sive car damage will also play a factor in technical design, as well as visual. It’s said to be more prettier and detailed than Burnout Paradise. Hopefully we won’t have the original games innovative but often annoying flaw of having the player instantly die when they flipped a car on its head. Cars back in the day weren’t built like they are today, and apparently the developers nailed it with authentic accuracy as the hood of a car wouldn’t support the weight, but come on boys…It easily became underplayed.

The fictional Empire City is said to mostly mimic a 1940’s San Fransisco. Twice the size of the original games city of Lost Haven, the space will measure around 10 square KM. As mentioned earlier the title isn’t a direct sequel to the first game, and you’ll take on the role of Mafioso Vito Scaletta who has just returned after World War II service. Vito is shaping up to be a visually believable aplyer that has it going. Son of a Sicilian immigrant, Vito was born into the bondage of poverty on the mean streets of Empire City, and trying to avoid the common flaw of men with fathers that don't mean anything to them, Vito is trying to avoid being a "nobody" like his father. He's determined. Seeing the mafia for what it is, he's determined that it will be the ways out of poverty and make him and those around him made men who have all they ever desired. So far we're immpressed that such an interesting character is taking the lead of the game as the main character. 

The other characters are equally interesting too. And rasised in similar cirumstances as Vito's, Joe Barbaro is a small-time hoodlum who befriended Vito when the two of the m were little children, and while Vito was off fighting nazi's in the war, Joe was back home in Empire City commiting petty crimes and passing the time being anything but the teachers pet. You can imagine what Vito saw in him, when wanting to avoid his father, and having just returned from killing dozens upon dozens of men, that Joe was his ticket to the crime underworld.

Throughout the game, Vito and Joe will be partners in crime, and their friendship is one of the most important elements of the game's story. Given the dramatic close of the original story, we've got our hopes up and fingers crossed this game has a similarily epic ending. We're also hoping that this sequel, once finished, will continue to allow players to use the city once the games story is over. Remaining open and free to explore and adventure through, once you complete the main missions in the story mode, would give the game all that more substance and value. Making it a worthy buy rather than a decent rental.ade.

The city is turning out to be detailed in both aesthetic design as well as technical. It will have high class restaurants, dirty run down slums, parking lots, houses with double garages, highways, skyscrapers, and plenty of alleys and back roads. We’re hoping it features a lush forest section akin to the original Mafia, adding only more depth to the accessibility of the city. On a personal level, the back roads of the original game was one of my favorite elements of the game. It was easy to get lost, that’s how long the roads where.

The original had only a few flaws, one of them being that police would stop you for speeding tickets if you didn’t put on the speed limited, your car would kill you if it flipped onto its roof, and the speed of cars was limiting to the atmosphere as well as the mood. The sheer detail though, that is said to be in the actual city itself though this time through, is phenomenal. You can turn the radio on and listen to tacks in your car, walk down to the street corner and find a paper boy so you can browse the daily happenings in the newspaper. The city itself may even grow and change with maturity, as it is said to take place over an approximate ten year span from the 1940’s – 1950’s.

Little else is known at the moment. We’re almost sure it has the capability of capping off GTA IV as the king of the crowd of gangster crime games. That’s a huge accomplishment to call out, but seriously, look at how the original title quickly became one of the best games ever made - not just in the world of crime sandbox games, but fundamentally any game out there. Look at the 6 years this title has been refined in development, it's a no brainer this game will become king and succeed. It has the same development minds behind the title, the same potential, and it’s already looking as equally promising as the first, and given the potential to top even that by a longshot. Two sides of the coin however, means that it does have the potential to completely bomb as well. GTA IV has set an amazing height, and the only way to break the Rockstar games benchmark, it to either create an MMO about crime in cities. Or allow MAFIA II to become what it has the potential to become. With a city in size of 12 square KM, pristine top of the line aesthetic visual design and an engine that rivals the Crysis games, it seems Illusion Software has somehow became a just developer, and the six years that fans have been dreaming, is soon to come true. 2K Games announced that the tittle will be ready for a 2009 release. And after the quick Christmas showcase sneak peek  trailer that showcased at the Spiike VGA Video Game Awards last year, is living proof that the tittle was thankfully not cancelled, and is indeed alive and pumping. 

Nothing about an online element has yet to be mentioned. But the potential is there. GTA IV almost nailed it on the head, but there's still allot that can be done. The developers spoke highly of the mod community and how it is still alive and kicking. While crime cities are games that offer immense freedom, there never really has been an MMO type game that is all about jumping old ladies, or emptying the clips of your buddies tommy gun. Online elements have though appeared in such games, being a little part innovative and a little bit greatness. Rockstar got it right with GTA IV. Let us hope that if we are to all meet online with top hats, tommy guns, and olds mobiles, that it isn't because of a gimmicky online mode that the developers thought they needed to present. Fans will love the game to death as long as it has a little more freedom of driving around the city and interacting with people on the sidewalks, eating at restaurants, reading newspapers, changing the dial on the radio as you enter new underground parking lots, and all the other goodness this game is meant to show off. 

Just as MAFIA I pre