2.