The history of the Mafia series. Reflections on the Beautiful – review

We recall why we loved and hated the games of the legendary series.

In 2002, Czechs from Illusion softworks, previously famous for tactical action Hidden & dangerousreleased Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven – a game that many to this day call one of the main masterpieces of the industry. And now, after 18 years, new developers who have inherited the rights to the series have announced a remake of the first Mafia. In honor of this event, we decided to shake the antiquity and recall how the franchise developed and why it is still remembered with warmth.

Retro FM

A modern user, nurtured by service games and blockbusters, most likely will not understand the first Mafia. Neither mind nor heart. Just like the public did not understand it in the 2000s, even before the release. Arcade fun of the closest competitor, a breakthrough GTA III, set a new format of entertainment. A city open for research, dozens of types of cars and cops that you want to get away from by starting a random shootout on the street – all this seemed to be in Mafia, but really not. Pokatushki with police burdened by clumsy old cars. The shootings were unusually complex: if in GTA you can easily kill an entire police station, in Mafia even one enemy who suddenly jumped out with a shotgun could put the hero out of a couple of shots.

In addition, you can arrange at least some kind of lawlessness only in the “free play” mode, outside the storyline campaign. And to do in Lost Haven, frankly, there is nothing. You can transport people by taxi, kill mafiosi, buy new weapons, paint a car … And, in general, that’s all. After Liberty City, the local sandbox looked homely.

But once we could only dream of such a schedule

But even those who honestly followed the plot did not immediately find “fun”. For the first couple of hours, the game tells the melancholy story of taxi driver Thomas Angelo, who, to his misfortune, helped two bandits escape from the pursuit. Moreover, the formation of a novice criminal is full of everyday, not too exciting tasks. After that intense chase in the beginning, we returned to the everyday life of an ordinary taxi driver: that is, we transported passengers, observing all the rules of the road – no crush of pedestrians and driving into the red light! Only then, after becoming a member of the mafia family, could gangster affairs be taken up. To beat a couple of cars, toss up accomplices to the points, to collect profits from local businesses … In short, everyone who was waiting for the crazy dynamics of GTA III could experience burning disappointment and turn off the game. At first glance, besides the setting, she has absolutely nothing to offer.

The history of the Mafia series. Reflections on the beautiful

An offer you cannot refuse

But this was all the salt of Mafia: it allowed to plunge into the routine that pursued Tommy in his ordinary life. Initially, the game was generally conceived as a kind of clone wildly popular at that time. Driver, only in the entourage of gangster films. But game designer Daniel Vavra, who came to the studio at the final stage of the development of Hidden & Dangerous, shifted the focus from entertainment to authenticity and plot. And did not lose. The script unhurriedly, skillfully unwound the story of the everyday life of a gangster who begins with a pawn and ends with a queen whom everyone wants to remove from the board. The closer he got to his goal, the stronger the players became attached to him. The drama here did not just create the background for the gameplay – it was an integral part of it.
The history of the Mafia series. Reflections on the beautiful

As a rule, the actions are remembered thanks to the cool gameplay sections. Here is the car chase, here is a difficult defense of the heights or the intense assault of the fortress … Mafia was remembered by completely different things. No, it’s not about the mercilessly difficult “racing” mission, because of which many at one time abandoned the game. I am talking about dozens of little stories. I still remember how a seemingly simple matter of collecting “tribute” turned into a shootout in a suburban motel. Or the moment when Tommy ran away from the gateway from two armed thugs. Or a robbery of a port, where in cigar boxes there were no cigars at all …

For their time, Mafia also had absolutely gorgeous clips on the engine – none of the competitors, including GTA, had anything like that at all

All these situations are firmly embedded in the memory, but at the same time they still remained quite mundane and vital. Like the game world itself: empty, but incredibly beautiful and, most importantly, logical. In Lost Haven, cars consume gasoline and do not fly into scrap metal after a couple of bullets. Having turned into a nook and crank, you can face your forehead with a passer-by. You can shoot the car that’s hanging on your tail yourself, but it can also be accidentally shot down by a passing truck … Mafia constructed a damn believable story that captivated exactly what it is easy to imagine in reality. Unlike the Rockstar brainchild, where you could hijack a tank and ride it around the city.

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The history of the Mafia series. Reflections on the beautiful

Plastic gangsters

The second part of the series reached the players only after eight long years of development. Studio Illusion Softworks was not sitting idle. The team managed to release the sequel Hidden & Dangerous and unleashed shooter Vietcong, as well as port the first Mafia to the console and become a branch of the corporation 2K.
The Czechs developed their main hit sequel with a focus on the AAA segment of the market. The audience took the first screenshots and videos very positively: a recognizable atmosphere, comfortable ironing machines and beautiful landscapes of a city similar to New York of the 40s. True, against the background of all this, many red flags were visible. Daniel Wavra left the team due to disagreements with his superiors, and then its founder Peter Wohozka left the company. From the final version of the project cut out quite a lot of content (for example, four ending options and countryside outside the city).
The history of the Mafia series. Reflections on the beautiful
When Mafia II did come out, these perturbations were felt at every turn. The plot (again a young guy who, due to circumstances, fell into criminal circles) was torn and was presented not as a full story, but rather as a set of sketches related by characters and the scene. The idea itself was grandiose: history Mafia 2 covered eight years – the player was thrown into the furnace of World War II, and to prison, and even to meet with some of the heroes of the first part.

