If nothing else, Mafia II for the PC is a technological tour de force. Never have I inhabited such a detailed, intricate sandbox world as Empire Bay, the game's New York-inspired city. While it's not as big, it makes Liberty City feel like a rudimentary collection of concrete boxes covered in wallpaper. I lost count of the number of times I took the scenic route to a destination, pulling over to the shoulder to do nothing more than simply gaze at the vista stretching before me. While the console versions hold their own, giving other sandbox games a good run for their money, the Windows version shows just how far the PC has leapfrogged console technology.

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PhysX offers realistic boomsplosions

The city is the game's main character, and exploring it is like stepping into a time machine. Just as you start becoming a little too familiar with the late 40's version of the city, a major plot development sees your time capsule zip forward six years, with your character now inhabiting the radically different world of the 50's. There are no boring mini-games forcing you to explore every nook and cranny, yet over the course of the 20 or so chapters you'll get a chance to see most of the landscape. 2K would be foolish not to offer DLC or an expansion pack in the near future - gamers will want to visit this place time and time again.

While Empire Bay may be the star of the show, the human cast are equally memorable. You play an up and coming gangster by the name of Vito, who shares a life of crime with his best pal Joe. Joe's sad clown pastiche is the perfect counterbalance to Vito's brooding anger, and the mature narrative is consistently authentic, and always compelling. If you're not into the Godfathers and Goodfellas of the silver screen, you won't find the criminal antics on offer to be very interesting – but this game wasn't meant for you.

Many of the chapters follow the same overall format, kicking off with a mob meeting, moving on to a spot of driving action, and culminating in a wild gunfight or chase. Vehicle handling is superb, and realistic physics on the period automobiles present a real challenge, as you pummel these lumbering steel whales into steering submission. Gunplay is similarly excellent, with accurate aiming and an intuitive cover system. Most importantly, each shot fired carries real weight, tearing through the environment. While the core mechanics of each mission are similar, they all have very different objectives - a drug run, a hit mission - and thus they all feel unique and fresh. It'll take you a good 15 hours minimum to complete the storyline, increasing to 20 if you choose the harder difficulty mode that I selected.


Empire Bay is a beautiful city, with a dark underbelly

Approaching the obligatory complaint paragraph, I'm struggling to come up with anything worth mentioning. On one or two occasions the placement of save checkpoints proved a little frustrating, but those were the exception rather than the rule. Vito's willingness to partake in such horrendous acts of violence sometimes seemed at odds with his polite demeanour... until I was reminded of his brutal father and duty as a soldier in the war.

So then, we're left with a brilliant action game that is polished in every respect - narrative, technology, audio, voice acting; even the historical accuracy is faultless. It's no Grand Theft Auto, but it never wanted to be - go into this game knowing that and you won't be disappointed.

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