Mafia finds Lost Heaven

After what seems like an eternity of waiting, gamers should finally be able to get their hands on the hotly tipped Mafia at the end of this month. In true epic gangster movie style, the game tracks several years in the life of a young taxi driver who gets involved in the mob and soon finds himself rising through their ranks in a fictional 1930's American town. Along the way you get to carry out hits, drive getaway cars and take part in a brutal baseball bat fight, with a mixture of on-foot and in-vehicle missions. A kind of Grand Theft Auto 3 for wiseguys, if you like, but with a more structured single player campaign and storyline. When we saw the game in action last November it was already looking very promising, and since then things seem to have only got better. The latest batch of screenshots taken from the game are absolutely gorgeous, showing both vast sprawling outdoors scenes and detailed interiors, while a brief half minute TV advert has also been released to give you a sense of what the game will look like in motion. Included are a number of short clips from cutscenes (most of them in-game by the looks of things) as well as some actual gameplay, with the player going wheel to wheel with rival gangsters on the streets and driving an old fashioned car around a race track. The ad can currently be download in MPEG format from Take 2 Germany. Related Feature - Mafia screenshots