But the scale was not felt. Not so much because of the chopped narrative (the first Mafia also had difficulties with this), but because of completely inexpressive characters. This was especially true of the protagonist. Vito Scaletta was supposed to show the world an advanced facial animation, but for some reason for some reason he reacted with a stone face; except that sometimes grins and slight anger slipped. It’s a shame. The beginning of the game, where the hero returns home from the front, was just exemplary: as if you were watching a good gangster movie made by Brian DePalma or Martin Scorsese. But, alas, only dry, functional dialogues in the spirit of “go-give-bring-kill” remain farther from simple, human conversations.

In the second part, videos between missions have become even longer and richer in terms of direction. It’s only a pity that because of the expressionless characters, it was very boring to watch them

Terminator in the service of the mafia

From a commercial point of view, Mafia II was successful, despite the problems with the plot, but it lost the charm of its predecessor. That realism, high stakes, the intensity of the drama. Remember at least the same scene where Tommy escapes from the bandits through the gates – and almost any other mission. Each cartridge counts, the health reserve is melting before our eyes, there are many enemies, the police will come upon it … The second part followed the latest fashion, therefore the gameplay was more like an action movie with shelters a la Gears of war. With a camera over the shoulder, the shootings became much more convenient, which seems to be good – but the excess of ammunition made the battles too simple.
All this, coupled with the regeneration of health, turned the game into a shooting gallery: he leaned out of cover, shot, healed, and again leaned out. Do not get me wrong, it’s a sin to complain about the combat system. The shooting in Mafia II turned out to be what is needed, and the partial destructibility of the environment made each shootout impressive. But that is the whole problem. From “Godfather“The game turned into a variation of the film”Gangster hunters“.
The history of the Mafia series. Reflections on the beautiful

This outraged the fans of the first part – but, of course, pleased those who were not familiar with it. Is it worth blaming the developers for “rendering” their masterpiece? Hardly. Nevertheless, over ten years, the industry has changed dramatically. It was naive to expect that with a staff of several hundred employees and orientation towards the AAA market, the studio will again give out something in the spirit of The City of Lost Heaven. Nevertheless, the game found its audience: not everyone was dissatisfied. On the contrary, many gladly completed Mafia II in one sitting … And forgot about it the next day.

However, the episode with the shooting of the diner is still hard to forget – it’s really good

Gangsta sh * t

The third part of 2K Czech came not without loss. One of the offices had to be closed, the development was almost entirely transferred to the new studio Hangar 13and Daniel Wavra created his Warhorse studios and got busy Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Of the old backbone of developers, almost no one was left.

Against this background, the authors decided to dramatically change the course and aesthetics of the game. A minimum of wide-brimmed hats, no jazz, instead of New York – New Orleans, and the main character was a black Vietnam veteran Lincoln Clay. The public, to put it mildly, did not appreciate it. And when it turned out that the protagonist of the second part Vito Scaletta would serve the protagonist … In general, the “excessive” tolerance caused a rather big scandal.

The history of the Mafia series. Reflections on the beautiful
In such a situation, it was important for Hangar 13 to polish the game to a shine in order to at least somehow smooth out the negative. But alas, the release build Mafia iii It turned out just disgusting. Both in terms of optimization and in terms of bugs. Cars and characters stuck in buildings, some textures seemed to come from the beginning of the 2000s, a physical model forced enemies to dance a jig after death. And how often the game crashed to the desktop, uv.

Crowbcat Mafia III Bug Gallery

What is insanity

Because of these problems, it was even harder for the players to accept the new gameplay loop. In Mafia III, we had to, no matter how much, take our hands on a whole city in order to take revenge on the mafia, who had destroyed all the close people of the protagonist. How to do it? As in any other sandbox that came out somewhere after Far cry 3, – methodically clean each area from the villains. The scheme is the same everywhere: come to the point, ask the informant. Find an accomplice in the main department, kill an accomplice in the main department. Repeat until credits.

Another thing is funny: the first part began just as sadly, but it became more and more diverse with the development of the plot. The third, as well as the second, offered an incredibly spectacular outset, only to then dump a lot of boring tasks on the player, worthy of an errand boy rather than a big criminal boss.

The history of the Mafia series. Reflections on the beautiful

However, the Mafia III had its merits, one of which was, oddly enough, the plot. Firstly, he has a good presentation – the story was told through an “interview” with key characters who expressed their views on the events and actions of the hero. Secondly, to the credit of the screenwriters, the main character is better written than it seems at first glance. Lincoln Clay is really a face, but it has principles. He can be both polite and aggressive. In the end, he has a decent motivation.

Thirdly, the secondary characters were no less interesting. Some even deserve a separate storyline – for example, the cunning Haitian Kassandra. Well-written dialogues and competent production of commercials greatly brings the game closer to the movies. So much so that many players endured monotonous gameplay just for the sake of the next round of the plot. After all, between the strings of dull post-shootings there were really cool set story missions in which there was everything: the intensity of emotions, and directing, and spectacular fights.

It is a pity that this did not save Mafia III from devastating criticism.

The history of the Mafia series. Reflections on the beautiful

The final part of the famous series left the players at a loss: what’s next? Return to realism? Continuation of “pre-installation”? Online? Or beautiful sunset care? What do you think about the future series? Write your opinions in the comments!

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