izigame.me

While I have happy memories of this game, the reality is that this didn't age well at all. As of writing I have not played the remaster so I cannot compare the original to that yet.
The police system is overly aggressive and often gets in the way of completing missions such that anything involving long car chases is down to chance that you don't run across a squad car. It makes timed mission jaunts through the city a chore. I honestly wish you could just turn it off because it pads the game out unnecessarily and not in a fun way. You can't even enjoy all the fancy fast cars you acquire because you're stuck doing a pedestrian 40 mph to avoid having yourself be stopped every 500 feet or rammed by magic police cars.
Similarly, the gunplay in this game is very uninspiring, and later missions are just goonhunts where you gamble on whether or not you will have enough health to absorb the shots that will be sent your way, - And they WILL hit! Shotgun enemies have laser-focused accuracy. - especially in the harbor mission where your character will start off a shootout with an UNLOADED WEAPON, guaranteeing that you will absorb at least 4 health damage minimum right off the bat as you wait for Tommy to fumble with his Colt 1911 while being shot at by the first enemy goon.
Thankfully you can disable the stupid 'tuck and roll' feature which makes gunfights far less frustrating than when Tommy decides you tapped A or D too quick to strafe and dives out of cover.
As far as missions go, bugs are more frequent than I remember them being, and certain missions will just require cheese to avoid the broken parts - Such as when the goons come out of the restaurant anyway while you're batting their cars, or when the goons putting a hit on Salieri at Pepe's straight-up phase-shift through the walls to blast you away. If you try to do the mission the 'correct' way, the game bugs out and punishes you anyway.
I could forgive everything else, as frustrating as it is, BUT the ONE THING that finally broke the camel's back is Creme de la Creme, one of the final missions. This mission is straight-up broken, no hyperbole. If you're unfortunate enough to have Morello's car turn into the airport, just repeat the countryside car chase section until he decides to go past the airport to the bridge. You can dump 3 full drums of Thompson bullets into the airplane's engines till they explode and watch the plane's health drop to zero, only to have the mission still deem it wasn't enough TO ACTUALLY FULFILL THE SUCCESS CONDITIONS OF THE MISSION, AND THE MISSION STILL FAILS ANYWAY. Genuinely broken.