Mafia: Definitive Edition

I never hated a videogame level more than the race on this game. Now I get to relive the worst of my childhood in 4k HD.

I spent 6 hours trying to beat the race
10/10

Bought it thinking it is a game, turns out it was a great mob movie. 10/10 with the definitive edition, must play!

This is how remakes should be made. Everything on point, graphics, combat, story, flow of the game. There is even classic mod for oldschool players or new ones who didnt play the original.

"Definitive Edition" is a misnomer: this is not a quick and dirty upres like the Mafia II and III re-releases, but a complete and from-the-ground-up remake. It's clear that a lot of love and effort went into this. Its rendition of fictionalised 1930's Chicago - the city of Lost Heaven - looks gorgeous, especially in the rain at night. The voice acting is excellent across the board, fully allowing you to become immersed in this story of organised crime and the people involved in it.
While the gameplay mostly consists of walking, driving, and cover-based shooting, what makes Mafia: Definitive Edition a special experience is its story. While yes, if you've ever seen or read a mafia story before, young Tommy Angelo's gradual transformation from humble cabbie to high-ranking "made man" is a tale that won't have many - if any - surprises for you. However, that predictability doesn't matter when the story is told with such flair as it is here. This game is a real narrative treat, with a tight pacing that is rare for an open world game. You're never asked to drive halfway across the country merely to start the next story mission, it just throws you into the missions right after another.
I had a wonderful time with this game, and I'd happily recommend it to anyone looking for a great story to get lost in for a dozen or so hours!

To be honest it was one the most beautiful games I've ever seen. From all musical, graphical , environmental, gameplay and story aspects. Hangar 13, the new developer gave life to this stunning game. This was my first time playing any Mafia game from the franchise and at the very first glance everything was just normal, until I saw the original game and I observed that how big and gorgeous these changes are. I fell deeply in the world of Mafia during my gameplay, sensed every detail in the game and I didn't even think that I'm playing a game. Everything's just like reality. The view of Lost Heaven city at night is just dreamy, Flawless in one word. Driving, wandering, everything at night feels likes "Heaven" in this game. The lightings, reflections are superb. I think these are the elements which makes the game really strong. The story and gunfights are really nice as well. Once a friends said, Hangar 13 you put your heart in this game. Can't agree more. 10/10

Young gamers who never played the original will likely love this remake. Some older gamers who have played and liked the original may hate this reboot because it's not a 100% exact copy. I happen to fall among the latter, and since the original Mafia is my favorite game ever and holds such a special place in my heart, it would make sense for me to be picky and b!tch about the reboot, how it misses some details, how things have changed and so on. But you know what? When I played Mafia: DE I was overrun by the same ecstatic emotions that I felt when I first played Mafia and I totally loved this new rendition.
What else made this possible if not my nostalgia for the story, the city, the characters, etc.? But I didn't care - I loved it for what it was, loved to see the beauty of Lost Heaven backed by amazing visuals, loved to relive the story, loved the cars, the missions, pretty much everything. Yeah they could've worked on some characters a bit more, yeah they could've let us do some side jobs for Luca Bertone instead of simply using postcards for car missions, of course they could've let us play every part that was playable in the original instead of covering some bits with cutscenes, among a few other things. These are improvements that won't see the light of day, but I will never think that's enough to bash this game.
The game has been criticized for many reasons by the original's fans, from voice actors doing an allegedly crappy job to the gameplay being generic, and some gamers went so far as to immediately write Mafia: DE off because they saw Hangar13's name on it. I don't get it. Playing the remake I could often feel the love that the devs put into it, and not once did I think they were just doing their job making minimal effort. Mafia 1 was extraordinary in its details, it was a difficult yet rewarding game, and I suppose being so hardcore is why some of its fans can't get over the modernized remake. However, times have changed, the standards have changed, and I believe nowadays you often gotta appeal to a much wider audience than some 20 years ago if you want your game to succeed. And it probably just so happens that that audience is a tad more generic than it was in 2002.
In any case, I understand the criticism that this game got from some long-time fans of the franchise, and they definitely don't have to like Mafia: Definitive Edition. As for me, I didn't like it either. I loved it.