The Godfather: The Game

The Good
Please note, this review may be a little biased because I am 1) a huge fan of the Godfather movies and 2) I am also a huge GTA fan.

That being said; I feel that this game gets whole lot right….

1) The Look – The art direction in this game is pretty amazing; the artists and designers at EA were able to accurately capture the atmosphere of the Godfather movies throughout this game. From the building interiors to the streets of the city, to the causeway, it all looks very “Godfather”-y.

2) The Feel – This game runs on a very solid engine, unlike the GTA games. Collision detection is great, draw distances are solid. Cars have a nice “weight” to them and driving physics seem pretty realistic. Car collisions really feel like crashes. Character movement is controlled and specific. Guns all have a nice kick to them, as do explosives. As a whole, the game is a treat to play.

3) The Fists – Unarmed combat is given a great treatment in this game. You have some simple moves available, you can punch, kick, headbutt , grab, drag, strangle, and throw/bash your opponents. These moves when combined with the environment can provide interesting results. You can, for example, grab an opponent drag him to a window, then throw him out. Overall the system is flexible and allows for personal improvisation, in short, I’m a fan.

4) The Gunplay – Armed combat, which is a pretty big part of gameplay, is executed quite well in this game. Unlike many other similar games, in Godfather you cannot simply walk into a room, guns blazing, and expect to live. Instead you will be forced to use the environment to your advantage to survive encounters. Walls, crates, desks, boxes, bars, etc. are all your saviors in this game, hide behind them, or die quick. Combat consists of moving to covered positions, popping out, capping opponents, and moving on. This style of combat mimics real life and is something that I feel is sorely lacking in many other games.

5) The Story – Your character moves up through the Corleone ranks during the events of the Godfather movie. Therefore many of the important tasks carried out by nameless henchmen are instead carried out by your character. It can be pretty fun to carry out some of these tasks, and some are a bit surprising.

6) The Gameplay – This game consists of a few basic types of objectives, all are pretty fun.

a. Storyline Missions – These are standard missions, basically GTA style, that tie into the storyline of the Godfather movie. Most of these missions are of the “point a, to point b, kill dude at point b, get to point c” style; but they stay varied enough to be interesting. Additionally a “check point” feature is implemented during missions; if you die while on a mission, you are given the option to restart at a checkpoint, usually when you received your most recent mission objective. This differs from many other “sandbox” type games, and is a welcome change, especially due to the difficulty level of some of the later missions.

b Extortion – As a member of the Mafia, you are supposed to go to various business throughout the cities and extort protection money from the owners. Once extorted the business will continue to pay you weekly. Extortion is a big part of the game, it’s handled well and is quite fun and the extorting process is quite intuitive as it relies on the game’s standard unarmed combat moves.

c. Hit Contracts – You will be given contracts by various family members, these usually have a bonus reward that is given if you kill the person in a specific manner. One mission has you throwing a target off a bridge so that his death looks like an accident. These are a nice distraction and it is kind of neat to have to puzzle out how accomplish certain difficult hits.

d. Heavy Target Takedowns – Rival families control some big places; specifically, warehouses, transport hubs and family compounds. To become Don of NYC you will have to take these over, and they are all basically small fortresses.

The Bad
So, of course, some things didn’t get done quite right.

1) Building weirdness (Interior) – Seriously, I think they spent like 20 minutes on floor plans. Each type of business has only 2 possible plans, so while you have to enter about 40 bars during the game, you only see two layouts, each repeated 20 times.

2) Building weirdness (Exterior) – Exteriors are a little rushed too. All 4 of the rival family compounds look JUST LIKE the Corleone family compound, sometimes they have different wall texture, but the layout and design is identical. Granted, the city is huge and there are a ton of buildings in the game, but this seems a little cheap.

3) Weird integration – At times, they really push too hard to try to pop this game into the movie storyline. Some levels are really too forced and personally, I would have liked to see some more sections that were not part of the main movie storyline instead of the forced sections. I will to avoid specific detail in an attempt to refrain from spoiling anything, but a very early example is when Don Corleone speaks to Lucca Brazzi during his daughter’s wedding. Lucca’s integration into the story is off, his voice acting is totally inaccurate and his characterization is done quite poorly. Basically the character looks like Lucca, but does not act like him in any realistic way. This is not the only example of this type of problem, but it is an early, obvious example.

4) Iffy Score – The soundtrack is a little thin; there only seems to be about 10 tracks, all are overused, especially the Godfather Theme.

5) The Guns – In this game you have a .38, a .45, a magnum, a shotgun, and a Tommy Gun, Molotov Cocktails, Dynamite and Bombs. This reflects accurate mafia weaponry of the time, but seems a little inadequate. No rifles are available, which can be a pain as you really don’t have a long range weapon available. And I’m not sure why, but .38 and the .45 are almost indistinguishable in practice, the .38 holds fewer bullets, the .45 is slightly better at longer rangers, I can find no other differences.

