Console Mafia re-announced

Take-Two subsidiary Gathering is evidently so happy at the prospect of publishing PS2 and Xbox versions of Mafia, announced last year, that it's decided to announce them for the second time this week. The only difference being that instead of just 2003, we're now being told "fall 2003".

If you missed the PC version of Mafia, it was one of Illusion Softworks' finest moments in recent history; a mob story that begins as the player is forced into a life of crime, working as a well-paid goon for the Salieri family in the fictional city of Lost Heaven. Apart from a brutal depiction of mob life with baseball bats, kerosene car washes and Max Payne-style third person shootouts, Mafia also had some excellent driving sections and almost matched GTA for an expansive cityscape, even if it stuck more to its guns than Rockstar-esque sideshows. Mother publisher Take-Two were laughing anyway - after all, they publish both.

Sadly we don't have details of any changes to the PS2 and Xbox versions of Mafia, but we hope they do a bit better than Max Payne, which we always felt translated poorly to the consoles.