The term "immersive gameplay" gets thrown around a lot these days, so I wanted to test this out with the rebuilt version of the 2002 classic Mafia. After watching as many classic gangster films as possible such as, Godfather, Casino, Goodfellas etc. I felt that I was ready to step into a 1930's mafia-esque world.

Having not played the original version back in '02 I thought that with a completely rebuilt version that I was in for a treat. Opting to play on PC, I really wanted to push the visual aspect to its maximum to really see what Hangar 13 had come up with. From a storyline viewpoint, opening up with a really amazing cutscene that attempts to take you back to that era in Lost Haven and give you a taste of what the Great Depression was like. Soaring through the cobbled streets with the rumble of the classic automobiles cruising around the streets.

I wasn't expecting the story to be as good as it is for a 15-year-old game. The essential bones of the game is it's brilliant story that follows Tommy Angelo from his early days as a cabbie, to his rise through the ranks to become a shot caller in the Salieri family. The basics of Tommy's life is reminiscent of some of history's greatest mafia films. Working your way from a bottom tier bag man, helping rigging some races, and then becoming a trusted confidant to carry out high priority hits is enjoyable as watching it in a film. Even though it's a very linear storyline, going from cut scene to playable and back to cutscene pieces together is a great game.

I was truly shocked by the amount of work that has gone into the character modelling. It really rivals the games of today with the amount of effort that has gone in. With the ability to see individual beard hairs in people’s faces to the detail in the skyline. As you progress in Tommy's life his outfit styling changes and has been designed so well. Even walking through the streets with your new broad, the reflections of the bright neon signs that hang over the top of the coffee shops and restaurants in the puddles sets the mood.

Coupled with a brilliant visual upgrade, the audio and music is perfectly complementary. Just the music alone is awesome and even when it's playing as you drive, it doesn't overshadow the dialogue. Another great component is as you drive to and from missions, the radio broadcast updates are another complimentary part that adds to the immersion into the life of Tommy. Even when some aren't super specific to what's happening in your world, such as what's happening in Europe with Hitler and the state of the US during prohibition you're drawn further and further into the timeline.

One major issue I had was the mechanics with driving. Now I did take into consideration that this is a period game and the driving and speed of the cars should reflect the time, however without putting it on super easy mode the cars were so tough to drive. Especially when it comes to having a dedicated racing mission, I had to replay it almost 5 times just to try and figure out the right settings. I thought it might just be limited to that mission, but the overall driving really puts a damper on the overall game. The shooting mechanics with a keyboard and mouse are safe to call "sufficient". There are definite opportunities where the hit boxes on enemies leave a lot to the imagination.

The vehicle sections actually highlight something that needs to be discussed and that is changes for change sake, now Mafia was known as being a hard game and like the driving as mentioned above, it can still be that way. In 2020’s Mafia, things are a little different, there are times when missions which were dragged out in the original game are now shorter and get to the point much quicker and other missions have more detail added to them, to help make them pack some more punch. This is where some remakes can go wrong, changing too much of a game and you end up with something that might only be the same game in name only, but keep to much the same and you risk alienating modern gamers, this is perhaps the biggest place for complaints. The lack of modern touches to the game, plentiful side missions and such might be a sore point for those new to the game, but it provides a sense of nostalgia for those returning and that might be who this game is aimed at.

Being fortunate to have no preconceived notions of the story or how the game plays, I thoroughly enjoyed the first instalment of the remastered Mafia trilogy. The story alone is absolutely brilliant and truly does embrace immersive gameplay. The old school game design does make it hard for newcomers to see what made the game so great when it was first released and it does limit options for playing it over and over, but there is a charm about Mafia that is hard to ignore.