Latest news with #1900s
The Guardian
12 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Mafia: The Old Country review – by-numbers action game is elevated by Sicilian period setting
Once upon a time, the industry was drowning in games like this. Single-player, story-led action experiences with a weekend's worth of choreographed set pieces and an open world glazed with a fine mist of collectibles … But here in 2025, the age of the Battle Pass and live service forever games, Hangar 13's solo adventure about Sicilian crime families feels almost as dated as its 1900s setting. In fact, The Old Country has few new ideas to contribute to the cover shooter genre, nor to the Mafia series itself. Hangar 13 already produced a remake in 2020 of the original Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven, but in this game it often feels like the studio's remaking it yet again in a different setting. Both the storyline and structure of its individual missions seem to be at the very least giving a reverential nod of the fedora to that 2002 title. Case in point: the 'win a race to impress your Don' mission trope. This chapter was infamous in the original Mafia because the 1930s race cars were extremely hard to handle and the race was all but unwinnable, but it was also a sophisticated multi-stage mission structure full of sabotage, theft and unexpected double-crossings. Mafia: The Old Country simply has you riding out to a town where a race is due to take place, then tells you the Don needs a replacement rider and drops you into the saddle for an uneventful canter around a course that features no real challenge. Ten years ago, such a by-the-numbers experience would have been criticised, but right now the scarcity of games like this means you're inclined to look past the basic mission design and enjoy its strongest assets instead: its story, and its sense of time and place. It's 1904 and you are Enzo Favara, an unfortunate young man with no family to speak of who finds himself working down in the sulphur mines with his fellow carusi in their yellow-stained rags and shaven heads. After working conditions at the mine tip past horrific and into fatal, Enzo stands up to his sadistic employers and makes a powerful enemy in Don Ruggero Spadaro, the local 'businessman' who owns the mine. Not to worry, though – after fleeing, he's taken in by Don Torrisi, a rival of Spadaro's, who appreciates the young man's bravery and work ethic. You can see where this is going. What follows is your typical ascendancy through the ranks of a crime family, expressed through the medium of knife fights and old timey shootouts, in the era when reloading a pistol takes three to five days. Local businesses refuse to pay up. Workers go on strike. Bandits and rival families threaten your reputation. You journey to a locale that's conveniently littered with waist-high cover, hunker down and set to them. In fairness to Enzo and his associates, missions aren't always about all-out violence. At times you're sneaking around, distracting guards by throwing coins and bottles to lure them away from your path. There's a lot of riding horses and driving cars and plenty of expository chat to deepen the context of your actions either side of the fracas. These mechanics outside combat are not especially exciting, but this is a mafia game. It's not trying to be a deep, systems-laden experience – it just wants to tell you a gangster story. And by the skin of its teeth, it succeeds in that endeavour. But it does so via premise rather than plot. The beats are predictable. The memorable moments aren't clever lines of dialogue or dramatic denouements, but vivid historical details. Pheasants strung up in pantries, baskets of citrus fruit piled high in fields. Workers stamping on grapes in the Torrisi vineyard. Historically accurate recipes for spezzatino di maiale on kitchen counters. The Sicilian dialect peppered throughout each conversation (I heartily recommend going all-in and changing to Sicilian audio localisation with English subtitles). Here is a game that has done its research, and brought to life a geographical and historical setting previously unvisited by games. And done it so well that it proves to be Mafia: The Old Country's saving grace. Sign up to Pushing Buttons Keza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gaming after newsletter promotion It's hard to make the case that its knife fights and shootouts are anything more than functional, and its missions feel slightly too straightforward to befit a franchise once known for its sublime changes of pace. But even with those caveats in mind, it's still absolutely worth playing for the richness of its setting, and the infectious enthusiasm it has for its grim subject matter. Mafia: The Old Country is out now, £49.99
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Mafia: The Old Country review – by-numbers action game is elevated by Sicilian period setting
Once upon a time, the industry was drowning in games like this. Single-player, story-led action experiences with a weekend's worth of choreographed set pieces and an open world glazed with a fine mist of collectibles … But here in 2025, the age of the Battle Pass and live service forever games, Hangar 13's solo adventure about Sicilian crime families feels almost as dated as its 1900s setting. In fact, The Old Country has few new ideas to contribute to the cover shooter genre, nor to the Mafia series itself. Hangar 13 already produced a remake in 2020 of the original Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven, but in this game it often feels like the studio's remaking it yet again in a different setting. Both the storyline and structure of its individual missions seem to be at the very least giving a reverential nod of the fedora to that 2002 title. Case in point: the 'win a race to impress your Don' mission trope. This chapter was infamous in the original Mafia because the 1930s race cars were extremely hard to handle and the race was all but unwinnable, but it was also a sophisticated multi-stage mission structure full of sabotage, theft and unexpected double-crossings. Mafia: The Old Country simply has you riding out to a town where a race is due to take place, then tells you the Don needs a