I I'm at a stage in my life where my options are limited when it comes to the job I dreamed of as a child. I'm too old to play football for Scotland, and I have no intention of owning a brewery or becoming an astronaut. (In hindsight, it was a bit ambitious to aspire to a job that combined all three.) Also, in this economy, many people are willing to take a job without knowing if the new job will work out. It is dangerous to abandon it. Luckily, video games allow you to try it out before you take the plunge. Besides, you're never too old to be a gangster, right? That's why I started playing Mafia: Definitive Edition.

I played a little bit of the original version from 70 billion years ago. But it didn't last long. Because there were driving sections that were as unintuitive and poorly controlled as the buggy on Mars.

For me, the dream of becoming a gangster was less about murder and extortion, and more about the social aspect of just hanging out with guys and yelling abuse. This is more than fully expressed in this game. Guys tell me “always soft when it comes to broads” as soon as I start taking an interest in the bar owner's daughter. Hey, does that Jabroni really have my number!

The story of the main character Tommy is how I imagine his path into the mafia. I was born on the east coast of Scotland of Polish descent, so I couldn't trace my family back to Sicily and had no blood ties to any of my five families. Like Tommy, I started out as a taxi driver, and one night I picked up some injured people from a rival gang and did a job of such high quality that I was invited to do more work for them. I imagined it would be. This is the mob equivalent of a 5-star review on Uber.

With the updated version, you don't actually have to do much driving. You can skip between destinations with the press of a button, but this means you'll miss out on the chat throughout the journey that helps explain the story in more detail. And that's a good story. It's not Goodfellas or The Godfather, but I thought it was solid and the voice actors did a pretty good job.

The script is full of clichés, but they remind me of the mafia movies I grew up loving, so they put me at ease. Politicians are always “taking action.” Gangs always want to “legalize” eventually. It's not about saving lives, it's about saving “donkeys.” you don&#39t thing“Do what needs to be done.'' You are not brave, you have a “real set of balls”. That's not all Any It's a set of balls, but it's a set that frequently requires commentary and praise. My boss, Don Salieri, kept saying to his co-workers, “Look at this kid's set of balls.” Isn't it strange that the mafia doesn't have a human resources department? After one meeting, everyone leaves the room, leaving not one but two cigars burning in the ashtray. Therefore, I don&#39t think much about safety and health in this workplace either.

Some things are a little silly. My character is still called “The Kid” even though he's 30 years old. Maybe they're bootlegging an elixir of life with bourbon. To get the weapon, you have to go see a man named Vincenzo. I am often told that he has just what I need. Most often it will be a baseball bat. I could have bought it at Toys R Us.

However, I find this game very comfortable to play in a predictable and undemanding way. Most of the time it's like settling down with a cozy crime thriller or potato-based soup, but there are some very difficult levels. Completely unforgiving races, bike chases with no room for error, and a level where you have to shoot down a plane, not only did you have to dial down the difficulty to make it easier, but you turned down the controller sensitivity so much that the sights It moved like an ocean tanker. (Thanks to Reddit for the last tip. Also, thanks for the comments from other people who suffered at that level. It was like a video game PTSD group.)

But as I feel comfortable in this nice mafia job with prohibitions and big money, one character gets bored and tired of this life. “I get rusty because we sit there and crush balls for six months. Then I&#39m fighting to stay awake while Don tells me stories.” he says.

I think mafia, like any other job, gets boring after a while.