It is a best game I've ever played.Graphics are amazing,the gameplay is brilliant.I was all in game when I've played it.

You can put 100 on this movie without hesitation. I've played it 4 times. It is the ultimate; it's the supreme game. I'm loving it!

My all-time favourite game! Honest! Okay, so yes, its a bit like GTA. Or rather, GTA is a bit like Mafia... This is MILES more fun. Everything about this game is fantastic. It has an excellent storyline, there are miles of roads and alleys to explore, and the music gives it a fantastic atmosphere. Then there's the cars. These are fantastic look-alikes of real 1930s cars with small changes. All (with the exception of the Ulver Airstream) have that coolness present in the real thing. This game gets even more fun if you add a steering wheel! Yay! Drifting in a Ford Model T (or Bolt Ace in-game)! Okay, so first, the things I really loved: The cars- the great majority of the cars are fantastic computer realisations of the real thing. The physics (both with the driving and the crashing) and damage systems are impressive for a 2002 game- one of my friends actually refused to believe a game this old could be this detailed. There are really cool little features as well, such as working mile counters. I'm sure that the car becomes more sluggish the more miles it has done... Also, there are some really cool cars to collect in the subquests and Freeride Extreme. 2) The music- the inclusion of 30s music rounds off the feel of the game. 3) The weaponry- a nice selection of period weapons with acceptable performance. Also, it's nice to see that the AI weapons have the same performance as your own. There are also some random "special" weapons that can be found. !!SPOILER WARNING!! My favourite has got to be in the mission "Better Get Used to It"- if you stop by the crashed truck in the car chase and attack the guy there, he picks up a plank. Kill him and you can pick it up and use it. /SPOILER 4) The scenery- some lovely buildings and items from the 1930s. 5)The racing level- honestly, this thing should be more exploited by the game developers- you know, add more tracks, a choice of any of the ai cars, and a decent 30s racing game is done... 6) The voice acting- this is of great quality, and expressive. Lipsynching is good as well for a 2002 game. Now the things I didn't like: 1) The driving everywhere- after a while, driving gets boring. You go to see Lucas, and then you are told by your friend "I'm beat, drop me off at the bar first". so you drive to the bar, then back. "Hi Lucas..." "Oh, hey Tommy, go to the street by the bar and pick up my friend will you, then drive him to the hospital up the road from here...". Erm, hello designers, maybe by changing the order of these kind of things the game would be, I don't know, less tedious? 2) The Ulver Airstream- somehow, with all the fantastic looking cars in the game, it appears the graphics designers took a day off for this one. The fantastic Chrysler Airflow, a beautiful car, and a design icon, has been totally ruined in its conversion to Mafia. Moving the lights to the wings, removing the big radiator, and making the car available in only the colours "No-detail Blue" and "Vomit Green" has made such a great car ugly. 3) The autosave feature- okay, this has some good points, such as the fact that it makes the game challenging, but sometimes, it becomes annoying. For instance, in one mission, I spent 15 minutes driving to the location of the next objective, then just after the cutscene my friend Paulie gets out of the car, runs in front of a tram, gets flattened and dies... result? I have to do all the driving again. 4) The bugs. This game has a great many bugs for some unknown reason. These include: lorry driver AI - for some reason, lorries will just randomly stop on places such as bridges, and the driver will just walk off. And not come back. Ever. Then there's the wierd one with the cops. If one of the cop car's doors is blocked, the cops will throw each other out of the car repeatedly, until it drives you insane and you walk over and tommygun them. Then there are the invisible walls that occasionally appear if you do something that the designers didnt want you to do, like drive over a hill into the air at 150MPH and go flying, then crash into a big wall of nothing... And the cops sometimes seem a little overenthusiastic. They will chase you for going 0.000000001 MPH over the speed limit, and they will go crazy if you are on a junction as the light changes. 5) My last complaint- there is no draw distance option without modding. So really big buildings that should be visible for miles just "appear", as do cars and people that should be visible. Overall however, I loved this game for its immersive feel, fantastic storyline, and overall great quality.… Expand

I think this is one of the best ever third person shooter games to come out. A note to those who complain about the slowness of the cars, ahem in reality the cars back in the 1930s were actually a lot slower.. jeez get real this is not Need For Speed. And there are plenty of mods available.

Great game. I just wish it was longer.

The missions are fun, but as a GTA knock-off it leaves a lot to be desired. Many aspects of the game are pretty frustrating, and I'm not sure how everyone else has overlooked the fact that it's extremely buggy.

Its the best game i ever seen. even now in 2005 it remains to be the best game in my chart, and Bricouler, i'll tell yuo why the "handling is poor" and so on and so on... because the game is VERY simular to real life, and they obviosly did the cars very real as well and... EXCUSE ME???? "like in GTA where u have a chance to fight them??? Once u fight them, the wanted level gets higher and higher! whilst in Mafia u have a chance to hide form them. This game has the best graphics, music, gameplay and story i've ever seen.… Expand

A neat premise is ruined by a moronic leveling system, cardbord characters, a cliched story, and bland environments. I had some fun with it, granted, but it was not what it claimed to be, and was simply mediocre.

This game kicks ass!!!! One of the best storylines in a game ever!!! Graphics sounds and playability are all top notch... In all seriousness, this is one for every PC game players collection.

