4/5 ★ – theebigbamtheory's review of Mafia: Definitive Edition.

I'm impressed by how this game turned out to be. The story is gripping right from the start, and it only gets more engaging as it goes on, as the missions get crazier, and the stakes get higher. Also, the characters are quite memorable, and the interactions between the main trio of the gang can be really fun to watch. The writing is consistently good as well. Had the game's mechanics keep up with the story and mission scenarios, it would have been perfect, but it stumbles quite often. Aiming feels clunky as heck, but the challenge at Classic difficulty certainly made it exciting, and the kill/weapon feedback is pretty good. I wish that restarting from deaths is faster, I died a lot and it's kinda painful to sit through the slow motion animation and the loading screen. Also, enemy AI behaviour is all over the place, they can be too confident most of the times but also hang back when I least expect it. Driving is great overall, and easily the best part of the game mechanics-wise. The attributes of the car are pretty well represented, and I can tell when a car is just too slippery to my liking. Shout out to whoever thought of the turn-by-turn navigation system, it's so immersive and it pretty much enabled me to play the whole game with minimal HUD without many trouble. Between this and Ghost of Tsushima's guiding wind, it's been cool to see what devs can think of to provide more immersive exploration, and I absolutely love it! Also, driving around while listening to the radio feels very authentic to me. I know jack shit about the 30s, but damn, it's cool to hear the baseball games from the radio. All the missions are good, but if I had to pick a favorite, it would be A Trip to the Country. The atmosphere of the seemingly empty farm in the stormy night is just too fucking good, even if the second half of the mission gets a bit annoying. Other favorites for me would be Fair Play, Omerta, Bon Appetit, and Happy Birthday. Technically it runs pretty well on my PS4. The game looks very good at times, but the draw distance and far object details can look pretty bad at day time. There's only a few frame drops that I encountered, all of them feature many particle effects. Honestly it's a crime that a game like this doesn't have photo mode, I really hope it gets one in an update someday.