'Mafia' is a Racing Game

The 2002 Mafia, a game known for its great storytelling and open world, is also a competent racing game. Despite this, most people hated this game's brutal racing mission, when in reality it was one of the easiest.

0:00 pre race mission
1:33 race mission
3:15 "what is this wheel doing in the office? i thought we're making a mafia game?"
4:07 the game and its driving
6:21 no one knows about this "secret" gamemode
6:59 the console port
7:50 the pc port of the console port (racing mod)
8:56 mafia situational disability edition

[ANDREALEONE]

So the "difficulty" of that mission came from a bias caused by driving systems being less arcade than other games.

[mosesracal]

Mafia II had this anti-piracy measure where you are constantly at one hp so the slightest bump will kill you and you are in constant black and white. When I played in my local LAN cafe, I didnt know they pirated the game so I thought it was normal.

God I learned to drive that day. And the mission that gets rid of this measure is with a mission that has you on a drive by chase with the police.

[samiraperi]

99 laps in a Model T? You'll regret that. :D

[martincoufalik]

I remember Vávra (main brain behind this game) once mentioned they had ONE guy working on handling model. They just left him doing his thing, basicaly forgotten about him and once he remembered about him so he took a visit. And he had basicaly zero clue what this guy was telling him, it was total overkill and they had to strip down many features (tyre deforming and so on....!!). Guy that made that driving model was a genius that was way ahead of its time and basicaly Richard Burns Rally was just little bit better that this could be, if it was not simulating 20s cars.

[rubenthekid]

The reason so many people think the racing mission is hard is because theyve never played a racing game with slightly realistic driving physics, so they never slow down and brake before entering corners, and they dont understand the concept of going on the outside for a wide turn.

[FanboyKisser]

0:59 That's not boredom, that's literally your character dead from suffocating the exhaust fume trying to start up the car.

[ManOfRialto]

Was shocked too when I played the mission for the first time. Guess most people don't know how to race cars

[Kntucky]

The fact, wheel supported in 2002 open world video game astounded me

[superjesse]

I had no clue Mafia was a racing game in disguise. Absolutely incredible when you realize this is a 2002 game when most modern triple A games don't even bother with soft body physics (Granted the last game I played that was an action mixed with a racer was Just Cause 3 and I don't really know if that counts).

[Tajemni]

When I bought a cheap Logitech Driving Force on flea market it took me a while to try it out in Mafia and I didn't even know that the game had full FFB support. When I launched a mission the steering wheel started vibrating as soon as I got into a car, and I thought that I've broke something. It later occured to me that it was emulating vibration of a old car.

Then I got g929 and was dissappointed to find out that the game didn't register it, and it was right after I sold the old wheel.

Thats why I am so grateful that you've made the adapter.

Thank you from the bottom of my hearth!!!

[SerialDesignatioN]

A Czech game about movie-tier Mafia story set in fictionalised Chicago with realistic details and features for an old game is an absolute gem

[sturm]

honestly main difficulty of mafia is the combat system, people who think driving is hard think vehicles from 30s can take corners at full speed as well as a skyline in underground

[rafalst]

Soo, about that 1 hour extension... i need it

[RedDed]

My mom and I would play this game back in 2004, I remember standing next to her and watching her play(on the PC). I remember she told me "you can unlock Bigfoot, the monster truck in this game!" And I got so excited, but I never found it and for years I thought she just told me that because she got it mixed up with another game; now here I am watching you're video and IT WAS ACTUALLY THERE! I mean sure, it was in a version we didn't play, but the fact that it was actually there is awesome. What an awesome memory to come back to me all these years later.

[edwartvonfectonia]

My most beloved game. The physics are so well developed, the gearswitch sound and the realistic gameplay made me really enjoy driving every vehicle. My favourite one being Silver Fletcher and Bolt V8 Touring.

[jdflasky]

It was pretty funny watching Dan Vávra mention Fair Play in the stream where he reacts to Definitive Edition (it's on YouTube if you're interested but it's all in Czech) and he basically said "most people complained about the driving physics because they're bad at games and they don't know how to drive" lmao. Apparently he already had to lower the difficulty majorly because one of the co-founders of the company couldn't beat it, and even that was too hard for the general public.

[Paragleiber]

2:58 Welp. I really can't trust anybody in my comments I guess, lol. Thanks for clearing this up. Also your times are very impressive. I had no trouble beating the AI but I wasn't as fast as you.

[raptorjesus]

Honestly the changes to the map in the remake are fine, it literally gives you directions in the form of signposts on streetcorners, so you get to look at, and are even encouraged to look at the environment whilst driving.

[networkgeekstuff]

The fact that such an old game had a better damage model and physics as most of modern open world games with cars is a terrifying concept.

[quintessentialboredom]

Finally someone does a video on possibly the most unique aspects of the game, great job and a fun one to watch, subbed!