replacement rider and drops you into the saddle for an uneventful canter around a course that features no real challenge. Ten years ago, such a by-the-numbers experience would have been criticised, but right now the scarcity of games like this means you're inclined to look past the basic mission design and enjoy its strongest assets instead: its story, and its sense of time and place. It's 1904 and you are Enzo Favara, an unfortunate young man with no family to speak of who finds himself working down in the sulphur mines with his fellow carusi in their yellow-stained rags and shaven heads. After working conditions at the mine tip past horrific and into fatal, Enzo stands up to his sadistic employers and makes a powerful enemy in Don Ruggero Spadaro, the local 'businessman' who owns the mine. Not to worry, though – after fleeing, he's taken in by Don Torrisi, a rival of Spadaro's, who appreciates the young man's bravery and work ethic. You can see where this is going. What follows is your typical ascendancy through the ranks of a crime family, expressed through the medium of knife fights and old timey shootouts, in the era when reloading a pistol takes three to five days. Local businesses refuse to pay up. Workers go on strike. Bandits and rival families threaten your reputation. You journey to a locale that's conveniently littered with waist-high cover, hunker down and set to them. In fairness to Enzo and his associates, missions aren't always about all-out violence. At times you're sneaking around, distracting guards by throwing coins and bottles to lure them away from your path. There's a lot of riding horses and driving cars and plenty of expository chat to deepen the context of your actions either side of the fracas. These mechanics outside combat are not especially exciting, but this is a mafia game. It's not trying to be a deep, systems-laden experience – it just wants to tell you a gangster story. And by the skin of its teeth, it succeeds in that endeavour. But it does so via premise rather than plot. The beats are predictable. The memorable moments aren't clever lines of dialogue or dramatic denouements, but vivid historical details. Pheasants strung up in pantries, baskets of citrus fruit piled high in fields. Workers stamping on grapes in the Torrisi vineyard. Historically accurate recipes for spezzatino di maiale on kitchen counters. The Sicilian dialect peppered throughout each conversation (I heartily recommend going all-in and changing to Sicilian audio localisation with English subtitles). Here is a game that has done its research, and brought to life a geographical and historical setting previously unvisited by games. And done it so well that it proves to be Mafia: The Old Country's saving grace. Sign up to Pushing Buttons Keza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gaming after newsletter promotion It's hard to make the case that its knife fights and shootouts are anything more than functional, and its missions feel slightly too straightforward to befit a franchise once known for its sublime changes of pace. But even with those caveats in mind, it's still absolutely worth playing for the richness of its setting, and the infectious enthusiasm it has for its grim subject matter. Mafia: The Old Country is out now, £49.99
Yahoo
28-06-2025
- Yahoo
20 photos that show how summer vacation in the US has changed over the last 100 years
Summer has officially begun. Summer vacation these days looks quite different from how it did in the 1920s. Kids used to play sports in the streets, explore on bikes, or play on "dangerous" playgrounds. Summer vacation used to mean two months of freedom: pools, playgrounds, and hours spent hanging out with your friends. But for Gen Alpha and the youngest members of Gen Z, summer is starting to look a little different. Changing technology, safety standards, more cautious parents, and social media have all changed how summer looks. Imagine explaining a unicorn pool float to a Victorian child — it'd send them into a tailspin. These photos show how summer vacation has changed over the last century. In the early 1900s, school used to be centered on crops, and summer wasn't a vacation — it was a time for hard work. Before child labor laws were adopted in the first half of the 20th century, a 1890 United States Census report showed that 20% of kids ages 10 to 15 were workers — that was over 1.5 million children. A decade later, that went up to 1.75 million gainfully employed kids, according to The Social Welfare History Project. Bathing suits used to be a little more elaborate. Bathing suits have come a long way over the past century. Kids didn't need any fancy technology; a stick and a hoop used to be more than enough to keep everyone entertained. Officially, this was called hoop rolling or hoop trundling. It's been around since the 1600s and lives on today in a different fashion: the hula hoop. Stickball was the sport of choice, especially when there was no grass to be found. Stickball has been around since the 1800s and is still played now, but many parents are wary of the potential dangers of playing a sport in the middle of the street. Who doesn't remember sliding down a burning hot metal slide in the dog days of summer? Playgrounds used to play fast and loose with kids' safety (think those metal slides), which was sort of half the fun anyway. All your best stories came from scars earned during your playground days. Over time, metal was replaced by wood and wood chips, which still wasn't great. Remember all the splinters? That's pretty much the only downside of them, though. Kids used to have to meet up with each other just by biking around the neighborhood and seeing who was available. It's rare now to see a pack of young kids biking around without a chaperone. Pool floats were a lot simpler. In general, most things were simpler. There were no Instagram or TikTok followers to show off for. Arcades eventually became the entertainment of choice, with games like "Pac-Man" and "Asteroids" taking over. Arcades are something of a dying institution in 2025 — you can play all your favorite video games in the comfort of your own home. The only arcades left are the big chains like Dave and Buster's, or bars like Barcade that are for adults, not