6) Weird map design – This is an offshoot of #3, but bears separate mention. Often locations, as they lay on the map, make no sense when compared to the scenes in the movie. Crucial scenes from the movie, which are re-enacted during the game, are spoiled by being placed in improbable locations. Buildings and other landmarks appear in-frame, which kills the mood, and often ruins the cinematography that is being re-enacted. In a number of cases, scenarios that should have occurred in rural areas are instead placed in the middle of the city. It just doesn’t feel right when you’ve seen the Godfather movie as much as I have.

7) Lack of content – I expect a game of this type to last me a bare minimum of 20 hours for a basic play through. When side missions and collectibles are added in, I expect about 25 hours, minimum. Currently I have 21 hours on this game and I have completed all missions, extorted every business, bought out every racket and demolished every enemy compound. I have maybe 2 or 3 hours of possible game play left, and that’s if I squeeze out every last little bit.. In comparison, my first pass through San Andreas took over 25 hours, and that didn’t include side missions, collectibles, schools, etc. which added about 10-15 hours. Godfather is a bit short, no matter how you slice it. Not Gun short, but short.

The Bottom Line
This game succeeds on a number of levels; it works as a pure GTA clone and as a movie adaptation, it’s a pretty good also. If you are a fan of either franchise, this game is worth a buy or at least a rental.

It is a little short though, especially if you have a lot of experience with this type of game, so your mileage may vary.

The Good
One of the best features about the Godfather game is the pure satisfaction you get from totally destroying your enemies and building your reputation from the ground up. The game's main objective to make the Corleone family the most dominant family in New York by first driving the other 4 families out of your turf then slowly but surely taking over theirs.

Players have to take over the enemy turfs by slowing taking over fronts then moving on the warehouses and eventually taking over the family's mansion and driving them "out of business". This formula is not only straight forward but also gives a purpose for what you are doing and helps the players feel like they are accumulating respect along the way. When players extort enough businesses, their reputation will increase as well. With a higher reputation players can take over fronts with less effort, making the game effectively easier.

The story in the game is very well done. Your character starts as young boy who watches his parents get murdered and have their business burned right before your eyes. While this intro is far from an original plot device, it sets the stage for a more complex mob story about betrayal, fragile alliances, and much, much more. The story alone will keep the players going for a very long time, thanks to several characters from the original Godfather movie returning for voice work, with exceptions due to recent deaths.

The Bad
Unfortunately, the Godfather game tends to suffer from repetition and gameplay errors that hinder the overall experience. Several business fronts begin to recycle their backdrops, resulting in serious cases of deja vu and getting lost a frequent encounter.

While the game resembles an open world, there is only one objective given to you at a time. While you can extort fronts and kill mobsters till your hearts content, you cannot progress until you complete the story objectives given to you. Since players cannot get experience points without completing story objectives, you really do not have much to do outside of the story.

The player's created character does not see much use and comes off as rather bland. Not only does your character look bland in comparison to the other characters, he rarely has any speaking lines and comes off as the Corleone Family's monkey boy more often than not saying "what does the family need me to do?" It is nice to be loyal but sometimes the game just pushes it.

The game does not do such a great job of giving players the feeling that they are a respected force in the mob, rather than a glorified foot soldiers. Players never get to control other Corleone soldiers and work solo the entire game. While front owners surrender to players faster when they have more respect, this does little to help the progress when players do not have back-up from others and are always doing the bidding of another family member not matter what rank they obtain.

The Bottom Line
The Godfather seems like a perfect game on paper, with an interesting concept, a great license, and some fun moments. And for the most part the game does this for a majority of the time. However, it's when the game briefly stumbles with the recycled graphics, bland main character, and inability to give players a sense of leveling up that it shows its flaws and begins to wane a little. However, the Godfather game is a very enjoyable experience through and through and will keep dedicated players entertained for a long time to come.

The Good
Anyone who has seen "The Godfather" will tell you how faithful this game is to the movie. Having the protagonist either be responsible for or witness some of the key events of the movie is a great idea, and the cutscenes are are all incredibly stylish. Don Vito, Sonny Corleone, Tom Hagen and pretty much everyone besides Michael looks and sounds like they're supposed to. The shooting segments are much more enjoyable than in GTA or Mafia. The mission design is also great, at least at first, and some of the side missions, like gathering protection money, are very enjoyable.

The Bad
Unfortunately, the game also gets repetitive after a while, and while our hero rises in rank and gathers more and more respect, he still has to act like an errand boy and do everything himself.

The driving is also complete agony when compared to GTA. I know it's the 40's and all, so I didn't expect sports cars and the like, but constantly crashing into parked cars and stupid pedestrians is enough to drive anyone ballistic.

