Top 10 Video Game CS/Play Movies

08. Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven

Released in 2002, Mafia was one of the early examples of the film approach to video game design. A third-person shooter and what turned out to be the first installment of the Mafia series, the game was developed by the Czech studio Illusion Softworks - now 2K Czech - and published by Gathering of Developers for Microsoft Windows, and it enjoyed a massive amount of popularity both locally and worldwide.

That popularity centered around a few factors, but was primarily thought to be due to the intensely immersive aspect of the film-approach to game design. If you have not played the game in its original version (on Windows PC) it really is worth picking up a copy at your local game store - it can usually be had for around $5 today, and while it may require more than a little adjustment since it is an old interface and game engine, it is nevertheless worth the go even in its crude state.

The film-like presentation and the use of mechanics such as flashbacks and episodic levels that were also more common to films (but have since become a staple for game design) gave the game a feel that was unique enough to drive word-of-mouth well beyond the penetration that the actual advertising and promotion would have acheived.

It may help to understand this by knowing that at that time the typical PC was nowhere close to the quality in terms of graphical worlds that was present on Xbox and PS2 - largely because those were the focus for mainstream gaming at the time as the worm, as they say, had begun to turn.

The result of this was that while PC gamers viewed the graphics engine and game world to be about right, on console the gamers were getting used to a much more fluid and less blocky presentation and so it failed to live up to their expectations.

That game world was set in the 1930s during a very interesting era in world history and the history of organized crime. The time period covered both the end of the Prohibition era - including some of its most bloody moments - as well as the birth of what is now called Organized Crime.

The Mafia did not exist - at least not as far as the federal government was concerned - and would not exist for nearly 20 more years. It took that long for the feds to finally admit that such a thing not only could exist, but did.

It was that reluctance to admit to the existence of the Mafia that allowed not only for it to flourish and expand to nearly every major American city, but also for it to establish what would become its more famous traditions and rituals. For an organization of criminals that did not exist, the public seemed to know more about it and its activities than the government!

In order to best reflect the width of those criminal activities, the developers felt that it made more sense to create a fictional city with the mixture of metropolitan, business, and suburban settings than to try to shoehorn all of that into an existing city of the era, so they created a fictional American city called Lost Heaven.

Based loosely on a fusion of New York City and Chicago, Lost Heaven offered the manufacturing, arts, social, and government structures that were where the mob tended to do well, including every single element that represented OC in order to better tell the story - and they did!

The player takes on the role of Thomas 'Tommy' Angelo - an innocent cab driver whose life is thrust into violence and a job with the mob as a result of happenstance.

Tommy starts out as a hanger-on with status below that of foot soldier, but quickly begins to work his way up through the ranks, eventually reaching the coveted status of made man.

Interestingly the game begins with Tommy making a deal with an honest cop in a bid to get out from under the yoke of the mob - with the bulk of the game play representing flashbacks between his meetings and debriefing, and the events he is describing.

This format is obviously drawn from movies, and it works very well for the game since it allows the focus to remain on the highlights of Tommy's career with the mob.

Something worth noting here is the fact that this style of game focus was conceived prior to the popular inclusion of collections, side-missions, and the like that are now the standard fare for this sort of game. In fact many of those elements are thought to have been prompted by the success of Mafia. It can be argued that Mafia - along with the GTA games - contributed to the establishment of the open-world style of game we now enjoy.

While its graphics are rather crude compared to modern games, at the time it was released they were pretty advanced, one might even say cutting edge at least with respect to PC gaming.

When you combined that with the extensive collection and variety of cars that appear in the game, its diverse weapon collection, and the serious and successful attempt at introducing character dynamics and social relationships as a core element of the game, what they accomplished was actually quite remarkable.

Add in the excellent period music that scores it, and the bespoke theme song for which the game - and the band Lordz of Brooklyn - became well known for, and what you end up with is a historical shooter that easily achieves the sort of immersion that is required while also building the word-of-mouth fan base that was critical to its success.

While the game itself is an original IP and plot, it is clearly and heavily influenced by a number of mob movies - in fact the box art actually declares: “Welcome to the game of the greatest 1930s gangster film Scorsese never made.”

Despite the very recognizable characters - some of the 'crew' for Tommy's mob appear to have simply walked over from casting for the Godfather films - there was in fact no collusion on the part of the writers or directors of those films, and no official (or unofficial) exchange of material.

The level and depth of the plot and story, and the lightly structured sub-plots that cleanly explain Tommy's need to get out, make for a very entertaining game play experience.

But the movie that the game turns into - which we embedded above - easily stands on its own legs, making it one of the earliest examples of the trend towards the more comprehensive and complete story telling approach. That is why Mafia made our list.

Posted: 20th Nov 2014 by CMBF
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