It seems like our culture can't get enough of the mafia. The Departed wins best picture, The Sopranos continually receives Emmy nominations, and it seems there's a new mafia-based video game either being released or developed.

Made Man: Confessions of the Family Blood is the most recent mafia game released for the Playstation 2.

Made Man is a third-person shooter, which draws heavily in comparison to the 2002 hit Max Payne in almost every area, but I'll get to that later. Made Man follows the rise of Joey Verola, the gangster protagonist, through flashbacks. Instead of the game having an active voice, we listen as Joey tells his life story to his nephew in a car ride. Every new level is a new chapter in Joey's story. While this sounds like nothing special, the interesting part is that best-selling author David Fisher helped in plot development.

"I worked on the parameters of the game, the plot, characters and different levels," Fisher said. "I'd always keep progress with what they were doing. When I wasn't there, I'd get on the phone to develop back-story. We gave whole lives to the characters."

Fisher has written extensively in the mafia genre, met with past crime lords like Bill Bonanno and had access to confidential FBI files. For the casual gamer, however, this really adds nothing to the equation. It's the game play that is going to be the saving grace here.

And this is where the comparison to Max Payne comes in. This game has almost the exact same game play mechanics as Max Payne from the camera to the weapons to the "bullet time" feature. "Bullet time" is a feature that slows the game down and allows the player to easily kill the enemies in a very hip Matrix-like way. Here, it doesn't make sense (why does a gangster have the ability to slow down time?) but, to make things worse, you don't even get an advantage over the enemy. The enemy moves at the same rate as you, making this feature completely useless and purely superficial. The controls are pretty tight but often times, there are problems with the camera.

My last major complaint with this game concerns the graphics. The PS2 is capable of delivering much better graphics than this. Ico, anyone? Metal Gear Solid 3? These games are just two examples of the beauty that can be attained by the PS2.

However, with the nitpicking aside, it can be a fun game if third-person shooters are your thing. After all, this game is only $20, so if you have 20 bucks to throw away and you collect dull mafia games, go for it. Most gamers, though, could easily finish this game and enjoy its full potential (or lack thereof) in a five-day rental at Blockbuster. GRADE: C-

-- Reviewed by Rich Coleman