One of the first “GTA type” games I played was the PS2 game based off The Godfather. It was my gateway into classic gangster media. I got into the Mafia series with Mafia 3, but I never had a huge urge to go back to the original because it seemed like an old game that probably hasn’t aged well. Luckily, Hangar 13 rebuilt the original from the ground up.
The first & best thing that grabbed me about this game is the setting. The game takes place in a Chicago stand-in during the 1930s. The city was lovingly created with accuracy in mind. The buildings, billboards, clothing, & cars set you in that time period. All of the gangsters look classy in their suits and I loved driving all the vintage cars. When I could I played the game with the HUD turned off. That kept me from looking at the mini map and let me take in all the atmosphere. The game handles navigation by having road signs that tell you when to turn. I kinda want more games to imitate that. It’s much better than a hovering arrow or holographic line on the road. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of interior spaces to explore. While you go into a bank, airport, and other places during missions, they are locked durin the free roam. While Mafia 3 did a good job recreating 60s New Orleans, I feel this game’s Chicago is much better. I spent the time in free roam collecting all the pulp comics because: 1. I liked the cover art of all of them, 2. it let me explore all of the city at my pace. Games like LA Noire or the previously mentioned Godfather games were set in the past, but that history felt like it only went skin deep, but this game seems to go beyond that.
Being set in the 30s also means the game is set in the middle of the Great Depression. That’s the one spot I think the game kind of fell short in representing, especially after Mafia 3 tackled Jim Crowe in the South. The parks in the city are filled with Hooverville shanties, but there’s not much else. Even something as adding in people standing in a soup line would’ve helped remind you of the setting. The one dislike I had was the name of the city, “Lost Heaven” it’s such an odd name for a city. With “Empire Bay” & “New Bordeaux”, I can see where those names come from, but I don’t know how Heaven would be related to a Chicago nickname. That names feel like it was chosen for some type of symbolic purpose to serve the story. Still, I think something like “Windy Haven” would’ve been a better name.
It would be easy to do a Godfather-like soundtrack, but they avoided that and went for a soundtrack that sounds like it came out of an old movie from the 40s. Lots of orchestral pieces, but not many trumpet & violin pieces. The in-game radio has lots of 30s big band & swing tunes. Most are instrumental with only a few lyrical songs. That was a bit of a let down. Some “Brother, Could you Spare a Dime?” or other Bing Crosby, Cab Calloway, or Louie Armstrong tunes would’ve elevated the radio. The news broadcasts do add to the atmosphere. Hearing news reports about the Depression across the contry, then later the troubles in Europe as WWII looms on the horizon. There’s one mission where you listen to a ball game on your radio as you tail a guy. It felt like I was listening to a real sports broadcast.
The gameplay shows the age of the original this game was remastered from. Lots of missions involve driving somewhere or chasing someone in a car, and some of the earlier missions are time trials. The missions that aren’t about driving have you on foot shooting rival mobsters. These points are enhanced a bit by some gameplay elements brought over from Mafia 3. Most of these shooting levels are you escorting a truck or moving through a location blowing away waves of baddies. You can carry a pistol & a long gun. There’s not a wide selection of guns, a 1911 & some revolvers for the handguns and a shotgun & tommy gun for long guns, with the occasional rifle showing up. There’s also throwables, but you never have a lot of them for each level. That’s another hold over from the older game I assume. Everything is broken down into levels. There’s no free roam exploring time in between missions, you just complete one and move on to the other. There’s no pre-loadout screen, you just get a preset selection of guns. It’s set up like LA Noire, where the story mode moves from case to case and if you want to do any exploring there’s a dedicated free roam mode that’s separate. The old style game designs didn’t bother me too much, because it brought back memories of playing The Godfather.
Because of the level structure of the game, the story isn’t a cohesive timeline, but more vignettes of a mobster’s life. The game hits all the basic mob story tropes; war with another family, trouble with the law, rats, and such. The only trope the game misses is one of your mafia brothers dying. I thought they were going to pull it out in one mission, but no, everyone lives through the game till the big ending. It doesn’t help that the crime family you’re apart of only seems to consist of 4 people and some unnamed goons. All that didn’t give the story much weight. Hanger 13 was limited by what was already laid down in the original, but I think the story could’ve used some fleshing out to get more out of it. You play as Tommy Angelo from the years of 1932-’38. He starts off life as a cab driver who accidentally gets involved with the mob when he drives mobsters Paulie & Sam home from a robbery. After Tom gets a nice payday for that fare & his cab is destroyed by the rival mob, he decides to join the mob. I do find Tom an interesting character for a mob story. Even from the beginning, it never feels like he’s all in on the mafia lifestyle. He mentions how many times he thought about running and he only stayed because he liked the money and couldn’t go back to being a ‘nobody’. While he rises through the ranks and seems to be good at the extortion & smuggling game, but never really enjoyed the killing. Most of his jobs he’s joined by Paulie, who looks like if Jimmy Fallon was a mobster & Sam, who sounds like a Jay Baruchel impersonator. Paulie is set up like the kind of character who gets tired of being second best and betrays the family, but they actually don’t go that route. I like how they develop his character, and Tom & Sam. Tom & Paulie becomes disillusioned with the life, Sam loses his humanity.
The story doesn’t develop well though. You spend most the time at war with the rival Morello family. You would have a mission that involves taking down one of their major operations, but then the next level jumps ahead a few months and the most resolution you get from that is the Don telling you it was effective, but you still have to do this other thing to take the fight to the Morellos. The time period does come into play occasionally. It’s the Depression, even the mobsters are falling on hard times. Half way through Prohibition gets repealed, so you have to find different modes of making money to make up for the liquor racket. Again, the story didn’t have a lasting impact due to the structure. That being said, I liked the final two mission. It wasn’t as big or bombastic as Mafia 3’s ending. Spoilers, but it turns out the Don has traded his morals for money and is looking to start peddling dope, which he used to be against. You go behind his back and get a hit put on you. It ends in a shootout through the art gallery to confront Sam, who’s been tasked to kill you for your betrayal. Earlier in the game, you helped Sam get a call girl out of town when the Don ordered a hit on her. Now at the art gallery, Sam mentions she got killed and that she’s nothing but a whore. It was a bit contrived, but did show how Sam has become nothing more than a machine for the Don. You guys have a conversation before finally finishing him off. I think if they divorced this game from the original title a little more, the story could’ve really stood out more.
All in all, this game is a great period piece. I’d honestly love a line of video games that just let you explore historic settings, sorta like Assassin’s Creed Discovery mode. The characters are all great mafia archetypes, and the gameplay was fine for how long the game lasted. The only thing holding this back from being 5 stars is the patchwork story that robs the narrative of pace.
