After eight long years of waiting, the sequel to Illusions Software’s (now 2k Czech) “Mafia” has finally been released. But does “Mafia 2” stand up to the critical acclaim of its predecessor and its $60 price tag?

“Mafia 2” places you in the shoes of Vito Scaletta, a young Italian immigrant trying to survive his life of crime in the late 40’s and early 50’s. The story in “Mafia 2” is excellent. Now is your chance to play a game like a mobster movie. This story includes more than its fair share of emotional ups and downs and every time players start to feel just a little bit complacent about Vito’s life, something comes along and drastically changes it.

The story missions are also just as good as the narrative. By the time players have finished the game, they will have been in several bare knuckle brawls, all-out gang warfare and even a few espionage missions.

Unfortunately, that is about all “Mafia 2” offers. Playing though the story will take about 10-14 hours. For an “open world” game, there is surprisingly little to do outside the main story.

The world is beautiful and incredibly detailed, but there just isn’t much to do in it. There are several shops in the game, but they are often just the same store repeated over and over. Every clothing shop carries the same clothes in different colors, and there is only one unique gun shop; all the others have the exact same weapons. Most stores are always run by the exact same person, so I hope players like buying suits from a middle-aged blond woman.

The disappointing thing is that it looks like there should be much more to the city. People are window shopping on almost every street in the game, but players can never enter these shops or interact with the pool tables in every bar. This aspect really kills much of the game’s “re-playability.” There is a chapter load option so players can always go back and play favorite missions either to find missed collectibles or just for fun.

There is a large variety of guns, and they all respond exactly how you would expect. Recoil is always manageable, and none of the guns feel too weak or too strong. Vito also has regenerating health, which is good because more than a few shots from any gun in the game is enough to put him down. A great thing about the regenerating health mechanic is that it doesn’t refill to 100 percent. If players get very injured, only 50 percent of their heath will come back. This keeps the game challenging because getting injured badly once can greatly decrease survivability. The cover mechanic is also very solid. I never once found myself taking cover on objects that couldn’t protect me or on the wrong side of the cover. However, while in cover the AI can blind-fire, but Vito can’t. This can sometimes lead to problems with large groups of enemies having an advantage over Vito, especially since all AI have infinite ammo, even in very powerful weapons or with throwables such as Molotovs and grenades.

Over all, this game was a success. If you’re the kind of gamer that only likes to play though a game once, rent it because it won’t take you more than 14 hours to complete. But if players are more interested in replaying games or are huge fans of mobster movies and games, “Mafia 2” should definitely be added to the collection.