In a win-or-die-trying romp through America's happy days, Mafia II players vie for underworld ascendancy, in the role of a young thug who's willing to drive and shoot his way in and out of whatever trouble it takes to get the job done. The original Mafia won a gangland of fans by combining the open-ended driving adventure and on-foot urban action of Grand Theft Auto III with a more tightly scripted story, set in a romanticized 1930s inspired by films and pulp fiction. Coming a console-generation later, Mafia II presents a grittier, less linear, more personal adventure, but with the same goal of enveloping the player in a cinematic experience of action, violence, and storytelling.