Mafia was originally a PC game. From all I have read, it was one of the best games of 2002. Being a console and handheld gamer, I never played the PC version and can only judge Mafia on the PS2 port. It is unlikely it will be considered one of the best console titles of 2004. While Mafia is a compelling game that will suck players deep into its story filled with intrigue, plot twists and 1930s atmosphere, execution brings what could have been a great game down to just above mediocre.

Mafia is the story of Tommy Angelo, a once innocent taxi driver who gets pulled into the crime world of the Salieri family. It chronicles his rise through the mob ranks as wheel man, enforcer and hitman. The story is without a doubt the best part of the game. It is told by Tommy Angelo in a retrospective manner as he tries to convince a police detective to protect him and his family in exchange for being a witness against the crime family he has been working for. There are plenty of missions to play through as Tommy earns his reputation within the Salieri family. While the city is open and the player can just drive or walk all around the city doing nothing, this is very much a mission-driven game. To progress you'll have to accomplish your missions and move on to the next.

Driving is a big part of the game. You'll see a lot of the fictional city of Lost Heaven from a car. The cars are authentic to the period. These are not speed demons nor do they corner worth squat. Whip one of these old beauties around a corner too fast and over she'll go. There is a special racing-only mode that is a good place to practice with the cars to hone your skills with these antiques.

Sadly, driving is where you'll first really encounter Mafia's most annoying execution flaw - excessive loads and load times. While all the load times are some of the worst I've seen in a game, what I call the "mid-bridge" load is what has annoyed me most. Lost Heaven consists of three main areas: West, Central Island and East. East and West are further divided into what could best be called neighborhoods. The mid-bridge load takes place on a couple of the bridges between areas. You're cruising along in your car, really getting into the action, you start over the bridge and right in the middle of it … a 30-second, static-screen load. There is nothing like a severe yank out of a world to ruin the mood. I'm truly hoping Illusion Softworks fixes that for the Xbox version releasing later this year.

Control is pretty good. As stated before, the cars handle as you would expect old cars to handle and getting them under control mainly consists of breaking yourself from trying to drive them like you would in a modern racing game. On-foot control is also simple with the left stick used for moving around while the right controls looking around. Targeting enemies is simplified by using the L2 and R2 buttons to automatically jump to the next target either to the left or right of the current aiming point. A roll evasion is the only real defensive maneuver … other than putting a good, solid wall between you and attackers.

Weapons are what you'd expect in a gangster movie: pistols, shotguns, baseball bats, Thompson submachine guns, etc. An interesting gun-use detail is that if the player changes out a magazine before it is empty, he loses all the ammo that was left in the discarded magazine. This means the usual gaming practice of reloading after every enemy encounter will result in running out of ammo very quickly. It's a nice, realistic touch. Of course a gate-loading weapon like the pump shotgun doesn't have this problem and its magazine can be topped off at any time … as long as the player has ammunition.

Graphics are rather uninspired on everything but the character models. While the character models are still nothing to write home about, at least you can tell where the designers were putting their computing power. And since characters are so important to moving the Mafia story along, this was a good place to spend the power. The environments do take a hit as does overall graphical detail. Textures are very bland and flat.

Sound is quite good. Ambient noises from other patrons in business establishments and on the streets really give the impression that you're in a city that has other things to do than to just be there for you to play in. To me, weapon sounds seemed a little subdued, but other players may appreciate the understated feel of using the tools of the mob. The musical soundtrack is especially good and features some terrific jazz numbers.

Mafia for the PS2 could have been great. If Illusion Softworks can solve the load-time issues and bump up the graphics a little for the Xbox version, they may have a winner on consoles as big as the one they had on PC. I'd really like to see that. In the meantime, the PS2 version can be recommended for fans of a good mob story, just be prepared to suffer a few interruptions.