Nakor’s Rucksack

Synopsis

A 3rd-person shooter with an immersive environment and engaging plot. It stops short of being great because of its “save point” system and un-fun free roam mode.

Platform

Windows XP

Rating

7/10

Pros

• The graphics and sound bring the 1930s to life. Having not lived in the 30s, I cannot vouch for the authenticity, but the immersion factor is very high. It is easy to believe that the City of Lost Heaven is a real place, inhabited by real people.
• The plot is intriguing, and you will look forward to each cutscene. Sometimes, though, you will wish it were a little more personable. Tommy (the main character) has a wife and a kid, but you never hear much about them. If some of Tommy’s home life were exposed, it would have been even more engrossing. Since the entire game is a flashback and Tommy is “confessing” to a cop, I guess it can be rationalized why those aspects weren’t emphasized.

Cons

• The save point system is very annoying, and very out of place on the PC. For most missions, it works fine, and the time between saves is reasonable. However, there are a few very difficult missions (especially the final mission) where the lack of save points simply serves to infuriate the player. I had to cheat to finish the game because the last mission was simply too difficult to finish without any way to save partially through. Plus, there were a few times where I had to abandon forward progress because I ran out of playing time and had to quit before the next save point was reached. Overall, a very poor decision on the part of the developers.
• The cars in this game handle like land barges on ice. It thus follows that the driving/chase missions are not fun. I guess I can conceed that perhaps 1930s cars really were out of control behemouths at any speed more than 20 MPH, but this does not lend itself to a fun game experience. Some cars in the game are so underpowered that they can’t even make it up some of the hills you’ll encounter. I would much rather have the “loose” but fun physics of GTA – leave the realism for a racing sim.
• The police are just too annoying to be fun. It’s easy to get on the wrong side of the law (bumping another car, or a trash can, or speeding…) and it is neigh impossible to escape the police because they have some kind of nitro-equipped cars that can catch up to you no matter how far away you manage to get. They ram you repeatedly which will typically spin you out or flip your car; either way, it’s game over, because they’ll proceed to pin you against something and eventually catch you. The lazy, forgetful cops of GTA were a lot more fun.
• Because of the lame cars, and lame police, free roam mode is lame. There are missions, but it really gets irritating having to stop at lights and not speed all the time. I’m a hard-ass gangster, I should be tearing up the town. The consequences are just too annoying, though. I believe there is a mode without cops, but that takes it too far to the other extreme.
• The ending was a huge let down. After such an interesting story, the cliched ending and morality speech seemed very cheap. After so much effort was put into making an authentic 30s experience, we get gansta rap music during the closing titles!? It’s almost as if a completely different team finished the game in an afternoon.

Summary

Though it seems that I found more negative to say than positive, Mafia is still a good game. The setting, presentation, and plot more than make up for the somewhat lame driving and save point system. The ending, however, is inexcusable and don’t expect a GTA-like (i.e. fun) experience with the free-roam modes. I still recommend the game, though, because the journey is pretty fun.