Mafia Definitive Edition is the remake of the 2002 original Mafia game for the PS2. It’s also one of the three games releasing for Stadia as the Mafia Trilogy. The trailer probably didn’t mention Stadia as a release platform during the PC Gaming Show yesterday because there has yet to be word on whether or not you will be able to purchase the three games individually or not.
It’s 1930. After an inadvertent brush with the mafia, cabdriver Tommy Angelo is reluctantly thrust into the world of organized crime. Initially, he is uneasy about falling in with the Salieri family, but soon the rewards become too big to ignore.
The trailer does a great job at introducing the player to Tommy’s character and his story. Many people may not be familiar with these things as the game is almost twenty years old at this point. For me, I still vividly remember every story beat of this amazing game. It’s great to see that while the cinematics and graphics were completely reworked from the ground up, the major story beats were kept intact and even enhanced. Below, you can see one of the graphic comparison videos from Youtube which pit the original against the remake to show just how far we’ve come in terms of graphic fidelity and storytelling prowess in the industry. One scene in particular that stood out to me as a pretty amazing rework was the bar fire seen in the thumbnail of the video. It’s near the beginning of the video if you want to check it out.
Some of the most obvious graphic reworks include wider streets, lots more detail in the world as far as billboards, trash and other items on the streets. In fact, everything just has way more life added to it. In the original, it seems like the developers added just enough of the environment to tell the story. in the remake, the environment has way more than what’s needed so that you can feel immersed. It reminds me of the original Aladdin movie versus the remake. The same thing can be seen there as well.
I generally make it a point to never play a game or watch a tv series or movie twice, but I’ve found lately that if I do so about 10-20 years apart, I either forget what happened in them or feel the same joy of playing them through again. I’m sure there’s some interesting brain psychology there. That being said, I’m extremely excited to play the Mafia games again and especially on Stadia! We still don’t have a release date, so we’ll have to sit tight and enjoy these comparison videos until we hear more.
