It seems like almost a year ago that I first saw Mafia II. That's probably because it was almost a year ago that 2K Czech (formerly Illusion Softworks) demoed live gameplay from the title (which had been announced nearly a year and a half before that.) Today, it was time to finally get my hands dirty as a virtual wiseguy, but first I had to put some clothes on.

In all seriousness, protagonist (I guess he's that, right?) Vito Scaletta had just woken up after a pretty wild night (judging by the various undergarments strewn around his bachelor pad) when my demo kicked off, so I of course jogged around turning on faucets and flicking light switches before actually doing what the game was instructing me to do: Get dressed. Leaving Vito's apartment, I stepped out into a world as pitch-perfect in its depiction of the 1950s -- the cars, the clothing, the architecture, the music -- as I can imagine. So what if the car that I hopped into and the place I was driving around -- Empire City -- never existed in any real era?

I spent the first few minutes of the demo causing all sorts of mayhem. Heck, the very first thing I did was get into a fender bender (putting it mildly) from which I fled, only to learn that the punishment for a hit-and-run in the '50s was, evidently, only a few dollar fine. But my trouble with the fuzz didn't end there.