@Splarkszter This is true in even modern games. For whatever reason, my friends just don't use the brakes when racing in games like gta v, and wonder why they can't take corners.
I played the remake and people again complained about how difficult it was and I beat it first try. Maybe it would've been hard on a keyboard? But otherwise yes, it was really easy but somehow people got stuck on it for hours.
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.
@@ArchiWorldRuS YOu mean the guy who goes into rage mode if you say Michael went into witness protection? Great, now I summoned DarkViperAU into the comments or something with that
@@jacekatalakis8316 yeah, him too, Hugo One also loves that kind of things , not so sure about Joshimuz, and there is russian Sovenok. Of course there are many others, but I don't watch them, huh
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.
I think the racing mission is hard because of the unpredictable physics that this game has. Sometimes you bump into someone and nothing happens, and then when you bump again, it suddenly sends you flying / spinning like a helicopter. The connections between textures seem to have gaps in them, so your wheel would often fall through the ground, making your car spin. Driving over pavements or grass would often send your car flying randomly, etc...
@@patriktokoly5580 there's that too, but most videos I've seen from TH-camrs who don't usually play racing games usually fault themselves by driving like it's nfs and not braking into corners.
@zenksren8206 Which happens only *after* you make some stupid mistake. I've played through the original Mafia multiple times and I don't remember it ever happening to me.
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.
Oh and that countryside you mentioning, there were supposed to be actually 2 cities, but it was too much work so thats the reason why there is that huge countryside area where you have only few missions and basicaly no reason to drive there. Its just connection between them that was fully modeled, so they left it in the game.
That is crazy. Its too bad they don't have people like that working on modern games. I would rather play a game where things like that are simulated under the hood (quite literally) than a game that has maybe 10% better graphics than whatever came out the year before.
@@seP4 nah....he forgot so many things, this was just funny stuff he have not forgot. Poeple are still asking and he directly sayed I DONT KNOW, ITS FKIN 20 YEARS.....but story about this guy is just gold. Otherwise there are not too many informations. This stuff he mentioned in charity stream when Mafia remake was released and he was SUPER pissed about what muricans did to his game. Just one point how deep they went: Sarah was naive girl that lived with mass murderer and had no idea about it. In remake she is very smart mafia lady...and so on and on....its just different game.
The truth is that most folks (even some that like more casual racing games) don't even like real racing, they just like the concept of going fast and bash every other car in a completely brainless experience. Not that the racing mission on Mafia is serious business, but you need at least to know some basic concepts as braking and to not overdo your steering. At that time, casual videogame racing was all about pressing "A" and d-pad the steering without even slowdown. Not that I'm trying to say that the criticism is right, just how, in the end, racing games became a niche genre, as most companies couldn't balance complexity with accessibility, but AAA studios executives decider for the later one... cheers!
Actually, Lost Heaven’s based on Chicago last I checked, though that could simply be due to the DE being handled by the franchise’s current developers and being retooled to make it more connected to 2 and 3.
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!!!
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).
It does count. Just cause has particularly arcadey driving but even games like GTA don't come close to this level of detail in their driving physics. I dont thiink I've ever seen proper soft body physics in any other game besides Beamng, and that is literally a car simulator.
@@RaposaCadela A big reason is: car manufacturers. They dont like seeing their cars being able to be destroyed in games. Remember how Gran Turismo 5 advertized soft body physics and a detailed damage model, but then had none of it in the game? Apparently too many car manufacturers complained about it.
@@xXYannuschXx Oh yeah, that much I know. It's an artificial reason though understandable somewhat, however, games with original cars have no excuse not to have it!
@@xXYannuschXx Great, art and fun ruined by capitalism and marketing once again. As if people were going to go 'ooh that car got smashed in a video game, better not buy it'.
I think racing wheels and flying joysticks were more normalized back then, before Xbox 360 era, PC gamepads sucked and most old games had joystick options more geared to a flight stick than a gamepad. And since driving on keyboard is horrible (steering is by tapping arrows hopping to avoid oversteer, good luck with that on simulations), a lot of people actually got some sort of a wheel. Again, before PS2-Xbox style analog gamepads became normal, even console games were based around wheel peripheries, but on PC, gamepad situation was even worse so you basically expected games to work around it.
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.
I loved it too. It was one of the few games I beat multiple times just to experience the story again. How does the remake/remaster or whatever it is compare to the original PC version? Is it worth it?
@@Tellin08 I would say that it is overall good, but there are some questionable changes that they made. They did make the game a bit too action-focused in some aspects, I guess for modern audiences. The farm mission I mentioned is one of the most egregious in that regard. It is one thing that the director of the original game - Daniel Vavra - criticised. Apparently one of the things they strived for with the original was to keep the body count in each mission at least somewhat realistic. The remake certainly does not do that.
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
*Adjusts glasses because Underground was mentioned* AcTUallY... Skyline is mediocre in Underground 1. RX7 and Miata though, they take corners like flies on cocaine.
@@GeneralProfessor uhm achkually I meant the skyline in both undergrounds since it is the fastest conventional all around sports car underground 2 and one of the better cars in underground 1
@@sturm8115 My memory of UG 2 is a bit hazy but I do remember that the best car in that game is the Corolla because it has OP handling. In UG 1 though, despite Skyling being an end-game unlock and being given to the final boss, it's mediocre like I said. Maybe even bellow average simply because it has poor handling and can easily lose grip. Depending on the racing mode these are some of the best choices: Drag: S2000 and Supra Drift: Impreza and RX7 General racing: RX7 and Miata Overall RX7 is easily the best. But when compared to the Skyline I'd even sooner pick Ford Focus or 206 over it. For what it's worth, I'm saying all this as a nerd who has beaten the game countless times and has done it with almost all cars that are in the game. Pro tip: Don't try to beat the game with Dodge Neon unless you're into the Dark Souls type of gaming experience.
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.
@@ThangTN I was, I remember having a GameCube with Majora's mask on it and her and I getting so frustrated because we didn't know what to do! Haha she's amazing sadly she's not in so good health especially being hit by a car a few days ago but I take care of her, so hearing other people compliment her really makes me proud and happy. So thank you.
@@Pouk3D she really is, she's my best friend and my hero. She means the world to me, she was always there by my side no matter what. Thank you for the nice words it means a lot to me. I'll be sure to tell her :)
It was pretty funny watching Dan Vávra mention Fair Play in the stream where he reacts to Definitive Edition (it's on TH-cam 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.
Oh yeah, he was like "So we tested it, had fun with it, and [name of co-founder] barged into the room and yelled at us like: "What have you done with it!? It's unplayable!!!" so we had to make it easier."
The difficulty was that everyone used a keyboard to drive. The extreme tendency of the car to spin at every turn, made it really hard. Even for experienced simracers.
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.
seems to work really well when driving slowly and admiring the environment. not so much for driving slightly faster or finding alternate routes (gps routes are often not the fastest)
They are either dedicated to destroying cars (Wreckfest) or straight up making cars tougher than an iceberg (Gran Turismo, Forza, NFS, blah blah blah... but hey! Cops in NFS can actually destroy your car... through a HP bar.)
How is that terrifying? Just games are just focused on other aspects than some. Seriously if all games had the exact same damage properties and detail then a particular innovation would be stale and uninteresting
@@Maximus20778 Nope, my problem is mostly that we see less and less experimental code in AAA games that someone inside the studio has written as bigger studios now almost exclusivelly use one of the big engines like Unreal/Unity and therefore all these games "behave" really really the same way. Innovation has moved now exclusivelly to small indie games that still are actually doing coding and experimenting with some cool features. So we have lost something here in the last 15 years.
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.
this game came out when i was 4, and one of my earliest gaming memories is my dad struggling with the race. just last week he played the remake and still struggled with driving the racecar so i did the mission for him. felt like an achievement for me.
