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have seen most of the screenshots of this game and remember
being very impressed by what I saw, but when the game loaded
and we were looking down a bustling high street I was totally
speechless. It was incredible, the screenshots do this game
little justice, it has to be seen to be believed. |
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scale and complexity of Mafia is also incredible,
it really feels like a bustling city full of traffic
and people in a superbly detailed environment. The
vehicles look very detailed and have realistic physics,
you can see the cars roll as they turn sharply and
brake. We were shown various parts of the city, and
everyone of them looked spectacular. Racing games
will be a fairly big part of Mafia's storyline, one
level we were shown involved jumping into a 1930's
sports car and driving round a track. |
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very different games Mafia and H&D2 do share some
similarities, many of the basic character animations
and vehicle physics will be ported straight into H&D2
from Mafia. Both games use the LS3D engine developed
in house by Illusion Softworks by a dedicated team
of four programmers (the original Insanity engine
was created by one man), work on the engine is now
completed and all we can say is stunning! they really
have created something special with LS3D. |
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Both
games use the same technology to create the characters
animations, all done in Illusions own motion capture
studio, the scene on the river boat showed how good
this is with people going about their business,
some were sight seeing, others having a party on
the top deck, some sun bathing, one man could even
be seen being sick over the side. (Wonder who volunteered
for that one). Its this attention to detail that
gives Mafia and Hidden and Dangerous that unique
atmosphere that other games just dont seem to be
able to recreate.
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The
vehicles play a big part in the game, we watched
as AM drove around many of the streets, all of
them looking different, it was just like a real
city, everyone that you saw seemed to be alive,
truly remarkable. The sounds we heard were identical
to those in H&D, but this is only a place holder
until the final mafia sounds are ready, and both
use the same controls to steer and control your
speed. The whole city can be explored with complete
freedom of movement so you can take short cuts
across pavements, which AM seemed to enjoy doing
in his car :)
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It's
the sheer scale of the game that impresses so
much, it runs incredibly smoothly considering
how much is going on around you and will not require
a super computer to run it. (a PIII, Geforce2
and 128mb RAM will give good results).
We
were both very impressed with what we saw of Mafia,
the vast scale and trademark Illusion Softworks
attention to detail will certainly appeal to H&D
fans. The game is set to have many multiplayer
modes including a racing game where you can shoot
at opponents cars with Tommy guns, who wouldn't
look forward to that! We hope to bring you more
on Mafia after E3 in May.
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