The game is packed with great little details. In what might be a first for a shooter, reloading a gun means losing any bullets left in the current clip. Enemies also need to pause to reload and have a limited supply of ammo, and once they're out, they'll usually charge you with knives. Since you're given only one or two weapons and a limited supply of ammo at the beginning of any mission, and since you can loot dead bodies for their equipment, you'll often have to decide whether to stay hidden and hope an enemy runs out of ammo before he kills you, or risk attacking him in order to grab his supplies before he wastes them. Also, cars sustain damage in incredibly satisfying ways. You can smash out individual windows, blow out individual tires, break off headlights and bumpers, and even shoot holes in gas tanks, causing the fuel to begin draining out. You can also target a car's occupants, who'll expire in classic gangster death poses such as "slumped over the steering wheel" or "clutching a tommy gun while hanging out a rear window."
The graphics are generally top-notch. The cars look fabulous, and they're especially notable for the way they authentically re-create the curviness of the era's vehicle design. The texture work in the city segments is occasionally a little muddy, though, and there's some pop-up on the horizon that's especially evident when you're going over bridges. The action levels, on the other hand, contain some really beautiful lighting and texture work, and the game's cutscenes feature some of the most detailed and expressive face models ever created for a computer game. The sound is equally excellent. The period soundtrack, composed mostly of cuts by swingy jazz legend Django Reinhardt, with extra tracks by artists such as Louis Prima and the Mills Brothers, matches the game's theme perfectly and also acts as a brilliant alternative to the generic techno and orchestral music used in most games.
It should be noted that the developers have opted to rely on the widely unpopular limited save system. There are a few instances where this choice leads to some frustration, but for the most part the save points are both ample and intelligently placed. The 20 missions include more than 100 automatic save points.
Freeride extreme isn't nearly as serious as the main campaign.
Once you finish the single-player campaign, which should take anywhere from 10 to 15 hours, an extra mode called "freeride extreme" becomes available. This mode lets you drive around Lost Heaven without any police interference while uncovering 19 wild driving challenges. Completing each one unlocks a special vehicle. The first task involves chasing down a man in his underwear who can run 50 miles an hour and has flaming feet, for which you're rewarded with a psychedelic hippie mobile. The missions get weirder from there and will occupy at least another five to 10 hours of your time, if not more.
Someday, some developer will successfully integrate the nonlinear portions of Grand Theft Auto III and the incredible action sequences of Mafia. Until that time, you can consider the two games halves of an eventual whole. Separate, but equally amazing.
Mafia (PC):
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