Ahead of the remake, he saluted the original 2002 Mafia. I went slowly, took breaks, and now, a month later, I finally finished the plot, suffered through the race and ticked off all nineteen additional ones. tasks in the “Big Walk” – to make a review without water.
Gameplay
I would like to note that the first “Mafia” is not in vain called a car simulator. It is strongly felt that the gameplay is focused on driving, you will spend up to 90% of the game time behind the steering wheel.
Before you is presented the “City of Lost Paradise”, which can be studied in three modes: I – Plot, II – walk, III – long (extreme) walk.
I – Storyline: You are led by the hand through story missions, and during breaks you can ride around the city. Side missions come in the form of small quests that reward you with collectible cars that you can then use in Walk Mode or further down the story.
II – Walk: As for me, a rather stupid and pointless mode. In the session settings, you choose the weather, traffic density and, finally, your “pleasure” car. It would seem that everything is fine. Further, you are thrown directly into the city and left to yourself.
The main goal is to earn money by killing random gangsters, dashing driving, destroying cars or transporting citizens by taxi. – You can save, you can fix the car, you can heal, you can buy weapons. But all this is just useless and unnecessary – you will not use it. Also, ten models of cars move along the roads, the rest are impossible to get. Only by starting a new session and choosing a different starting car.
The “Walk” mode would make sense if the developers thought out where to spend the received funds, for example, buying real estate or cars, which could then be put in a garage.
III – a big (extreme) walk: you appear in your house, find out that you need to complete 19 funny, frivolous tasks, such as: follow an invisible person, save a girl from a sea monster, etc.
The markers of such tasks are men in a white shirt waving their hands, they are not marked on the map. But you can see where they are near the lighthouse, but even in this case, finding them can be difficult, as you are only shown a small frame from where the key NPC is standing. Searching for them on your own is very long and tedious, I would recommend looking at the Wiki of the game, because. this mode is not worth the extra 20-25 hours of time spent.
The tasks themselves are difficult, often completely “Random”, some are impassable at a frame rate of more than 20 / sec. You will have to limit it by downloading an unofficial fix that will allow you to set a wide resolution, increase the draw distance and set the desired frame rate.
As a reward for tasks, you get unique cars that are the best in the game according to their characteristics, in the future you can use them in the “walk” mode.
Shooting and combat
The peculiarity of the combat lies in its slowness; Max Payne certainly cannot be depicted in any way. Firefights usually boil down to shooting opponents while squatting behind cover. I didn’t like that the bullet reaches the target instantly, because of this, situations arise when the hero, unable to dodge, flies off from one cartridge from a gun or from a quarter of a Tommy gun clip. There are a huge number of ambushes at the levels, you have to constantly be on the alert, look around corners, aim at suspicious doors, etc.
Shooting is not very pleasant, a little crooked, but quite interesting. It’s all about the recoil: the sight throws up so much that you involuntarily have to shoot in short bursts or even one cartridge at a time, making considerable delays between shots.
Dodge mechanics are well-written, especially when you need to quickly take cover or interrupt a series of hits.
As for hand-to-hand combat, this is darkness. It’s crooked like Lombard Street in San Francisco. The enemy can take off 50% of his life points at once with several blows, or he may not hit at all, the same applies to the main character.
Driving mechanics and cars
I do not share the general enthusiasm. Cars accelerate slowly, clumsy – it is clear that the developers tried to give them realism – this is good. However, two points spoil all raspberries:
Physics of collisions. One and a half ton cars, crashing into a wall, fly about three meters into the air, when they touch small objects sideways, like garbage cans, they make a 720-degree turn. At the same time, apparently, the main character has airbags from 2020 sewn into his forehead, so the damage from collisions is very small.
Micro drifts. Why, even at low speed when turning, do the rear wheels go in the opposite direction? What are you, skates, or what? Tires made of wood? Is that why they slide down the cobblestones? Unclear.
In general, by the end of the game, there is no desire to linger in the walk mode, just to enjoy the driving mechanics.
The cars themselves are not so many. It is noticeable that the developers wanted to add more different variants of cars of the same brand, but then the idea was blown away. There are 5 variants of old antediluvian Bolts, while newer cars are represented by only one model. Apparently, all the forces went to the “Trash” – vehicles from the extreme walk, which are about the same in number as the classic ones. I was pleased that all the cars are really controlled differently, their weight is really felt, despite the cardboard during jumps and collisions.