When you are used to arcade games and look at Mafia, of course the racing game will be fucking insane difficult to finish. But then again, i get the grips against the game but i do get it's qualities
Oh the memories... :) I was around 12 years old, and one day my friend from school asked me to come over, and check this game, because it was a so good game, but he couldn't just progress further. So I went over to his house, and there he explained to me, that there was a really hard racing mission, and since I played mostly car racing games, he wanted me to try it. But first, let's start a fresh, new game, so I get the feeling :D Okay, he started the game, and slowly progressed towards the racing... I was amazed by this game btw, it was so beautiful at that time, and even though I didn't understand a single word, the story looked amazing too. And then we finally reached the racing. I took the seat, tried it, and... I failed miserably. It was nothing like anything I played at that time, so naturally the controls were a complete mess to me, I oversteered, I understeered, I flipped the car, I crashed and damaged the car, etc. Next my friend tried, and he was the same. So we started to take turns, and it became kind of a competition on who finishes first. We stuck there for a couple of hours, we became better and better, and finally one of us (don't remember who) was at the first place in the last lap. We were so excited, hands shaking, heart rate in the skies, and the driver was instructed to slow down, do not take any risks, take the corners in the safest way... and then we did it. We were so happy :) we rested a bit, heart rate returned to normal, and a couple minutes later we started the next mission. We stole the Lassiter without a problem, and then went to the hotel. And that was the end of the day, because we stuck there again. I had no shooter experience, and my friend was also overwhelmed by the number of enemies on the roofs :D but it was a good day :) I got a copy of the game years later, and somehow the racing didn't feel that hard then. I failed it first time, but quickly picked up the pace, and I was succesful on second or third try. Which is kind of surprising, because I still didn't play games, where cars handled like that... probably the time spent in cars on the earlier missions helped, also maybe some muscle memory from years ago. And then I replayed the game many times, and the racing part changed from nearly impossible to challenging to... a bit boring. If you full send, opponents just seem to be cruising around the track, and really you are the only danger to your own winning. So, all in all, I see exactly why this mission is infamous to many, but also I see it as an easy leasure drive now. For a single playthrough it can be challenging, especially this close to the start of the game, where you still just getting familiar with the controls and car handling. And then when you played the game through two or three times with 100% free ride extreme, the racing just seems to be too easy.
One of my friends told me his story, I don't know if it's true or not but one time there was a Russian Colonel who playing the game but couldn't get past the racing part, so he asked this men whoever can get past this part gets promoted and apparently this one private was able to finished the race on his first try and was promoted to a Sergeant.
@@guguigugu Is it though? But really, is this the best place to talk about politics and the effectiveness of the Russian army under such video? What the...
it’s like those gta missions, the once with “all you had to do was follow the damn train” and the helicopter mission in VC they’re also easy asf and i do not understand why so many people cry about how hard they are
1.About helicopter mission, it wasnt easy consider the fact that many gta players play on pc without game controller.Because of this, control keys to fly on rc helicopter was placed on NUMPAD which is uncomfortable as hell. 2.Train mission. And no sometimes follow train dont work.There is many ways how to complete this mission, but its not rockstar way how they think you should complete.You somehow need to find a sweet spot where Big smoke can shoot normaly, and by saying somehow i mean it.Game dont show if you are on right spot or not.Only at end.Also there was a research conducted about how precise Big Smoke shoot on this mission, answer is Big smoke shoot very poorly. This missions maybe easy but only for those who have a equipment to play easy (Helicopter) Or trough countless tries find a easy method(Train)
@@ПетрШаповалов-г2п 1. i completed helicopter both on pc and on mobile without any controllers or shit like that, and it was still easy asf 2. train was also easy, you just drive beside the train and slightly adjust your position so that smoke has a nice angle, even as a little kid i could complete the mission without much trouble
It's easy for me ≠ easy for everyone else. And yes, those missions were also easy for me but I would never say "I don't understand why it's hard for everyone else" lmao.
@@Terrtail lmao, the fact that i don’t understand why these missions are hard for other people IS the reason to write these types of comments, so i can finally understand why the missions i completed with ease as a kid have such a bad rep
Ah Mafia one, man I had so much fun when I modded in a Nissan Skyline R34 and made the cops chase me. That really was gone in 30 seconds, have to applaud the cop Ai for staying spawned and attempting to chase you even when they are 20 seconds behind you. (Dipped off the road and hid the R34 and could hear the cop car come down the road I had been on, 20 seconds later.)
I always loved the attention to detail in Mafia. Not just the driving, but everything else as well. The fact that there were real traffic laws, with realistic police response. The guns and that you threw away an entire magazine when you reloaded. Mafia was a serious game, with a serious story, and the serious gameplay to back it up. Freeride Extreme was also a lot of fun, and those driving-centric missions with deep driving mechanics is pretty much exactly what you wanted from those first large scale open world city shenanigans games. The only problem was the save system, because you could do a whole mission, mess up, and gone is your progress. I remember doing the bank job, getting away in a speedy convertible, and flipping the thing killing my character and the NPC instantly.
I have a friend who likes to stream single player games, and in the Definitive Edition re-release of the game he was stuck on the race for over an hour. I asked him if I could take a stab at it, to which he agreed, so we both fired up Parsec, he left to go make food, and I won the race on my second attempt (never played Mafia before, so attempt 1 was just learning the handling model). The biggest problem people have is they don't realize you have to brake early for curves and not while you're already in the curve, which should be a driver's ed thing.
Nah bro i was drifting like a god in the original pc version, as a kid i struggled with that race but as an adult who knows some racing basics the race is kinda easy as long as the car slip or flip after the chicane. And i never had the issues that you had. Mafia is one of my favourite games ever, and yes im Czech of course im gonna defend it. Also fun fact the main theme is composed by the Prague orchestra and the lead developer Daniel Vávra made other games like Kingdom come deliverance.
That racing mission was tough. My friend's dad actually came over to help me beat it. One tiny mistake, and I'd be down a wheel, making high speed racing feel like trying to drive on jelly
I was always confused by the reputation of this mission. I beat that race on my 2nd or 3rd attempt with a keyboard on the unpatched version. And the only reason I didn´t do it on my 1st attempt was because I flipped the car in that one chicane while trying to find a fast, safe line through it.
It wasn't only problems with controls. On slower machines, game run on low fps ratę, but the clock was still measuring time in seconds. After a huge struggle at home with this, I finally beat it and then I saw how easy it was on better specs at my friends house
The racing mission was broken until they patched it. Unfortunately I had purchased the original, pre-patch version. After I could finally download and install the patch - no problem.
The definitive edition race must be harder. I played on hard and if you're not racing 100% perfectly while also using the ram button to turn corners, you won't win. It took me maybe 25 tries.
7:15 Well yeah, I'm Czech and at that time when the game came out everyone thought that consoles are mostly for casuals who can't be bothered to learn anything. Consoles were never popular here. And it's still true to this day, considering how physics in games like GTA V got butchered to make casuals happy, which is a sad trend that continues to this day.
@@zenksren8206 These "peasants" made the best mafia-themed game in the world AND an extremely successful medieval RPG that managed to sell 6 million copies and is still played by cca 5 to 6 thousand people on Steam alone (right now, it's 4983 people). All without the might and backing of a massive corporation like Ubisoft or EA.
@@zenksren8206 Besides anti-competitive practices (exclusives) What can a console even do that a PC cannot do better? PC has a significantly higher up front cost, but MS/Sony don't steal your money every month to provide a service that doesn't exist, and with Steam there are constant large sales, so you effectively only pay full price for new releases of AAA slop. (anybody here remember when Xbox originally started charging to graciously allow the console to access the internet? They stated it was for "game server costs" and yet the developers have to pay for their own servers, so that was a lie.) Historically, console has often dragged down games' potential for features/graphics with their inferior hardware. This is mostly resolved now, but PC still has vastly better performance if you know what you're doing. PC games realistically only become unplayable if the always-online servers shut down, and even then quite a few games get community patches that restore most functionality. Almost any PC can play almost any game released over 20 years ago. You also only pay once, rather than every console generation if it even gets a rerelease. While on console it is rare to be able to play a game from more than 1 console generation ago. PC has modding for almost anything you could want. Adblockers. Multi-monitors. A million things to do unrelated to gaming. The only valid argument I can even imagine is cheaters. But be honest. Is it worth heavy restrictions on what you can do with your console, a decent sum of money monthly, and a worse experience for every genre of game that is _not_ primarily PvP?