Hand-to-hand combat is also annoying. Who actually thought it was a good idea that you always have to target the enemy while fighting, because otherwise mashing the buttons does nothing. Any situation where there's more than one opponent becomes incredibly frustrating.

Finally, while the pedestrians are somewhat believable, the city just doesn't feel alive. I was't around to see New York in the 40's, but somehow I doubt the game's gray, lifeless blocks depict it accurately.

The Bottom Line
Even if you like GTA-style games and are a fan of the movie, you may want to think twice before picking up this game. Though the first few hours are OK, the game gets steadily worse as you play on, and I was tempted to stop playing many times: after a certain point, it just wasn't fun.

The Good
* Great to watch cutscenes from the original film

• The style of the game perfectly resembles the 'New York' of the movie, from the cars and buildings to the prostitutes and gangsters

• Gain experience ('respect' in this game) by completing missions and building your various skills

• A plethora of ways to kill people (guns, melee weapons, your own bare hands!)

• Plenty of save points spread throughout the game (they're in the hotels)

• Create your own character; great to have your likeness interact with Al Pacino and Robert Duvall!
  
  The Bad
  * The silly part of this game is that even though you advance to become an underboss, etc., you still have to do all the killing yourself. It'd be nice to attack the base of a family with a bodyguard group under your command!!

• You couldn't kill any of the Corleone family members; they all were protected from your attacks. I mean c'mon, everyone plays GTA-type games and goes off on a tangent every once in a while!

• Pretty annoying to drive across town often to do a mission or buy a weapon (the game has five neighborhoods to explore; no shortcuts to get to any of them)

• The purchasing of different clothes for your character just seemed like a waste of money and time; I didn't even bother really.
  
  The Bottom Line
  You take on the role of a low-level operative in the Corleone family. Your goal is to climb the ranks of the family and become the Don of New York, making all the other 4 families (Barzini, Cuneo, Stracci, Tattaglia) subservient to the Corleones. It follows the events in the movie, as well as a totally separate story of how you rise in the family to take it over. All the characters from the movie are worked in here in some manner, and you have plenty of interaction with them.

The gameplay is a Grand Theft Auto ripoff. You go around completing missions, side job assassinations, and taking over bars, nightclubs and hotels (a la Monopoly), building the strength and influence of your character in the process. You also have to take out the bases of the families, which can be extremely difficult, in order to complete the game.

Even though it's not very original, it's still an enjoyable game!! It's classic gangster style gives it an air of legitimacy over the GTA games.

The Good
Although it greatly resembles GTA, what sets this game apart from the GTA clones is that it has a very elaborate storyline. It follows the movie very closely, while at the same time, complements it greatly by creating a story told through your perspective. In fact, some questions left unanswered in the film are clarified here (i.e killing Bruno Tattaglia). All in all, it's basically the film with a more complete and thorough storyline. Unlike most GTA clones out there, this one has a period setting: It's set in a fairly accurate portrayal of New York 1945-1950 and has more engaging characters.

The game has a lot of music tracks and cutscenes from the movie, and most of the cast from the film provide the voiceovers (including Marlon Brando, who shot his lines before his death in 2004). The one notable exception is Al Pacino, who refused to take part for reasons unknown. All this definitely reels the many fans of the film and makes it all the more enjoyable.

But the high-water mark of this game is the gameplay. Since this game is set in New York and not in L.A like in GTA, you have far more places to go and more things to do. The primary missions are constitute a much smaller percentage in this game than GTA, since you can go about extorting businesses, seizing rackets, hubs, and shipyards, getting hit contracts and doing favours as well as whacking A LOT of mafiosos. Fulfilling all these objectives requires a lot of firepower, some strategy, bribing some cops, back-up and some luck too. All in all, you'll definitely take days, even weeks, to finish this game and becoming the Don of NYC.

The Bad
Some backgrounds look pretty similar, which can create confusion even if you know where you are and make things a bit repetitive.

Depending on who you're fighting, the AI extends from being very easy to extremely cheap. I.E, the bank guards are a little too easy to take down, but the Barzinis take more damage than a tank and have more brains. Sometimes when you're hiding behind a wall, it becomes tricky to shoot an enemy, as you can end up either switching to another target or blasting to parts of the scenery. At worst, you can even hit an explosive barrel and get iced (That happened to me several times).

A little more realism would've been nice. I can go on violating traffic violations without having a cop pull me over. You can duck, but you cannot jump. Other than that, it stops here.

The Bottom Line
If you're a fan of the movie, then this is the game you've been waiting for! As I've mentioned in previous movie-game reviews, movie-games tend to be mediocre (or worse) exploitations of a franchise, but this one does the 1972 film justice. The game has more interactivity than the GTA games, and you'll be playing even past your bedtime just trying to achieve certain objectives.

I'd say buy it rather than rent it, since this game IS a long one, but a a long road which you'll enjoy all the way!