Yo I’m at that stage in life where my options are narrowing when it comes to the jobs I dreamed of doing as a kid. I’m too old to play football in Scotland, I won’t own a brewery or become an astronaut. (In retrospect, aiming for a job that combined all three was a bit ambitious.) It’s also risky to quit any job in this economy without knowing if the new one will work. Luckily, thanks to video games I can try them before taking the plunge. And you’re never too old to be a gangster, right? That’s why I started playing Mafia: Definitive Edition.
I played it briefly in its original incarnation, 70 billion years ago. But not for long, because it had driving sections as unintuitive and poorly controlled as the Mars buggy.
For me, the fantasy of being a gangster always had less to do with murder and extortion and all that, and more to do with the social side: just hanging out with guys and having pranks. That is more than adequately represented in this game. As soon as I start showing interest in the bar owner’s daughter, the guys tell me that “I’m always soft when it comes to girls.” Wow, those jabronis really have my number!
The story of the main character, Tommy, is how I imagine my own path into the mafia. I was born of Polish descent on the east coast of Scotland and therefore could not trace my lineage back to Sicily, nor did I have any blood ties to the five families. Like Tommy, I figured I too would start out as a taxi driver, take some injured guys away from rival mobsters one night and do such quality work that they’d invite me to come and work more for them. This is the mafia equivalent of a five-star review on Uber.
You don’t actually need to drive much in the updated edition. You can jump between destinations with the press of a button, although this means you miss out on chat during the journey, which helps provide more detail to the story. And it’s a good story. It’s not Goodfellas or The Godfather, but it’s solid and I thought the voice acting was pretty strong.
The script is full of clichés, but I find them reassuring because they remind me of the mafia movies I loved growing up. Politicians are always “taken advantage”. Gangsters always want to “go legit” eventually. Lives are not saved, “asses” are saved. you don’t do it things“you do what you have to do.” You are not brave, you have “a real pair of balls.” not only any set of balls, but a set that deserves frequent comments and admiration. My boss, Don Salieri, kept telling my coworkers to “look what balls this kid has.” Is it any wonder the mafia doesn’t have a human resources department? After a meeting, everyone leaves the room, leaving not one but two lit cigarettes in an ashtray. So I don’t think much about health and safety in this workplace either.
Some things are a little silly. My character is still called “The Boy” when he is 30 years old; maybe they’re smuggling an elixir of eternal youth along with all the bourbon. I have to go see a guy named Vincenzo to get weapons. I am often told that it will have just what I need. Most of the time it ends up being a baseball bat. I could have gotten it at Toys “R” Us.
But I find this game very comforting to play in a predictable and undemanding way. Overall, it’s like sitting back to a cozy crime thriller or potato soup, although there are a couple of incredibly difficult levels: a completely unforgiving race, a motorcycle chase with no room for error, and a level where You have to shoot down a plane for which I not only had to go down to easy difficulty, but I also had to lower the controller sensitivity so low that my sights moved like a tanker truck. (Thanks to Reddit for that last tip, and also for the comments from other people who had suffered that level; it was like a video game PTSD group.)
But just when I feel comfortable in this charming mafia job, with the jokes and the big money, a character gets bored and fed up with this life. “We sat for six months breaking balls and I got rusty. Then I fight to stay awake while the Don tells me one of his stories,” he says.
I guess like all jobs, even the mafia gets boring after a while.