Company / Developers – Take 2 Games / Illusion Softworks Homepage Genre – Action / Driving
Reviewed By Untainted Note: Screenshots used from main website
Introduction
Only a few months ago Grand Theft Auto 3 blew us away with its violence, its humour and its well crafted utterly believable game world. It was only a matter of time before someone else decided to take a pop at Rockstar’s majestic Crime-Simulator and Mafia appears to be the first real contender to the throne. But can it hold its own against the savage monster that is GTA3?
Set in a world of vintage cars, Canadian whisky, Tommy Guns and Goodfellas, Mafia takes us through the life of Tommy Angelo and his meteoric rise through the deadly Salieri crime family. As he journeys through the underworld he becomes embroiled in a contest of strength between two deadly rivals where life is cheap and anyone is for sale (Just like in my life. No really.)
Compatibility
Mafia requires an absolute beast of a machine to run at full pelt, and even though my system meets the recommended requirements, it still has trouble coping with parts of the game, such as excess vehicle traffic (especially at night). Luckily the game provides options to reduce graphical touches such as lights shadow particles and draw distance. However this only seems the case when dealing with the larger city areas, when dealing with the ‘action’ areas (insides of buildings, car parks, hotels, etc.). The game ran perfectly, even when I was under assault from a barrage of adversaries.
Mafia Resolutions
All of these settings were done with all details turned to their highest setting. Mafia really does require a beefy setup and I’ve yet to see it run perfectly on my configuration (even on its lowest settings). Some missions that occur at night tend to tax the system horribly, due to the large amount of dynamic lighting emitted by street-lamps and car headlights. However, as before this really only applies to the in-city sections of the game and the free-ride mode. The shooting and action segments were affected very little by the change in resolution. All those cars must be a strain on the RAM…