I feel like the difficulty of that race missions stems from the fact that you can pretty easily flip the vehicle upside down and kill the driver which restarts the whole race
I had some fun moments from this race sequence when the remake came out a few years ago. I played the game right as it came out and was one of the first people to get the achievement for completing the race. I almost beat the race first try (got messed up by one of the scripted crashes) and had no problem with it. Afterwards I'd get messages from some people asking how I was able to win the race since it was too hard. One thing that was making it hard for most was one achievement was for getting the game on Classic difficulty which had different driving physiques. Seems most other people just couldn't cut it with the driving so this race caused them a lot of trouble. It reminds me of GTAIV a bit when people complain about the driving being difficult in that game. I can drive well in the game and find it pretty fun. I've noticed that most of the people who complain about it just can't drive well in general.
"80% would have run out of attention span" so true. Seen this drama with games like Genshin Impact and I was so annoyed that people have lost themselves to goldfish minds.
@@erickschusterdeoliveira2662it’s okay Erick, sometimes it’s hard to enunciate and understand text when it’s not made from You, what bro said today is full of people that have attention spans so low they have ADHD like brains, so bad to the point where they can’t focus on 1 thing at a time, hence why he mentioned gaming.
Wow YT or the uploader is removing my comments, did I hit a nerve or something? All I said it’s correlated to social media over usage which people seriously need to cut/tone down A LOT It’s not a joke, attention spans are shit.
The reason ehy people thought it was hard is because the physics are unpredictable. One minute you have grip, the next time you dont have grip and you spin
I actually liked the Definitive Edition enough to make it my first platinum, because it's a lot more natural and realistic than any remotely recent game of its type. Played it 4 times in a row, all with the most realistic driving settings and loved the experience...when traffic didn't just take a picnic in the middle of the road. I've only played the original once as a child and that was the PS2 port, I rented it and only drove in free roam, thinking about the original these days, what concerns me would be the shooting (seems like everything according to playthroughs I've watched is a shootout, literally everything)
You forgot something in the difficulty account: The age and culture of the time. We were all younger, and had less experience with the physics of racing games, we were used to need for speed hot pursuit 3 and midtown madness when this game was released, and we didn't have 20 years of experience with realistic simulations like today. Many games that I found difficult at the time seem easy, especially FPS games with WASD controls. At that time I played GTA 3 and Mafia with the arrow keys. Today, an 8-year-old child has exactly the same skill as a 25-year-old player from 2001.
There is other reason why the racing mission was so hard - it wasn't because players were lame, or the inputs were smoothed and unresponsive.... there is one signle thing that made this mission hard as hell and it was automatic transmission - AT shifted always too early, so you didn't get most of the power in the upper band of rev range and when upshifting the RPMs dropped too low and it took forewer to pick up.... I remember it quite well - I was kid with some experience with racing games back then (anything from old NFS to hardcore simulations), playing on the keyboard and having bad times for hours in this mission and then I tried the MT and it went as smooth as in your video - third try and mission was passed....
It's worth noting the remake is actually still pretty good though. Different, absolutely, but still pretty good. Still doesn't distract from the fact that Mafia 2 doesn't have clutch or wheel support either.
Same reason people hate the Batmobile in Arkham knight. The game forced people who bought the game expecting something else, who wouldn’t usually have anything to do with a partially arcade but difficult to drive Car to actually be competent behind the wheel.
The batmobile handling wasn't really refined, though. I agree that batmobile hate is kinda overblown but to drive that optimally you need to get good at using the handbrake to take corners (aka drifting) instead of braking normally.
It's like the Driver first mission in the garage, everybody keep saying it's so difficult, in reality with a COUPLE of tries you pass it and have perfect knowledge of the car physics. It's a strange choice for a first mission that should serve as tutorial and today no developer would do that, but it's really NOT THAT HARD as anyone is saying today
"They tried to replicate that car's performance, but no game has ever fully achieved that" Our studio is making a pre-war racing game called Royal Montgomery Raceways, and we're trying to do just that! Mafia's race mission has been a huge inspiration. Would love to share it with you and get your feedback!
Mafia 1 , the best game of it's kind. It really sucks they removed the " shoot while you are driving feature " , "can have 4 people in the car" , "park a car somewhere go at the opposite side on the city then come back and the car is still where you left it" . I guess it wasn't that difficult to add this in the next games and changes a lot . The car physics is really good, and car subsystems modelisation too as you said. And the realtime deformations.
I played this back in the day and from what I remember, the keyboard mapping was a large part of what made the racing so challenging for many, including me. You play the majority of the game with the common FPS WASD movement controls. But steering with A and D had smoothing disabled while using the arrow keys would smooth the steering, making it much easier to not oversteer. I don't think this was advertised anywhere in the game and many people did not notice that smooth steering was even an option.
I disagree with the notion that Remake is dumbed down or worse. Clearly, they still cared a lot because remake has a lot going for it, and actor performance especially is amazing. Giving options to set is not dumbing down something, its making it accessible.
@@root. Its exactly like he said in the video. Its for if you are a casual player who essentailly wants to watch and interactive mafia movie. The rest of us can still play with the non dumbed down version, which is why it is "accessible" not dumbing down. By and large they made a good remake. Better than the Mafia 2 remake by far.
The concept of "clean driving" isn't exactly popular amongs non-racing gamer back in the day, expecting 7 minutes of clean driving with no crash is pure madness. Even the missions that involve the race car are also really annoying because unlike the crap car, they expect you to drive moderately fast and avoiding crash, and a high speed crash deal a lot of damage to the car. Luckily in the unpatched version there're an exploit that can warp you to the finish line, say no to clean driving. You don't even need to do free ride extreme, there're a phone booth you can activate to unlock everything.
As a kid back then, finding this mission somewhat hard, I know why I personally found it difficult: I was used to always go full throttle in racing games - hitting walls, drifting, hitting opponents etc. Driving safely and carefully wasn't in my vocabulary
Also, Mafia had persistent cars, so you could leave a car, go a few meters away, and when you came back, the car would still be there. In GTA, instead, just looking in the opposite direction for a few seconds was enough to make the car disappear.
People who never played a game like Gran Turismo won't get it off the bat, but the first time i played Mafia i knew the game driving physics is an intricate one. I was impressed ngl
You speak from my heart regarding the remake. One of the worst changes for me is that they removed the nice car stealing missions:( they don’t even give you a real option to experience the old feeling again. Regarding the countryside: I absolutely love the mission where you drive there with some liquor truck in the middle of the night. They should have included more like this 🥰 Thanks for this awesome video!
Gotta love it when most of the complaints about the remake are asinine minor details that most people overlooked anyways back then and other petty things. Only complaints that I've seen about it that are actually valid came from the original writer of the first game about the plot's execution.
He clearly played the first game,and it was clearly a downgrade,because do notice things,not everyone is a dumb arse who don't know how to slow down before taking a turn.
@@scr8846 Not only the plot execution. When he witnessed the final credits, specifically the song that plays when you finish the game on Classic difficulty, he asked if he can still get a refund for his copy of the remake. Sadly, he couldn't.
The damage model is STILL impressive with how many games with licensed cars just don't have it or minimalize. As someone who grew up with Gran Turismo, having ANY damage visible is always a bonus. I have Mafia on Steam, need to actually play it properly.
