Mafia: The Old Country (PlayStation, Xbox, PC, £44.99)
Verdict: The Midfather
Remember that bit in The Godfather where Al Pacino runs off to Sicily? It’s all hilltop villages, sunbaked vineyards and casual murder. Now imagine That Bit in The Godfather: The Game.
Because that is what the latest entry in the Mafia series delivers. After games set in a knockoff version of New York, a knockoff version of Chicago and a knockoff version of New Orleans, it too has returned to the homeland.
But these organised criminals don’t do copyright violations, so you’re not actually playing as The Godfather’s Michael Corleone.
Instead, you’re Enzo, a down-on-his-luck, early-20th-century kid working in a dangerous sulphur mine in the shadow of, yes, a knockoff version of volcanic Mount Etna.
Life in Old Sicily: Join a crime family, work your way up the ranks, fall in love with the Don’s daughter, and then get betrayed. The usual, says Peter Hoskin
Pretty soon, though, he leaves that life behind and falls in with the nicer of the area’s two local crime families. From then on, it’s rising up the ranks, falling in love with the don’s daughter, getting betrayed, the usual.
As an evocation of time and place, few games rival Mafia: The Old Country. Its world is so achingly beautiful that you’ll want to just wander around, marvelling at the skyscapes and marketplaces.
So beautiful it’s a crime: The Sicilian countryside looks amazing in Mafia: The Old Country. If only you could wander around for hours, without being shot at.
Smooth criminals: Despite the echoes of Michael Corleone’s Sicilian exile, your character in Mafia: The Old Country is actually a miner called Enzo, working in the shadow of Mount Etna
The problem is that you can’t. Where previous Mafia games had relatively open worlds, this one — at least in its main story mode — just wants to keep you on the critical path. It’s one stealth section or knife fight or shootout after another.
And that central gameplay is just… fine, really. Good enough that you’ll breeze through The Old Country’s cliché-ridden story in about a dozen hours. But not so good that you’ll ever return for more.
Consider it an offer you can refuse.
