As he rises in the ranks, his safehouses get more lavish, from scummy apartments to an idyllic modernist 1950s house in the leafy suburbs. As his bank balance increases, you can dress Vito up in fashionable period-accurate suits, scream around in shiny sports cars, and fire Tommy guns. It's surprisingly bold when it comes to dealing with racism, poverty, and other issues that plagued the period-something Mafia 3 tackles even more directly.Д«ut Mafia 2 is also a gangster power fantasy. Mafia 2 may be set in a fictional city, but it's a convincing, stylised portrait of the United States pre and post-war-and not just the good bits. They really don't like these flashy hot rod-drivin' greasers. The war is over, the economy is recovering, and the teenagers have taken over, screeching around in sports cars, listening to rock-and-roll, and, later in the game, butting heads with the stubbornly old school Joe and Vito. The year is 1951, and the city is no longer bleak and snowy: it's bright, colourful, green, and vibrant. Six years later, Vito emerges from prison to find a very different Empire Bay.

The whole prison sequence is like The Shawshank Redemption meets the prison scenes from Goodfellas, and it's a perfect palate cleanser for what's to come. Vito sharpens his boxing skills, cleans a few toilets, beats some people up in the shower room, and impresses Galante, who proves to be a valuable ally later in the game, and also appears in Mafia 3. In the slammer you get to know a few of your fellow inmates, including a respected mafia consigliere named Leo Galante, who's there doing his own time in the joint.

The first-person walk into the prison, past rows of jeering inmates, is particularly well done.

You're confined to a prison, the Hartmann Federal Penitentiary, which is another example of 2K Czech's absurdly detailed world-building. But then something goes wrong, and Vito ends up in jail. Like GTA, you start off at the lowest level, pulling off small-time heists, selling stolen goods, and other odd-jobs. It's here that Vito begins climbing the criminal ladder with Joe. Noire in its authentic portrayal of America in the 1940s. Mafia 2 is a superb period piece, second only to Rockstar's painstakingly researched L.A. The mood is dark and gloomy, with snow piling up on cars and sidewalks, people slipping on icy pavements, and a palpable chill in the air. The first chunk of the game takes place in the 1940s. Mafia 2 is also a rare example of an open-world game where we see two versions of the same city. It's a wonderful piece of scene-setting-something this game is obscenely good at all the way through. We see couples arguing, kids throwing snowballs, and a guy getting a haircut in a warmly-lit barbershop. An inspired use of licensed music.ДЄ fleet of B-17 bombers roar overhead, reminding us that the war is far from over. Dean Martin's Christmas classic Let It Snow plays as he walks the streets, still in his uniform, suitcase in hand. Our anti-hero returns from World War II on a cold winter's evening in 1945, and finds himself back in the Italian neighbourhood where he grew up. It didn't take me long to fall in love with Mafia 2. But it's still a joy to wander and explore its streets-for what it is, and how it feels, rather than what it has to offer you between missions. You never get to drive a tank or use a jetpack. There are newspaper boys, smoking chimneys, and a thousand other tiny incidental details, which combine into a wonderful whole.Д®mpire Bay is not littered with side missions, arbitrary collectibles, or crazy vehicles to steal. Cherry blossom trees sway in the wind in Chinatown. Workers mill around the docks, unloading cargo from ships. And the level of fine detail is remarkable throughout. But the artists at 2K Czech did a stellar job of making it feel like a real place. It's fictional, based loosely on New York City and Chicago. Empire Bay is not as dense or intricate as the likes of Grand Theft Auto V's Los Santos or, more recently, Watch Dogs 2's San Francisco-but it's still one of the best virtual cities on PC. A lovingly crafted film set designed to give the story a rich sense of place. The city is there, but it's just a backdrop.

Mafia 2 soundtrack