Look, we all were like 12-15 when we played that mission, most of us played it on a unpatched version with shitty keyboards, no knowledge of some button settings tricks and no prior experience in racing sims. Obviously the mission would be hard in these conditions. It was hard to handle the care back then because of the physics they implemented into a game. You claiming that mission is super easy is like opening og Mario game in 2024 after watching the speed runs and wonder "damn, why is this game so easy".
Most of those "Hard" missions in Mafia and GTA are actually because people back then didn't really bother to learn the pattern of the missions or be patient. Just like the RC helicopter mission in GTA VC, all you have to do is just pressing WASD and numpad arrow keys and drop the bomb where you need to. Now there's also some BS like the train mission in GTA SA because the bot's aiming is a bit off. But once you know where to stay on that track, it's just a little bike ride.
Personally i never (NEVER) had any problems with this train mission. Was surprised to know it has same "hard/unfair/meme" reputation. I guess every generation of players has its own myths.
Also, you're wrong. Those generation of players grew up on 16-bit Battletoads-type arcades. We had a lot of patience. As far as I remember, this particular race was difficult because the only accident sent you flying, knocking you out from the rest of your rivals without being able to catch up. But if you managed to break away from them at the very beginning, it became much easier. Also, many players of that time grew up on Need for Speed series, and ramming the enemy was a working tactic that turned out to be harmful to yourself here. Perhaps for this too.
Played through Mafia II again for the first time since it came out I can't believe how great the driving physics are, especially for when it first came out
@@noticiasinmundicias I thought enshittification had to do with platforms that are initially free and then add more ads and paywalls as the audience grows? What does it have to do with this game?
Mafia, the original one, is far away one of the peaks on mob games, the mix with racing features, character's interaction, environment, is a delight. You also forgot the truck chase and the plane mission as hard lol.
Fun fact: GTA has tried multiple times to add more realistic handling and drivetrains but every time they have, fans complained that the cars became too hard to drive. So much to the point where nearly every post launch car released all have 4wd
This simply isn't true, the vast majority of cars in GTA (online you mean presumably?) are RWD. People play GTA to have fun, not to experience realistic driving. If you want to do that, you have plenty of racing sims that offer exactly that, don't ask for that to be introduced to more mainstream titles for everyone to enjoy.
Do people really believe that everyone has the same ammount of skill? That "this is easy why does everyone think this is hard?" mentality has to disappear, it just sounds pretentious. I wouldn't talk down on other people for struggling with something
@@AshKiz that comment didnt even imply they were struggling with anything you just responded with get good so you can be a manchild anytime your presented with a valid argument so if you respond to this with any version of gt good i win by default
I think the biggest issue was the fact that you had to do 5 laps. The track was pretty long in itself, so if you failed the mission, you had to do it all over again. Combined with the issues mentioned at 6:00, the racing mission was just straight up aggravating.
I completed the Definitive Edition this past week. I beat the race on the first try. I thought it was fine, a nice change of scenery, and never really thought of it again. My friends, they're STILL crying about this race mission over on Reddit. It's absurd. I mean, c'mon. It's really, really not THAT hard, LOL.
I played this mission once when I was like 9 or 10, can't even remember if I passed it or not. But I sure can remember my cousin taking an entire evening to pass it. He also took the next entire evening to pass the ambush mission later on the game.
Seems most of your complaints about the Mafia remake are about stuff that either can be turned off or that you were going to complain about anyway because it’s a remake
i played mafia as a little kid, here in czech republic the game is quite well known even today, well not with zoomers but with people nearing their 20´s that grew up on the thing as did i. the race mission was incomprehensibly difficult for me the first time but when i played the game again, when i wasn´t seven years old anymore i found it quite easy. well i am off to grab an illegal copy and play it again, i haven ´t seen the actual physical copy of the game in EONS.
I was so comfused when I discovered on TH-cam that racing part was hard, I did it on the first try. Shooting missions made me rage way more, that part is BRUTAL!
the 99 laps livestream is now over. you can find the vod here: th-cam.com/users/liveJRivIXGOL6A
RIP
Good luck boi
This stream will be better than paint drying
LIVE STREAM WHEN
Where is my damn stream? 😡
So the "difficulty" of that mission came from a bias caused by driving systems being less arcade than other games.
Yes. People don't know how to brake.
I remember when GTA IV came out and nobody could drive.
@Splarkszter This is true in even modern games. For whatever reason, my friends just don't use the brakes when racing in games like gta v, and wonder why they can't take corners.
I played the remake and people again complained about how difficult it was and I beat it first try. Maybe it would've been hard on a keyboard? But otherwise yes, it was really easy but somehow people got stuck on it for hours.
@@JZStudiosonline On keyboard was a breeze
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.
That'd make a great challenge run, honestly. 1hp run vids, are they a thing already?
Clever enough to copy a game, too stupid to install a crack
@@jacekatalakis8316 idk about other games, but gta speedrunners do challenges like that, OHKO - one hit knock out
@@ArchiWorldRuS YOu mean the guy who goes into rage mode if you say Michael went into witness protection?
Great, now I summoned DarkViperAU into the comments or something with that
@@jacekatalakis8316 yeah, him too, Hugo One also loves that kind of things , not so sure about Joshimuz, and there is russian Sovenok.
Of course there are many others, but I don't watch them, huh
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.
I think the racing mission is hard because of the unpredictable physics that this game has. Sometimes you bump into someone and nothing happens, and then when you bump again, it suddenly sends you flying / spinning like a helicopter. The connections between textures seem to have gaps in them, so your wheel would often fall through the ground, making your car spin. Driving over pavements or grass would often send your car flying randomly, etc...
@@patriktokoly5580 there's that too, but most videos I've seen from TH-camrs who don't usually play racing games usually fault themselves by driving like it's nfs and not braking into corners.
@@patriktokoly5580 There's NOTHING unpredictable about it, and if it is for you, it's purely the operator problem.
@@AgentB7 6:00 Ahem
@zenksren8206 Which happens only *after* you make some stupid mistake. I've played through the original Mafia multiple times and I don't remember it ever happening to me.
99 laps in a Model T? You'll regret that. :D
Gran Turismo 4 mfs be like
*GOOD LUCK.*
T stands for Turbo
Gt4 has the first car ever
lets pay some bot like
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.
Oh and that countryside you mentioning, there were supposed to be actually 2 cities, but it was too much work so thats the reason why there is that huge countryside area where you have only few missions and basicaly no reason to drive there. Its just connection between them that was fully modeled, so they left it in the game.
interesting info! wish the interviews were translated
That is crazy. Its too bad they don't have people like that working on modern games. I would rather play a game where things like that are simulated under the hood (quite literally) than a game that has maybe 10% better graphics than whatever came out the year before.
@@notme5844 They're probably making WAY more money doing other stuff. Or maybe same money but more interesting projects. Maybe even actual racing.
@@seP4 nah....he forgot so many things, this was just funny stuff he have not forgot. Poeple are still asking and he directly sayed I DONT KNOW, ITS FKIN 20 YEARS.....but story about this guy is just gold. Otherwise there are not too many informations. This stuff he mentioned in charity stream when Mafia remake was released and he was SUPER pissed about what muricans did to his game. Just one point how deep they went: Sarah was naive girl that lived with mass murderer and had no idea about it. In remake she is very smart mafia lady...and so on and on....its just different game.
0:59 That's not boredom, that's literally your character dead from suffocating the exhaust fume trying to start up the car.
Was shocked too when I played the mission for the first time. Guess most people don't know how to race cars
Most people have no idea how to drive, that's very true.
Just look at your average driver, hogging that middle lane
The truth is that most folks (even some that like more casual racing games) don't even like real racing, they just like the concept of going fast and bash every other car in a completely brainless experience. Not that the racing mission on Mafia is serious business, but you need at least to know some basic concepts as braking and to not overdo your steering. At that time, casual videogame racing was all about pressing "A" and d-pad the steering without even slowdown. Not that I'm trying to say that the criticism is right, just how, in the end, racing games became a niche genre, as most companies couldn't balance complexity with accessibility, but AAA studios executives decider for the later one... cheers!