They don't date this reviews, so it's hard to say what everyone else was used to. For 2005 though, this game is a prime example of developers who had no idea what makes a game fun to play. Endless driving through the city back and forth, underpowered, poor handling cars, and an environment full of police who jump on you the moment you travel over 40mph. (The cars even have a governor so you can stay within the speed limit, which you really have to do most of the time since unlike GTA where you have a fighting chance against them, unless you hide from the police in MAFIA, you're going to lose. A decent storyline, some nice graphics, and an otherwise fun game marred by level designers more interested in showing off their handiwork than in providing a fun experience for the user. Unless you're bored, I'd recommend skipping this one.… Expand

Like Gamespot said, one of the best games of the year...except I would go farther...one of the best games of the last decade. Let's clear this up...it may look like GTA3, but the 2 are almost nothing alike...and this was started before GTA III. (it may have a bit of inspiration from GTA and GTA2 though) Don't be fooled by people who like GTA3 better (and there aren't many...this game rocks.… Expand

Realistic, thrilling, and intriguing, I wish all games were this good.

Awful game. Getting pulled over for speeding at 40mph is just irritating as hell. A lot of missions are impossible because you die way too easily and you don't have enough ammo. This game was just a god awful experience and I quit playing it after a few missions. Just terrible all around.

Doesn't show you know where to go. Slowest cars I've ever seen. I spent more time trying to find the excat spot to stop those "bikes" (yes that's right. cars are powered by padels judging by speed) to reach or to advance the story. I never had any problems playing Mafia 2 so I see why this is interier. And it is way interier than GTA. 5 missions into Mafia and I'm still frustriated.

Pretty good tutorial, but that's about it. The AI likes to get hit by cars making you lose the level. The cars are extremely slow and even struggle to get up bridges and if you damage the car enough forget about driving up the bridge, you're walking. Shame, because most of the missions involve driving.

THE DEVELOPERS LIED. THIS IS NOT A SANDBOX GAME AT ALL.
DO NOT CONFUSE THIS GAME WITH THE GODFATHER EITHER.
Godfather is a sandbox/GTA type game. This is like riding a car on the rails. Sure you can drive anywhere, but there's nothing really to do, plus the driving itself is about as awful as it gets.
The game feels clunky in every aspect, and the driving is more tedious then fun. Decent graphics, and storyline though. Biggest failing is no quick save feature.… Expand

I registered into metacritic only to tell you how awful this game is. It's buggy as h*ll, the gameplay is sh*t and most of the game is driving long distances with slow cars. AND THE DRIVING ITSELF IS THE MOST HORRIBLE THING IN THIS GAME AND 90% OF GAMEPLAY TIME YOU JUST DRIVE!!! I hate this game. Cops are only to annoy you: they don't care if gangsters shoot at you or break the speed limit, but if you even have a gun in your hand or drive over 40mph, they're after you. You can pull over and let the officer write you a fine, takes about 30secs extra, or just keep driving, which causes the cops want to arrest you. If they get you arrested, the game is over and you have to load from a checkpoint (and then you have to drive AGAIN THAT SAME ROUTE). There are no quick saves and there are few checkpoints per mission. Missions are annoying to complish and slow tempo. The only thing that is good, is some parts of the story. This unrealistic, annoying piece of s*it was waste of 5 euros. Yes, even L.A. Noire is hundreds of times better than this.… Expand

Let's be honest, this is a seriously overrated game. Nobody wants to admit it, but it's pretty weak. The only thing it's got going for it is the graphics, which were incredible for the time. But the gameplay just isn't fun, the driving physics are awful, the fact that you have to drive everywhere is boring as hell, it's mercilessly hard and full of bugs. I usually always finish a game, but I had to give up. That racing car mission was a nightmare, and that church level? Despite the hilarious bugs of seeing a fat guy crawling through the air, it was simply terrible. It's not that I don't enjoy a challenge, it's that I can't stand having to do the same thing thirty-odd times because of poor game design.

And people still jump at the chance to praise the story, and all I can say is... what story? It's just a load of stereotypical, annoying and generic 'gangster'-style missions and scenarios strung together by some pretty poor voice acting.

This game is nothing short of a total pain that hasn't aged well at all. But thankfully, the sequel fixes many of these problems and is a very enjoyable game. I'd recommend Mafia II, but this one? I'd avoid.… Expand

Sorry but tons of users cant get this game to work, myself included.. Huge driver problems with XP, and Soundblasters. Blame who you will but no patch, and no patches planned... Buggy.

This game suck....the racing suck......I give mafia away cause the racing sucks.

At it's base, it is a lot like Max Payne minus the bullet time, mixed with alil GTAIII. I don't know who "ActionTrip" (who?) got to do their review, but this is an all around great game with a great plot that draws you in even more.

This is one of the best games i've ever played. The graphics are outstanding and the story line is one of the best i've played out. Im in the process of beating the game for a 2nd time. I would like to tell the people who gave mafia a 1 because they couldnt get XP to work, It works fine on all my XP computers.

This really sucks. I have xp and my graphcs are horrible. I can see through walls and i can only see the wheels on the cars. what is dis. how i fix dis shiot.

Great game. Great story. Could have been longer, still the bonus stages help....

The game has the best graphics on the planet, they are far better than gta 3+ vice city, you can go miles and miles round a detailed american city or you can go blasting around the country side in a lassiteer v16 that you can get in a 2 story car park on freeride small city mode, drive around the working quarters/ industrial district next to an hardware store ''lost heaven hardware co''. drive up the ramp and in the corner on the second level should be a large green car, its unlocked! drive it fast and see the money fall into your bloody killer hands. … Expand

MAFIA is one of the best games ever made ! It kicks the crap out of Vice City & gta3.

Awesome Graphics...faces, cars, animations...Awesome Gameplay...unlike GTA 3 and Vice City the missions are fun...It runs extremely awesome on my Radeon 9200 with 1280x1024 resolution all details up and Anti-Aliasing 4x. O yea the best thing was IT WAS $10!!!!!!!!!

Amazing.