Vito, home on leave from World War II after being wounded, meets up with his old friend Joe. But while Vito was off killing Nazis, Joe became involved in organized crime and soon serves as the driving factor behind Vito's descent into the criminal underworld. After a few quick calls, Vito is "provided" with paperwork proving that his injuries are more severe than previously thought. He won't be returning to war.

Things aren't so good at home, though. Vito's father died and owes $2,000 to a loan shark; a substantial amount of money in the 40's. Before he knows it, Vito is in the mafia. It's a familiar setup and plays well with the cinematic presentation the developers are pushing.

The game takes place in both the 40's and 50's, with a version of the city for each decade. I'm really looking forward to the interesting ways this will be explored as the 50's were extremely different from the 40's.

The mission I played had me meeting up with Joe to sell stolen cigarettes. The fun is quickly stopped when some "greasers" show up demanding a cut because we're on their turf. Joe pops the leader in the face and it's off to chase down his cronies. We lose them and Joe tells me to head to the nearest payphone. It's at this point that the time period really hits me. I can't just pull out a cellphone and make an important call.

We inform our superiors about the conflict and they have us meet up with some muscle at an eatery owned by the faction we're fighting. Tommy guns are distributed and we light the place up in a scene straight out of a gangster flick. Then it's time to toss the molotovs through the windows and jet over to a factory to beat up their muscle.

They pull guns and a firefight breaks out. The enemies take cover and retreat as we push them through the factory grounds. The shooting mechanics feel great and the guns are lethal. Many enemies will die to a single shot. Everything is free-aim, though you'll snap to some targets when aiming from cover. I was not able to blindfire, unfortunately.

The only thing I would have liked to see is NaturalMotion's Euphoria character physics, which were used in Grand Theft Auto IV and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. You don't realize how much that system adds until you play a similar game that doesn't use the tools. Its absence doesn't ruin anything, but it would have added so much to the presentation and realism, which the developers are painstakingly creating in every other aspect of the game.

Overall, Mafia II is looking good. Its recent delay is giving the team time to optimize and polish, but it should be released between August and October of this year on the PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360.