@@lmenusbuddy thinks you are required to move over in a 3 lane 😂
I mean that's fully expected. Why should they?
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
Actually, Lost Heaven’s based on Chicago last I checked, though that could simply be due to the DE being handled by the franchise’s current developers and being retooled to make it more connected to 2 and 3.
@@Jolis_Parsec Whoops, I forgot about that
Huh, a Czech. Same nationality as SCS Software.
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!!!
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).
It does count. Just cause has particularly arcadey driving but even games like GTA don't come close to this level of detail in their driving physics. I dont thiink I've ever seen proper soft body physics in any other game besides Beamng, and that is literally a car simulator.
Soft Body Physics are SO GOOD why doesn't every game have them?? I think technology should be powerful enough for it now!
@@RaposaCadela A big reason is: car manufacturers. They dont like seeing their cars being able to be destroyed in games. Remember how Gran Turismo 5 advertized soft body physics and a detailed damage model, but then had none of it in the game? Apparently too many car manufacturers complained about it.
@@xXYannuschXx Oh yeah, that much I know. It's an artificial reason though understandable somewhat, however, games with original cars have no excuse not to have it!
@@xXYannuschXx Great, art and fun ruined by capitalism and marketing once again. As if people were going to go 'ooh that car got smashed in a video game, better not buy it'.
The fact, wheel supported in 2002 open world video game astounded me
I think one of the developers said many of them had steering wheels, so for them the racing mission was easier.
@@artey6671 Yeah, that's a second reason why the racing mission is so hard for some people: They tested it with steering wheels, not keyboards
I think racing wheels and flying joysticks were more normalized back then, before Xbox 360 era, PC gamepads sucked and most old games had joystick options more geared to a flight stick than a gamepad. And since driving on keyboard is horrible (steering is by tapping arrows hopping to avoid oversteer, good luck with that on simulations), a lot of people actually got some sort of a wheel. Again, before PS2-Xbox style analog gamepads became normal, even console games were based around wheel peripheries, but on PC, gamepad situation was even worse so you basically expected games to work around it.
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.
Don't forget the atmosphere. Remember wandering around the deserted farm at night, looking for Sam and the crew?
Oh, and if I remember correctly, driving from Salieri's to meet Paulie at the warehouse is when you first unlock the Bolt V8.
I loved it too. It was one of the few games I beat multiple times just to experience the story again. How does the remake/remaster or whatever it is compare to the original PC version? Is it worth it?
@@Tellin08 If you are big fan of original Mafia game, definite edition is worth it IMO.
@@Tellin08 I would say that it is overall good, but there are some questionable changes that they made. They did make the game a bit too action-focused in some aspects, I guess for modern audiences. The farm mission I mentioned is one of the most egregious in that regard. It is one thing that the director of the original game - Daniel Vavra - criticised. Apparently one of the things they strived for with the original was to keep the body count in each mission at least somewhat realistic. The remake certainly does not do that.
Soo, about that 1 hour extension... i need it
I SECOND THIS
I THIRD THIS
I FOURTH THIS
I FIFTH THIS because my attention span is good
a complete technical and developmental breakdown of mafia 1
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
*Adjusts glasses because Underground was mentioned*
AcTUallY... Skyline is mediocre in Underground 1. RX7 and Miata though, they take corners like flies on cocaine.
@@GeneralProfessor uhm achkually I meant the skyline in both undergrounds since it is the fastest conventional all around sports car underground 2 and one of the better cars in underground 1
@@sturm8115 My memory of UG 2 is a bit hazy but I do remember that the best car in that game is the Corolla because it has OP handling.
In UG 1 though, despite Skyling being an end-game unlock and being given to the final boss, it's mediocre like I said. Maybe even bellow average simply because it has poor handling and can easily lose grip. Depending on the racing mode these are some of the best choices:
Drag: S2000 and Supra
Drift: Impreza and RX7
General racing: RX7 and Miata
Overall RX7 is easily the best. But when compared to the Skyline I'd even sooner pick Ford Focus or 206 over it.
For what it's worth, I'm saying all this as a nerd who has beaten the game countless times and has done it with almost all cars that are in the game.
Pro tip: Don't try to beat the game with Dodge Neon unless you're into the Dark Souls type of gaming experience.
Also they weighed around 3-6 tons
@@GeneralProfessor lmao as a kid I tried to finish the game with the Neon not knowing any better and wondering why it felt so brutally hard at times.
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.
You lucky you have mother interested video game even the game is violent
Your mom is awesome.
@@ThangTN I was, I remember having a GameCube with Majora's mask on it and her and I getting so frustrated because we didn't know what to do! Haha she's amazing sadly she's not in so good health especially being hit by a car a few days ago but I take care of her, so hearing other people compliment her really makes me proud and happy. So thank you.
@@Pouk3D she really is, she's my best friend and my hero. She means the world to me, she was always there by my side no matter what. Thank you for the nice words it means a lot to me. I'll be sure to tell her :)
your mom is amazing
It was pretty funny watching Dan Vávra mention Fair Play in the stream where he reacts to Definitive Edition (it's on TH-cam 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.
yeah there is a clip of it with english subtitles
Oh yeah, he was like "So we tested it, had fun with it, and [name of co-founder] barged into the room and yelled at us like: "What have you done with it!? It's unplayable!!!" so we had to make it easier."
The difficulty was that everyone used a keyboard to drive. The extreme tendency of the car to spin at every turn, made it really hard. Even for experienced simracers.
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.
seems to work really well when driving slowly and admiring the environment. not so much for driving slightly faster or finding alternate routes (gps routes are often not the fastest)
It's probably one of the best remakes ever really, although the bar is not high tbh
one of the best remakes ever and it's still just solid (if not even mediocre), nothing more :D tells you a lot about the remakes
@@noticiasinmundicias dead space was insane, huh
@@eliasroflchopper3006 never played any of those tbh
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.
They are either dedicated to destroying cars (Wreckfest) or straight up making cars tougher than an iceberg (Gran Turismo, Forza, NFS, blah blah blah... but hey! Cops in NFS can actually destroy your car... through a HP bar.)
How is that terrifying? Just games are just focused on other aspects than some. Seriously if all games had the exact same damage properties and detail then a particular innovation would be stale and uninteresting
@@Maximus20778 Nope, my problem is mostly that we see less and less experimental code in AAA games that someone inside the studio has written as bigger studios now almost exclusivelly use one of the big engines like Unreal/Unity and therefore all these games "behave" really really the same way.
Innovation has moved now exclusivelly to small indie games that still are actually doing coding and experimenting with some cool features.
So we have lost something here in the last 15 years.
Say thanks to car licensing,where manufacturers will foam at the mouth if the digital version of their car gets a dent in it
They exchanged that with raytracing on the bodywork.
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.
just one of many examples
this game came out when i was 4, and one of my earliest gaming memories is my dad struggling with the race. just last week he played the remake and still struggled with driving the racecar so i did the mission for him. felt like an achievement for me.
When you are used to arcade games and look at Mafia, of course the racing game will be fucking insane difficult to finish. But then again, i get the grips against the game but i do get it's qualities
Oh the memories... :)
I was around 12 years old, and one day my friend from school asked me to come over, and check this game, because it was a so good game, but he couldn't just progress further. So I went over to his house, and there he explained to me, that there was a really hard racing mission, and since I played mostly car racing games, he wanted me to try it. But first, let's start a fresh, new game, so I get the feeling :D
Okay, he started the game, and slowly progressed towards the racing... I was amazed by this game btw, it was so beautiful at that time, and even though I didn't understand a single word, the story looked amazing too.