kids. But before '80s kids even had video games, they had comic strips and crosswords. One of the first things many people do in the morning is turn on their phone and fill out the daily mobile crossword of their choosing — maybe you're partial to The New York Times, perhaps USA Today. But back in the day, kids and adults would crack open the daily newspaper and play the games, whether it was a crossword or a word scramble or a word search. And, of course, you can't forget about the comics section — Charlie Brown was just as famous as Bluey or the pups of Paw Patrol. Sometimes, all you needed for a fun time was a tarp, soap, and a hose — voila! A makeshift slip-and-slide. Never mind that sticks, rocks, and anything else on the ground could rip the tarp and cut up your arms and legs. That was part of the fun. And it didn't matter if there was nothing to stop your momentum — sliding into your friends and knocking them over was the whole point. Ideal summer jobs were lifeguarding or being a camp counselor. Even though working teenagers are in high demand and could be making good money, the labor force participation of teens is much lower than it used to be. In 2024, 5.7 million 16-to-19-year-olds worked over the summer, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's a five-year high, but nothing compared to the 8.3 million teens who worked during the summer of 1978. Now, bathing suits look a little different. Vintage-style bathing suits are coming back, though, like the '80s-era high-cut one-pieces or belted bathing suits of the '70s. Virtual-reality games mean kids don't even have to go outside to get the summer experience. Per a Florida Atlantic University study in 2024, one in three kids has access to a VR headset. But even if a kid doesn't have access to an Oculus or an Apple Vision Pro, they might have a tablet or some type of video game system. "In our research, we found that kids were spending a lot less time outside," Ruslan Slutsky, an education professor at the University of Toledo, told Vox. "They were spending a lot less time in traditional forms of play because they were playing with devices." But, if "Black Mirror" is to be believed, we all might do with taking a breather from virtual reality and actually concentrating on real life and real relationships. Playgrounds are so safe they've become kind of boring, and some kids have forsaken them altogether. A study conducted in 2012 published by Pediatrics Digest found that kids aren't using playgrounds anymore because they're not stimulated enough. The Atlantic reported that lead researcher Kristen Copeland found that "some participants said that overly strict safety standards made much of the climbing equipment uninteresting, thus reducing children's physical activity." Per a 2024 report by the World Playground Research Institute, not much has changed in the intervening 12 years. In the UK, 27% of kids reported playing outside regularly. Teens and tweens make plans via text, and even when they're together, they barely speak. It's not the same making plans in a group chat. It takes all the fun out of being surprised by your friends biking up unannounced to your house. Now, having a pool without a gigantic float is frowned upon. There's an overwhelming amount of pool floats to pick from in 2025. Sports are well-organized these days, and significantly less dangerous. Though it's probably a good thing that kids aren't allowed to roam the streets without being able to call home, or play sports in the street, or play on potentially dangerous playgrounds — it's just not the same. Finally, even slip-and-slides have been commodified into giant events. Slide the City was a cool event while it lasted — a giant slip-and-slide took over a few blocks of your city — but it was not the same as getting covered in dish soap with your friends. In 2020 and 2021, masked kids were a normal sight because of the pandemic. By 2025, though, masks are a less frequent sight than they were in 2020 and 2021. Read the original article on Business Insider
CNET
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CNET
Mafia: The Old Country Won't Be Open World and Will Cost $50
Mafia: The Old Country will release on Aug. 8, 2025, publisher 2K Games announced today. The game, developed by Hangar 13, will feature a standard edition for $49.99 and a deluxe edition for $59.99, and will be available for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, as well as prepurchase on PC via Steam. You can check out the first official gameplay trailer. "Mafia: The Old Country is a compelling story that doesn't require a massive time commitment, and we believe these prices reflect the value of this highly polished linear narrative experience," the developer said in a statement. This is good news, considering the cost of most games and consoles is set to increase. A game that doesn't break the bank, yet promises a compelling story and action-focused gameplay seems right up my alley. No open world, no problem If you were expecting the next installment in the Mafia series to be a sprawling, open-world romp through the organized crime world, think again. But honestly, that's probably for the best. Screenshot by Evan Zimmer/CNET The game's visuals look great, and the action-focused combat seems compelling. If it's anything like Mafia: Definitive Edition -- which was excellent and delivered a similarly shorter, linear game with an emphasis on story and characters -- it'll be a day-one buy for me. What's Mafia: The Old Country about? This time around, Hanger 13 is turning back the clock to the 1900s. Mafia: The Old Country puts players in control of Enzo Favara as he navigates the dark underworld of Sicily. You'll join the Torrisi crime family and uncover the origins of organized crime in Hanger 13's Mafia series. The game seeks to deliver an authentic, mob-movie experience. It'll take players across crumbling Sicilian ruins and sprawling vineyards, filled with a colorful cast of unpredictable allies and rival gangs. The game's FAQ page says there'll be a mix of gunplay and stealth mechanics, along with close-quarters knife fights and races on horseback and behind the wheel. You can preorder the game now and make your oaths to the Cosa Nostra when it comes out in August.
