GamesActionMafia: The Old CountryI hope the cars in Mafia: The Old Country are so slow they go backwardsWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
GamesActionMafia: The Old CountryI hope the cars in Mafia: The Old Country are so slow they go backwardsWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Hangar 13)
Me and the other Mafia sickos are jonesing to driveso unbelievably slowlyin The Old Country. We’re cackling with glee at the prospect of taking the reins of a horseless carriage in 1900s Sicily - a time when cars were an obscene, rickety toy for those with more money than sense. We’re rubbing our hands together at the idea of taking the corners like a bowling ball while the police catch up on foot. We’re itching to get our hands on the Fiat 6 HP, a racecar that looks like an overgrown pram.
Why? Because this slightly perverse, backwards idiosyncrasy is baked into Mafia’s DNA. You could argue that the series becomes more itself the further back in time it’s set. The first entry - an urban open world game released at the height of GTA fever in 2002 and faithfully remade a few years ago for the Definitive Edition - kicked off in the Prohibition era.
Low speed pursuit
(Image credit: Hangar 13)
It’s (not) anti-Italian discrimination(Image credit: Hangar 13)Mafia: The Old Country really is skipping Italian voiceover - instead, it has “voice acting in Sicilian, inline with the game’s setting in 1900s Sicily”
It’s (not) anti-Italian discrimination
(Image credit: Hangar 13)Mafia: The Old Country really is skipping Italian voiceover - instead, it has “voice acting in Sicilian, inline with the game’s setting in 1900s Sicily”
(Image credit: Hangar 13)
Mafia: The Old Country really is skipping Italian voiceover - instead, it has “voice acting in Sicilian, inline with the game’s setting in 1900s Sicily”
Where Vice City recreated the Ferrari Testarossa and big-wheeled dune buggies of Miami in the ’80s, Mafia leaned into the gothic-ass hearses and Cruella de Vil-mobiles of its own period. Its first mission, An Offer You Can’t Refuse, saw you drive two wise guys out of dodge in the back of your taxi - apologizing and muttering under your breath as you careened helplessly into every second lamppost of a gently fictionalized Chicago.
The Mafia games were never afraid to bore you to make a point. In the sequel, you stacked boxes at the docks, tasting the dreary dissatisfaction of a life lived honestly, before you were whipped into the world of the family. It’s an approach that brought dynamic range to its storytelling – just as thepianissimosegment of an overture, sung at a whisper, can leave space for the orchestra to swell to a powerful crescendo of brass and thudding cannons.
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(Image credit: Illusion Software)
That’s no dig at Eurogamer in particular, who were simply in tune with the tastes of the time. But it’s worth noting that Rockstar seemed to get it. While the developer made regular digs at Driver in its games, it never took aim at Mafia. Maybe that’s simply because the two series shared a paymaster at Take-Two. But I want to believe the GTA studio understood that Illusion Softworks was doing something different and important.
If you’re as excited as we are, here’s everything we know aboutMafia: The Old Countryso far.
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1Nemesis review: “A magical sense of tension”
1Nemesis review: “A magical sense of tension”
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4The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim review – “An uninspired expansion of the most iconic screen take on Tolkien”
4The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim review – “An uninspired expansion of the most iconic screen take on Tolkien”
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2Secret Level review: “An uneven experience with serious highlights that ultimately make up for the misses”
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4Creature Commandos review: “James Gunn’s heartwarming, R-rated tale about super-monsters proves that the DCU is in good hands”
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5Cobra Kai season 6, part 2 review: “Returns to the sort of hard-hitting form that made it such a fan favorite in the first place”
5
Cobra Kai season 6, part 2 review: “Returns to the sort of hard-hitting form that made it such a fan favorite in the first place”