For this review, I am no longer Travis Broyles. Instead I am Knucklez Guiliani, hired gun of the esteemed Guiliani family, and I?m here to tell you whether Mafia: Respect and Retaliation is an offer that you can or cannot refuse.

R&R is hard to describe for those unfamiliar with these mass-multiplayer mafia simulators. It has no animation, no sounds, only a well-designed hub from which you can perform all the actions in the game. While this could be irritating to a sensory hungry player such as myself, it stays consistently interesting with help from the intense art style and sleek and simplistic user interface.

You start the game by naming your character and picking to be a part of one of three Mafioso families. Then you are immediately dropped in to the center of operations, which is where you will be for the rest of the game. From here you can perform jobs, fight other gangsters, talk to The Don, and all sorts of other notorious criminal activities, down to even the most nefarious of misdeeds? buying and selling commercial real estate. Also from here you can check on your stats including health, power, and endurance.

I haven?t played many games like Mafia: R&R, but I also haven?t played any of the other Mafia games available on the app store. For those of you blank slates out there like me, this game will at first be overwhelming. Although there is an instruction screen, I found it best to immerse myself in the game, and rely on familiar RPG elements to coax me into the Mafia world. Leveling up, stat points, random battles, loose turn-based actions; it?s all very recognizable stuff with an unrecognizable skin.

While I certainly recommend getting Mafia, I don?t recommend spending any money on it. There are packages of respect points which help get you favors from the Don that cost real, our-world money. I bought one of these packages, ten respect points for one dollar. The points were spent in seconds on getting my stats back, but this happens naturally with time anyway. Which brings me to my next point: Mafia is best played passively. If you are looking for a game where you are constantly active and working, this isn?t it. There?s tons of waiting and recuperating. This is what makes Mafia the perfect addiction. You can do anything and play Mafia at the same time, and even when you?re not playing, you are healing and getting into battles.

I cannot recommend this game enough. At the steep price of free, there?s literally no reason not to get it. What seem to be flaws at first gradually become your favorite parts of the game; its simplicity in play, the lack of bells and whistles, etc. All of this lends itself to Mafia seeping into your brain like syrup, and taking over your existence. So just lie back, and let it happen.