Mafia:The city of lost heaven

So friends, today I would like to tell you about a game which I have been playing lately and whose sequel is about to come in the August of this year, well friends the game is

Preview:

It was developed by Illusion Softworks,designed by Daniel Vavra,composed by Vladimir Simunek and published by Gathering of Developers.It runs on a LS3D engine.Its compatible on platforms such as Microsoft Windows,Playstation 2 and Xbox.During its release it was built for only PC but later was adapted for Playstation 2 and Xbox.It belongs to the third person shooter or action adventure genre,It can be played only on a single player mode.It recieved good ratings and reviews asisingle player mode.It recieved good ratings and reviews angle player mode.It recieved good ratings and reviews after its release.

It allows the player to play a cab driver who gets involved in the world of crime,It is set in in the 1930’s and shows the life of that era,the Mafia,the

cars,the police,the guns etc.It was released on 28^th August,2002.Take-Two interactive  announced on August 21,2007 that there will be a sequel to Mafia

titled Mafia II at the 2007 Liepzig  Games Convention,under development by 2K Czech. Mafia II is said to be in releasing  in August of 2010.

System Requirements(Windows):

System:PIII 500 or equivalent

RAM:minimum 96 MB

Video memory:32 MB

Space required in memory(hard disk):1800 MB(1.8 GB)

Input methods:Keyboard and mouse,gamepad

Storyline:

It starts in the year 1930 through 1938.The main protagonist is a cab driver Thomas(Tommy) Angelo  who is lured into the underworld when some people approach to kill him and he seeks shelter from The local Don Salieri,Thomas first remains a driver for the Salieri crime and later becomes a permanent member of the Salieri family.He gets involved in murders,thefts(mostly cars),etc.He later in the 1950’s is shown to narrate his entire story to a person who is a Detective named Norman.

The Salieri gang consists of mainly Don Salieri,Sam,Paulie who  all accompany Tommy in doing all the murders and all,Ralphie the mechanic who teaches Tommy how to steal cars,Vincenzo the guy who supplies all the weapons,Paul Bertoni even he’s a ,mechanic but lives in another city and provides alternate missions after Tommy finishes the Salieri’s missions,After Bertoni’s mission is completed he teaches Tommy  some tricks to steal good(awesome) cars.

The Salieri crime family battles it out with the Morello crime family led by Don Morello.Eventually as you proceed in the game Morello is murdered by Tommy with help from Sam and Paulie.

 

Game play:

City:

The city Lost Heaven is loosely based on New York,chicago and parts of New Jersey of the 1930’s.It also has a large countryside,an airport,an museum,an church,an old prison,restuarents and bar.

Transportation:

You can proceed in the game by walking,running and driving.There are public transport facilities like taxis,tramcars and trains,you can access the taxis and can drive it but you can only travel in the trains and tramcars without having control over them.Mafia allows you to drive over 51 classic cars and 19 bonus cars of which five are racing car models.All the cars are of 1920’s and 1930’s models.But one important thing there are no bikes in this game. One important ability of this game is its realistic approach in designing the cars.Cars are damaged by overheating of the engine and crashing and finally it explodes.the tyres can also be punctured.

 

Law and order:

There are several reasons  for which you can get booked by the police like running red lights,crashing,speeding etc and you are likely to get arrested for not obeying the police,carrying a weapon,attacking the police.

Weapons:

There are a lot of weapons from the 1930’s also in this game.The weapons consists of  pistols such as the Colt 1911,Colt detective special,S & W and other weapons such as the Pump action shot-gun,Sawed-off shot-gun,Thompson 1928.It also contains some snipers such as the Mosin-Nagant etc.

Console versions:

Mafia was ported to Playstation 2 in 2003 and Xbox in 2004.Some of the aspects not taken in consideration during creating the PC version were introduced in the Xbox and Playstation versions.

Reviews and critical reception:

Mafia’s aggregate scores as aggregated by Metacritic were 88%.The review scores

for the PC version by different publications are as follows,Gamespot gave it 9.3/10,Gamespy gave it 91/100 and IGN gave it 9.2/10.

This game was well recieved by gamers and critics as more serious Grand Theft Auto styled game.It was announced “one of the best games of the year”.It was compared with Grand Theft Auto III by Game Informer and said”From the living city in which you reside,to the incredibly realistic vehicles,this title has the heart and soul of a blockbuster”

While the PC version recieved positive reviews,the Playstation and Xbox versions  were critical and commercial disappointments.

If you have any queries about the installation or the gameplay of any game, comment us or  e-mail us  at asim_nrjnk@rediffmail.com