Mafia, released in 2002 by the Czech developer Illusion Softworks is an action-adventure game set within the fictional city of Lost Heaven, clearly inspired by many American towns from that timeframe (mainly San Francisco), set during the prohibition era. As the name suggests, the player takes control of the first and foremost taxi driver turned mobster Tommy Angelo, who does many odd jobs for the Salieri Family.
You could call it by just the desc. to being just an "Eastern-European copy of GTA". Although the subject matter is without a doubt comparable, I'd say that it does diverge from its western cousin. To start with its gameplay, probably the most commented-on thing from the whole experience, is first and foremost, driving slow cars through bustling streets, while still abiding by such funny concepts as "traffic laws". You could, based on it, pejoratively call the game a 1930s American Truck Simulator expansion, although I think that driving is an important aspect of the gameplay loop. It helps to ground the player in the game world and does give a nice experience at times. The twenty-year-old environments won't be obviously as decent as most you'd find nowadays, but the art direction remains, which is still neat, however without a doubt was realized way better in the sequel.
Another part of the gameplay is obviously the walking and shooting, which to be honest, feel incredibly wooden. Walking is often a chore, and shooting, while in some moments can feel challenging and generally almost fun, a ton of times it also feels unfair and exhausting. That's coming from me playing it in the hardest difficulty, which I finished all except the final level, which I dropped cause of the aforementioned reasons. Could be just a game reviewer issue, but that's up to the reader to decide.
The game is linear, following one story divided by levels, which generally are fun and filled with details and general detail polish of the older times. The story doesn't really stand out, being primarily motivated to lead the player to different situations. It tries to ask some questions about morality and honor, but in reality, it comes off as a pastiche of famous crime dramas, such as "Goodfellas" and "The Godfather", the English voice acting doesn't really help with it, but then again what could you have expected from a translation made in 2002?
In conclusion, Mafia definitely is for Central to Eastern Europe, what GTA is to America and most of the world generally, and Yakuza is to Japan, which is a pretty fun crime game, where you can screw around and do things you would normally not be allowed to do. It didn't age that fairly, and to the modern player it can definitely be offputting. I'd honestly just recommend playing the recent remake, which I tried out and was honestly better on every front from what I saw.
Mafia
I have played throughout it thrice or four times if you count the remake (which, regrettably, feels subpar is so many aspects) and it still is a seamless gem through and through.
So much to love about Mafia: the City of Lost Heaven.