If you're curious about the notoriously hard racing section from the original release, that was patched to be much easier back in the day, so that shouldn't be an issue now. PC Gamer UK awarded it 91% back in the day-I remember reading that review in the magazine and being instantly sold on it. The smoke ring effects, which are basically in every cutscene, still look decent for a 15 year-old game.
I last wrote about Mafia a couple of years ago. It holds up reasonably well, too, although the driving is tough as hell. Its sincere attempt to tell a cinematic story was very convincing at the time, and its shocking ending-which would cleverly tie into Mafia 2, eight years later-was among the best in gaming's history. Mafia was a favourite of mine at release, right when I was properly getting into PC gaming.