And then we finally reached the racing. I took the seat, tried it, and... I failed miserably. It was nothing like anything I played at that time, so naturally the controls were a complete mess to me, I oversteered, I understeered, I flipped the car, I crashed and damaged the car, etc. Next my friend tried, and he was the same. So we started to take turns, and it became kind of a competition on who finishes first. We stuck there for a couple of hours, we became better and better, and finally one of us (don't remember who) was at the first place in the last lap. We were so excited, hands shaking, heart rate in the skies, and the driver was instructed to slow down, do not take any risks, take the corners in the safest way... and then we did it. We were so happy :) we rested a bit, heart rate returned to normal, and a couple minutes later we started the next mission. We stole the Lassiter without a problem, and then went to the hotel. And that was the end of the day, because we stuck there again. I had no shooter experience, and my friend was also overwhelmed by the number of enemies on the roofs :D but it was a good day :)
I got a copy of the game years later, and somehow the racing didn't feel that hard then. I failed it first time, but quickly picked up the pace, and I was succesful on second or third try. Which is kind of surprising, because I still didn't play games, where cars handled like that... probably the time spent in cars on the earlier missions helped, also maybe some muscle memory from years ago. And then I replayed the game many times, and the racing part changed from nearly impossible to challenging to... a bit boring. If you full send, opponents just seem to be cruising around the track, and really you are the only danger to your own winning.
So, all in all, I see exactly why this mission is infamous to many, but also I see it as an easy leasure drive now. For a single playthrough it can be challenging, especially this close to the start of the game, where you still just getting familiar with the controls and car handling. And then when you played the game through two or three times with 100% free ride extreme, the racing just seems to be too easy.
1:19 lap time that's impressive
One of my friends told me his story, I don't know if it's true or not but one time there was a Russian Colonel who playing the game but couldn't get past the racing part, so he asked this men whoever can get past this part gets promoted and apparently this one private was able to finished the race on his first try and was promoted to a Sergeant.
that explains why the russian army is so effective today
@@guguigugu Is it though? But really, is this the best place to talk about politics and the effectiveness of the Russian army under such video? What the...
@@Mandarin9900 I'm quite certain that was a sarcastic remark, my friend.
@@guguigugu 🤡🤡🤡
@@guguigugu like the destruction of NATO techniques? Yes, they are extremely effective
it’s like those gta missions, the once with “all you had to do was follow the damn train” and the helicopter mission in VC
they’re also easy asf and i do not understand why so many people cry about how hard they are
Because people are braindead and they glue to the train instead taking distance so big smoke could make a good shot
1.About helicopter mission, it wasnt easy consider the fact that many gta players play on pc without game controller.Because of this, control keys to fly on rc helicopter was placed on NUMPAD which is uncomfortable as hell.
2.Train mission.
And no sometimes follow train dont work.There is many ways how to complete this mission, but its not rockstar way how they think you should complete.You somehow need to find a sweet spot where Big smoke can shoot normaly, and by saying somehow i mean it.Game dont show if you are on right spot or not.Only at end.Also there was a research conducted about how precise Big Smoke shoot on this mission, answer is Big smoke shoot very poorly.
This missions maybe easy but only for those who have a equipment to play easy (Helicopter)
Or trough countless tries find a easy method(Train)
@@ПетрШаповалов-г2п
1. i completed helicopter both on pc and on mobile without any controllers or shit like that, and it was still easy asf
2. train was also easy, you just drive beside the train and slightly adjust your position so that smoke has a nice angle, even as a little kid i could complete the mission without much trouble
It's easy for me ≠ easy for everyone else. And yes, those missions were also easy for me but I would never say "I don't understand why it's hard for everyone else" lmao.
@@Terrtail lmao, the fact that i don’t understand why these missions are hard for other people IS the reason to write these types of comments, so i can finally understand why the missions i completed with ease as a kid have such a bad rep
Ah Mafia one, man I had so much fun when I modded in a Nissan Skyline R34 and made the cops chase me.
That really was gone in 30 seconds, have to applaud the cop Ai for staying spawned and attempting to chase you even when they are 20 seconds behind you.
(Dipped off the road and hid the R34 and could hear the cop car come down the road I had been on, 20 seconds later.)
What people thought Mafia is: A game about gang war.
What Mafia truly is: *_THE REAL DRIVING SIMULATOR_*
I played mafia definitive edition and and I was so surprised by the driving physics. Felt like I was playing a racing sim
I always loved the attention to detail in Mafia. Not just the driving, but everything else as well. The fact that there were real traffic laws, with realistic police response. The guns and that you threw away an entire magazine when you reloaded. Mafia was a serious game, with a serious story, and the serious gameplay to back it up. Freeride Extreme was also a lot of fun, and those driving-centric missions with deep driving mechanics is pretty much exactly what you wanted from those first large scale open world city shenanigans games. The only problem was the save system, because you could do a whole mission, mess up, and gone is your progress. I remember doing the bank job, getting away in a speedy convertible, and flipping the thing killing my character and the NPC instantly.
I have a friend who likes to stream single player games, and in the Definitive Edition re-release of the game he was stuck on the race for over an hour. I asked him if I could take a stab at it, to which he agreed, so we both fired up Parsec, he left to go make food, and I won the race on my second attempt (never played Mafia before, so attempt 1 was just learning the handling model). The biggest problem people have is they don't realize you have to brake early for curves and not while you're already in the curve, which should be a driver's ed thing.
Nah bro i was drifting like a god in the original pc version, as a kid i struggled with that race but as an adult who knows some racing basics the race is kinda easy as long as the car slip or flip after the chicane. And i never had the issues that you had. Mafia is one of my favourite games ever, and yes im Czech of course im gonna defend it. Also fun fact the main theme is composed by the Prague orchestra and the lead developer Daniel Vávra made other games like Kingdom come deliverance.
That racing mission was tough. My friend's dad actually came over to help me beat it. One tiny mistake, and I'd be down a wheel, making high speed racing feel like trying to drive on jelly
Finally someone does a video on possibly the most unique aspects of the game, great job and a fun one to watch, subbed!
I was always confused by the reputation of this mission. I beat that race on my 2nd or 3rd attempt with a keyboard on the unpatched version. And the only reason I didn´t do it on my 1st attempt was because I flipped the car in that one chicane while trying to find a fast, safe line through it.
half of the famous issues in alot of games confused me greatly because i either dont run into them or they just dont exist
Babe new sp4 vid came out
Mafia is goated, especially the 2nd game. Old-timey GTA
It wasn't only problems with controls. On slower machines, game run on low fps ratę, but the clock was still measuring time in seconds. After a huge struggle at home with this, I finally beat it and then I saw how easy it was on better specs at my friends house
The racing mission was broken until they patched it. Unfortunately I had purchased the original, pre-patch version. After I could finally download and install the patch - no problem.
He played the unpatched, release version.
The definitive edition race must be harder. I played on hard and if you're not racing 100% perfectly while also using the ram button to turn corners, you won't win. It took me maybe 25 tries.
7:15 Well yeah, I'm Czech and at that time when the game came out everyone thought that consoles are mostly for casuals who can't be bothered to learn anything. Consoles were never popular here. And it's still true to this day, considering how physics in games like GTA V got butchered to make casuals happy, which is a sad trend that continues to this day.
A whole country of elitist PC peasants lol
@@zenksren8206 These "peasants" made the best mafia-themed game in the world AND an extremely successful medieval RPG that managed to sell 6 million copies and is still played by cca 5 to 6 thousand people on Steam alone (right now, it's 4983 people). All without the might and backing of a massive corporation like Ubisoft or EA.
@@zenksren8206 tbh the elitism is justified here - the fact that games are toned down to be super easy makes any game boring already
@@zenksren8206 You have to remember that that's just generally Europe - PC gaming has always been way more of a thing over there.
@@zenksren8206 Besides anti-competitive practices (exclusives) What can a console even do that a PC cannot do better?
