The original Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven impressed with its cinematic action, drama and beautifully recreated atmosphere of the United States during the Great Depression. Unfortunately, the game has aged very badly and only nostalgic fans can enjoy it now, almost two decades after its release.

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It is not surprising that the fans greeted the remake of the best part of the trilogy with enthusiasm, except that the developers aroused fears – it cannot be said that Hangar 13 showed their best side while working on the third part. Now, however, it is safe to say that the fears were unfounded. For the most part.

From the point of view of the plot, we have a recreated to the smallest detail and supplemented the story of yesterday’s taxi driver Tommy Angelo, who, by chance, became involved in a showdown between two mafia clans and was forced to join one of them in order to save his own skin. Further events develop along the same lines as eighteen years ago, no unpleasant surprises, we can exhale with relief. Tommy will begin to learn the basics of gangster business by beating up disturbing street punks, wander around the city collecting tribute for the don, take part in the smuggling of alcohol and, having won the trust of the family, will move up the career ladder, until one day, eight years later, he finds himself behind one table with the cop who’s been hunting him all this time. Everything is as before, only the dialogues were expanded and re-voiced, which made it possible to better reveal the characters’ characters and their motivation, the accents in some scenes were changed for the same purpose, several episodes, including the bed scene with Sarah, causing Spanish shame, were cut out completely and it definitely benefited the game. A simple example is that in the opening scene, Tommy is no longer running into a filthy cafe to meet with Detective Norman, where he mumbles uncertainly about what ass he is in, but Norman comes to a potential informant for information. Tommy, albeit on the run, almost imposingly falls apart at the table and, with palpable bitterness in his voice, tells the policeman about his “exploits”. Or take that very scene in a brothel, in the original the main character simply could not shoot a prostitute, but in the Definitive Edition he lets the girl go, after intimidating her half to death. Some fans of the original may be annoyed by this change in character, but the new, sharper Tommy simply fits the picture better, and Andrew Bongiorno in his role is two heads taller than Michael Sorvino from The City of Lost Heaven. The same applies to the rest of the characters, but to a somewhat lesser extent, they still do not have much screen time.

Well, everything is fine with the plot, let’s move on to the second elephant, on which Mafia stands, to the atmosphere, for which the visual series is largely responsible. The modified Illusion Engine copes with the task set before it almost perfectly – Lost Haven impresses with its architecture, the glow of neon signs and attention to detail, the cars delight the eye with smooth shapes and glossy chrome parts, and the characters look convincing, minus some flaws in the animation of movements. During the day, distant objects still turn out to be somewhat overexposed, the old fetish of Hangar 13, although not as excessive as it was in Mafia 3, but at night, and even in the rain, the city appears in all its glory. From the speakers sound Cab Calloway, Django Reinhardt and Duke Ellington, if you miss the old soundtrack, then quite a bit.

Despite the fact that Lost Haven can hardly be called a compact city, the open world in Mafia: Definitive Edition is nothing more than an illusion. Structurally, the game is built exactly the same as the original, which means it is linear. Basically, the developers allow the player to decide how to get from point A to point B, but quite often, moving away from a pre-designated route will be punished by mission failure and loading from a checkpoint. Is it bad? Yes, not really, given that we are facing a story-oriented game, however, sandbox lovers unfamiliar with The City of Lost Heaven should keep in mind that there are practically no optional tasks or all sorts of additional activities a la GTA. However, we will return to this, but for now let’s talk about the gameplay.

And here I have news that may upset hardcore fans – Definitive Edition has become noticeably easier, so it is recommended to play only on the classic difficulty level, otherwise you will encounter an abundance of ammo and first-aid kits, cardboard enemies, too arcade-like behavior of cars and police ignoring speeding and traffic violations. Shooting from behind cover that appeared in the game can be treated differently, for example, I am not a big fan of this mechanic, but let’s be honest, jumping out from behind corners like in the original game in 2020 would look even worse. The arsenal of the Salieri clan is not particularly impressive – knives, bats, Molotov cocktails, grenades, a trio of pistols, the Springfield M1903 and its sniper modification, a Remington pump, a sawn-off shotgun and the obligatory Tommy gun. Moreover, the number of wearable weapons and ammunition for it is strictly limited for the sake of realism.

Unfortunately, even at the classic level of difficulty, the opponents, which, by the way, have become much larger, do not shine with intelligence and either pour lead over Tommy from behind the nearest shelter, or use a rod on him to his full height. Every second gangster carries a Molotov cocktail with him and always announces that he is going to throw it, literally inviting him to knock the burning bottle out of his hands with a well-aimed hit. The cops, in turn, are able to call endless reinforcements, but at the same time they quickly stop the chase, as soon as the player breaks away from the pursuers and disappears from view for a while. By the way, about the chases: even in the simulator mode, the cars are much easier to drive than before, the feeling that you are driving a four-meter narrow-wheeled mastodon is still present, but it is difficult to call it a “simulator”.

However, most of the voiced claims are relevant only for veterans of the first Mafia, the rest of the players are unlikely to consider them significant and will rather turn their attention to the bugs that, unfortunately, are present in the game. Basically, they are minor and do not really spoil the impression – once I had to restart the mission from a checkpoint due to a glitch of the plot character, the second time Tommy, unsuccessfully stumbling over a flower bed, fell through the textures, several times the enemies got stuck in the walls, annoying with their screams. Nothing deadly and still better than the state in which the third part was released, although I harbored a grudge against the developers because of the inability to complete the collection of secret cars – having found the garage with the last car, I received an achievement, but instead of a futuristic Manta Prototype, it was waiting for me random car from the street.

And here we actually come to the question of what to do in the game after the passage of the campaign. Yes, actually, nothing but collecting magazines and completing a couple of secret missions, the reward for which will be new suits and cars, which, of course, is great, but does not make much sense, because there are no other activities in the game. And this is a bit of a shame: a good third of the map remains in no way involved either during the passage of the campaign or after its completion. Tommy can drive for a good ten minutes to a mansion standing on the outskirts and, having reached it, hear a married couple swearing inside, a child crying or playing the radio, but there is absolutely nothing else to do there, outside the city limits, the game does not even consider it necessary to model non-player characters draw. Again, Mafia: Definitive Edition is a story game, and the post-game in it seems to be optional, but it would be nice.

The Definitive Edition of the previous parts of the series came out quite controversial, did it work out this time? More than that, there were several questions about the game, but the main task was to re-tell the story of Tommy Angelo, and Hangar 13 coped with it.