Developer: Io Interactive
Release Date: Out Now
Avg. Price: $39.99, £24.99

Mafia is an interesting mix of driving, story based game play and 3rd person action. If you've ever played Hitman: Codename 47 and Grand Theft Auto III then you will know what mafia has install for you. More serious than GTA III, Mafia entails slightly more precision driving in a more realistic atmosphere.

The main difference between mafia and GTA is (as said above) realism. All the authentic cars are recreated in a very realistic way, everything as it would be in the 1930's. From the cars acceleration to the suspension, the power and the noise; unlike the road rockets that you get in GTA. But this is part of mafia's charm, soon you forget about the cars limitations and its handling similar to a milk float and you get sucked into the game.
 

System Tested On	Verdict
Pentium 4 2.0GHz 256MB DDR Geforce 4 MX460 64MB	Runs very well, absolutely no problem at all, as would be expected.
Pentium 3 933MHz 384MB PC133 Geforce 2 GTS 32MB	With the resolution set to 800x600, and the details on medium, the game runs fairly smoothly, not much noticeable lack in frame rates.
Pentium 2 400MHz 192MB PC100 ATI Rage Pro 8MB	5-8 Frames a second, if it runs at all, most certainly unplayable...get an upgrade!

The General sound of mafia is very authentic, the load grunt of the old 40hp engines, and the horn that resembles a quiet fog horn. Along with the old 1930's music which is playing while your driving. The voices of the mafia are good to, very goodfella's.

In Mafia you play a cabby who, on his fag break, gets dragged into being a get away driver for one of the mafia families. You then, as the game progresses, play the part of driving your mafia family around the city. With the odd bit of bloodshed thrown in when you are sent out to "teach people a lesson" with a baseball bat. The beginning of the game shows you talking to a policeman, as you no longer want any part in the mafia way of life, and throughout the game you play your characters life story.

Mafia, with driving like GTA, and 3rd person action like Hitman, is fairly simple to get into. The only thing is the driving has to be much more accurate than GTA. you can't break the speed limit or run over pedestrians and just get away with it Scott free. You also can't walk around the city with your gun showing, the police and the general public don't like it.

The controls are fairly straight forward, with the normal driving controls and walking controls, and a good sense of control when aiming. For added realism, when in manual mode in the car there is a use of a clutch which makes you feel like your actually driving and not controlling a semi-automatic car.

Although Mafia does not have a multiplayer option, it doesn't really need one, and if it did I don't know what it could be like, it isn't the sort of game to multiplay.