PC has a significantly higher up front cost, but MS/Sony don't steal your money every month to provide a service that doesn't exist, and with Steam there are constant large sales, so you effectively only pay full price for new releases of AAA slop. (anybody here remember when Xbox originally started charging to graciously allow the console to access the internet? They stated it was for "game server costs" and yet the developers have to pay for their own servers, so that was a lie.)
Historically, console has often dragged down games' potential for features/graphics with their inferior hardware. This is mostly resolved now, but PC still has vastly better performance if you know what you're doing.
PC games realistically only become unplayable if the always-online servers shut down, and even then quite a few games get community patches that restore most functionality. Almost any PC can play almost any game released over 20 years ago. You also only pay once, rather than every console generation if it even gets a rerelease. While on console it is rare to be able to play a game from more than 1 console generation ago.
PC has modding for almost anything you could want.
Adblockers. Multi-monitors. A million things to do unrelated to gaming.
The only valid argument I can even imagine is cheaters. But be honest. Is it worth heavy restrictions on what you can do with your console, a decent sum of money monthly, and a worse experience for every genre of game that is _not_ primarily PvP?
I feel like the difficulty of that race missions stems from the fact that you can pretty easily flip the vehicle upside down and kill the driver which restarts the whole race
0:52 THIS is when I fell in love with this game. It's so charmingly slow, I love old & bad cars
be quiet
Same
Man, if only I could watch a 1 hour extention of this video...
I had some fun moments from this race sequence when the remake came out a few years ago. I played the game right as it came out and was one of the first people to get the achievement for completing the race. I almost beat the race first try (got messed up by one of the scripted crashes) and had no problem with it.
Afterwards I'd get messages from some people asking how I was able to win the race since it was too hard. One thing that was making it hard for most was one achievement was for getting the game on Classic difficulty which had different driving physiques. Seems most other people just couldn't cut it with the driving so this race caused them a lot of trouble.
It reminds me of GTAIV a bit when people complain about the driving being difficult in that game. I can drive well in the game and find it pretty fun. I've noticed that most of the people who complain about it just can't drive well in general.
"80% would have run out of attention span"
so true. Seen this drama with games like Genshin Impact and I was so annoyed that people have lost themselves to goldfish minds.
huh?
@@erickschusterdeoliveira2662it’s okay Erick, sometimes it’s hard to enunciate and understand text when it’s not made from You, what bro said today is full of people that have attention spans so low they have ADHD like brains, so bad to the point where they can’t focus on 1 thing at a time, hence why he mentioned gaming.
Did ya dun seen't'd it?
Wow YT or the uploader is removing my comments, did I hit a nerve or something? All I said it’s correlated to social media over usage which people seriously need to cut/tone down A LOT
It’s not a joke, attention spans are shit.
@@VelociJX seems that YT has been deleting comments at random. Had that issue before
The reason ehy people thought it was hard is because the physics are unpredictable. One minute you have grip, the next time you dont have grip and you spin
I actually liked the Definitive Edition enough to make it my first platinum, because it's a lot more natural and realistic than any remotely recent game of its type. Played it 4 times in a row, all with the most realistic driving settings and loved the experience...when traffic didn't just take a picnic in the middle of the road.
I've only played the original once as a child and that was the PS2 port, I rented it and only drove in free roam, thinking about the original these days, what concerns me would be the shooting (seems like everything according to playthroughs I've watched is a shootout, literally everything)
So we all gonna ignore that he pulled the trigger at 4:51?
You forgot something in the difficulty account: The age and culture of the time. We were all younger, and had less experience with the physics of racing games, we were used to need for speed hot pursuit 3 and midtown madness when this game was released, and we didn't have 20 years of experience with realistic simulations like today.
Many games that I found difficult at the time seem easy, especially FPS games with WASD controls. At that time I played GTA 3 and Mafia with the arrow keys. Today, an 8-year-old child has exactly the same skill as a 25-year-old player from 2001.
uh
There is other reason why the racing mission was so hard - it wasn't because players were lame, or the inputs were smoothed and unresponsive.... there is one signle thing that made this mission hard as hell and it was automatic transmission - AT shifted always too early, so you didn't get most of the power in the upper band of rev range and when upshifting the RPMs dropped too low and it took forewer to pick up.... I remember it quite well - I was kid with some experience with racing games back then (anything from old NFS to hardcore simulations), playing on the keyboard and having bad times for hours in this mission and then I tried the MT and it went as smooth as in your video - third try and mission was passed....
It's worth noting the remake is actually still pretty good though. Different, absolutely, but still pretty good.
Still doesn't distract from the fact that Mafia 2 doesn't have clutch or wheel support either.
Same reason people hate the Batmobile in Arkham knight. The game forced people who bought the game expecting something else, who wouldn’t usually have anything to do with a partially arcade but difficult to drive Car to actually be competent behind the wheel.
The batmobile handling wasn't really refined, though. I agree that batmobile hate is kinda overblown but to drive that optimally you need to get good at using the handbrake to take corners (aka drifting) instead of braking normally.
It's like the Driver first mission in the garage, everybody keep saying it's so difficult, in reality with a COUPLE of tries you pass it and have perfect knowledge of the car physics. It's a strange choice for a first mission that should serve as tutorial and today no developer would do that, but it's really NOT THAT HARD as anyone is saying today
"They tried to replicate that car's performance, but no game has ever fully achieved that"
Our studio is making a pre-war racing game called Royal Montgomery Raceways, and we're trying to do just that! Mafia's race mission has been a huge inspiration. Would love to share it with you and get your feedback!
a successor to the spirit of speed? gonna keep an eye on it
Mafia 1 , the best game of it's kind. It really sucks they removed the " shoot while you are driving feature " , "can have 4 people in the car" , "park a car somewhere go at the opposite side on the city then come back and the car is still where you left it" . I guess it wasn't that difficult to add this in the next games and changes a lot .
The car physics is really good, and car subsystems modelisation too as you said. And the realtime deformations.
Nice to see someone appreciating the classics. Remake may look better on the surface, but the original is better in almost every way.
I played this back in the day and from what I remember, the keyboard mapping was a large part of what made the racing so challenging for many, including me. You play the majority of the game with the common FPS WASD movement controls. But steering with A and D had smoothing disabled while using the arrow keys would smooth the steering, making it much easier to not oversteer. I don't think this was advertised anywhere in the game and many people did not notice that smooth steering was even an option.
I disagree with the notion that Remake is dumbed down or worse. Clearly, they still cared a lot because remake has a lot going for it, and actor performance especially is amazing. Giving options to set is not dumbing down something, its making it accessible.
"it's not dumbing down it's making it accessible"
The newspeak is strong with this one
@@root. Its exactly like he said in the video. Its for if you are a casual player who essentailly wants to watch and interactive mafia movie. The rest of us can still play with the non dumbed down version, which is why it is "accessible" not dumbing down. By and large they made a good remake. Better than the Mafia 2 remake by far.
@@root.
@@root. speak it louder because this is so true
@@root. Making everything remappable is dumbing down
The transparent map vs minimap point is not fair since mafia remake actually shows you virtual traffic signs to help you navigate without the minimap
I never Knew Mafia was this Car Obsessed
Great presentation
Good Vibe
Amazing how much detail This game managed
The concept of "clean driving" isn't exactly popular amongs non-racing gamer back in the day, expecting 7 minutes of clean driving with no crash is pure madness. Even the missions that involve the race car are also really annoying because unlike the crap car, they expect you to drive moderately fast and avoiding crash, and a high speed crash deal a lot of damage to the car.
Luckily in the unpatched version there're an exploit that can warp you to the finish line, say no to clean driving. You don't even need to do free ride extreme, there're a phone booth you can activate to unlock everything.
I need the 1 hour extension of this video RIGHT NOW
I never considered this mission as hard, nor the "follow the train CJ". I only learned from the internet that they were tough.
I would be happy if the Subtitles were Optional, we understand you very well!
Other than that great Video!
I think it's great because every word is written down, making sure details (like the part correcting the misinformation) is guaranteed to be valid.
As a kid back then, finding this mission somewhat hard, I know why I personally found it difficult: I was used to always go full throttle in racing games - hitting walls, drifting, hitting opponents etc. Driving safely and carefully wasn't in my vocabulary
Also, Mafia had persistent cars, so you could leave a car, go a few meters away, and when you came back, the car would still be there. In GTA, instead, just looking in the opposite direction for a few seconds was enough to make the car disappear.
People who never played a game like Gran Turismo won't get it off the bat, but the first time i played Mafia i knew the game driving physics is an intricate one. I was impressed ngl
Loved the driving and just bouncing cars off of corners.
Also the biggest casual filter with the driving dang.
You speak from my heart regarding the remake. One of the worst changes for me is that they removed the nice car stealing missions:( they don’t even give you a real option to experience the old feeling again.
Regarding the countryside: I absolutely love the mission where you drive there with some liquor truck in the middle of the night. They should have included more like this 🥰
Thanks for this awesome video!
tell me you havent played the remaster without telling me you havent played the remaster
Gotta love it when most of the complaints about the remake are asinine minor details that most people overlooked anyways back then and other petty things. Only complaints that I've seen about it that are actually valid came from the original writer of the first game about the plot's execution.
He clearly played the first game,and it was clearly a downgrade,because do notice things,not everyone is a dumb arse who don't know how to slow down before taking a turn.
@@scr8846 Not only the plot execution. When he witnessed the final credits, specifically the song that plays when you finish the game on Classic difficulty, he asked if he can still get a refund for his copy of the remake. Sadly, he couldn't.
@@quantumvideoscz2052 poor guy
The way i describe Mafia to my friends who haven't played it is "it's a driving game where you occasionally have to shoot people"
Loved the transparent map, shame it's almost never used in other games.
Mostly just MMOs nowadays.
In the 3D Era GTA games, according to the handling lines, the cars actually do use gears (5 max) and changing them does affect how the car performs.
Simply the best and the most accurate TH-cam documentary about the Mafia game 👍👍👍
The damage model is STILL impressive with how many games with licensed cars just don't have it or minimalize. As someone who grew up with Gran Turismo, having ANY damage visible is always a bonus. I have Mafia on Steam, need to actually play it properly.
the details in this game are impressive even just watching the video
Mafia 2 on simulation mode still has one of my favourite driving models/physics to this day
Look, we all were like 12-15 when we played that mission, most of us played it on a unpatched version with shitty keyboards, no knowledge of some button settings tricks and no prior experience in racing sims. Obviously the mission would be hard in these conditions. It was hard to handle the care back then because of the physics they implemented into a game. You claiming that mission is super easy is like opening og Mario game in 2024 after watching the speed runs and wonder "damn, why is this game so easy".
I was actually surprised to find out my friends had trouble with the racing, but i play racing games 😂
Most of those "Hard" missions in Mafia and GTA are actually because people back then didn't really bother to learn the pattern of the missions or be patient.
Just like the RC helicopter mission in GTA VC, all you have to do is just pressing WASD and numpad arrow keys and drop the bomb where you need to.
Now there's also some BS like the train mission in GTA SA because the bot's aiming is a bit off. But once you know where to stay on that track, it's just a little bike ride.
Personally i never (NEVER) had any problems with this train mission. Was surprised to know it has same "hard/unfair/meme" reputation. I guess every generation of players has its own myths.
Also, you're wrong. Those generation of players grew up on 16-bit Battletoads-type arcades. We had a lot of patience.
As far as I remember, this particular race was difficult because the only accident sent you flying, knocking you out from the rest of your rivals without being able to catch up. But if you managed to break away from them at the very beginning, it became much easier.
Also, many players of that time grew up on Need for Speed series, and ramming the enemy was a working tactic that turned out to be harmful to yourself here. Perhaps for this too.
Played through Mafia II again for the first time since it came out
I can't believe how great the driving physics are, especially for when it first came out
I didn't expect Rigs of Rods to appear in this video, like ngl, that game is my favorite.
The original Mafia is fantastic example of game makers actually loving the game they are developing and trying to implement cool features into it.
the last part just sounds like a old man yelling about how "back in my day it was better"
Enshittification is a proven thing though. Turns out old coots were right at least about that one specific thing.
@@noticiasinmundicias what is "enshittifcation"
@@Grayson-tk5hn Look it up.
@@noticiasinmundicias I thought enshittification had to do with platforms that are initially free and then add more ads and paywalls as the audience grows? What does it have to do with this game?
@@Handhandme Enshittifcation applies to everything, even food.
Be ready for bunch of comments from my fellow czechs, this game is our national treasure !
I agree with minimaps being a flawed evolution of the way we navigate our surroundings
We should bring back and normalize transparent overlays
0:24 it was patched to make it way easier, release version race was infamous.
welp 2:57
@@seP4 Well, i never played 1.0 but i remember gaming magazines complaining about this mission.
@@szymon2577 I remember a dude brought his PC to us, so that the acquitances son(me), could do it for him.
@@szymon2577 Please take the proven fact in this video seriously, instead of relying on misinformation and age-old gaming magazine fluff.
Mafia, the original one, is far away one of the peaks on mob games, the mix with racing features, character's interaction, environment, is a delight.
You also forgot the truck chase and the plane mission as hard lol.
The racing mission was patched! That's why it's significantly easier than when you bought it on DVD two decades ago
Did you watch the video?
Fun fact: GTA has tried multiple times to add more realistic handling and drivetrains but every time they have, fans complained that the cars became too hard to drive. So much to the point where nearly every post launch car released all have 4wd
This simply isn't true, the vast majority of cars in GTA (online you mean presumably?) are RWD. People play GTA to have fun, not to experience realistic driving. If you want to do that, you have plenty of racing sims that offer exactly that, don't ask for that to be introduced to more mainstream titles for everyone to enjoy.
Do people really believe that everyone has the same ammount of skill? That "this is easy why does everyone think this is hard?" mentality has to disappear, it just sounds pretentious. I wouldn't talk down on other people for struggling with something
get good :D
@@AshKiz that comment didnt even imply they were struggling with anything you just responded with get good so you can be a manchild anytime your presented with a valid argument so if you respond to this with any version of gt good i win by default
"that mission" reminds me of "the helicopter mission" in vice city, so many people say it's too hard, in reality it has always been very easy
and don't forget "Wrong side of the tracks" as well
@@agrippa2012 all you had to do...
@@babab_m ...was to give big smoke a better angle to shoot from :p
3:51 Something that *Forza Horizon 3* (and other "modern driving games") won't do! 😑
I think the biggest issue was the fact that you had to do 5 laps. The track was pretty long in itself, so if you failed the mission, you had to do it all over again. Combined with the issues mentioned at 6:00, the racing mission was just straight up aggravating.
5:12 the baguette bits keep cracking me up
I completed the Definitive Edition this past week. I beat the race on the first try. I thought it was fine, a nice change of scenery, and never really thought of it again. My friends, they're STILL crying about this race mission over on Reddit. It's absurd. I mean, c'mon. It's really, really not THAT hard, LOL.
I played this mission once when I was like 9 or 10, can't even remember if I passed it or not. But I sure can remember my cousin taking an entire evening to pass it. He also took the next entire evening to pass the ambush mission later on the game.
Seems most of your complaints about the Mafia remake are about stuff that either can be turned off or that you were going to complain about anyway because it’s a remake
i played mafia as a little kid, here in czech republic the game is quite well known even today, well not with zoomers but with people nearing their 20´s that grew up on the thing as did i. the race mission was incomprehensibly difficult for me the first time but when i played the game again, when i wasn´t seven years old anymore i found it quite easy. well i am off to grab an illegal copy and play it again, i haven ´t seen the actual physical copy of the game in EONS.
I was so comfused when I discovered on TH-cam that racing part was hard, I did it on the first try. Shooting missions made me rage way more, that part is BRUTAL!