Come Check out my review of Godfather 2. Parents and gamers alike. I will tell you what you need to know.
Godfather 2 begins on the new years party in 1958 at Hyman Roth's Party where he announces his retirement and how the turf will be split up and then the Revolution begins. Viva La Revolution. This is where it begins. You play as Dominic and you are soon made don. Yippy no crap getting to the power and then not wielding it. You have power from the start. Now the graphics aren't as good as GTA 4 but that doesn't matter as we are not art critics but gamers. The graphics are good and comes close to GTA but there are small things that GTA 4 didn't do that this game does. I made a list in fact (I am forgetful and I wanted to remember the what they were for this review).
Now for the Graphics aspect smaller things. First Cars have persistent damage, which is not a first, but what it does which is awesome is that when I hit someone blood splattered on the car and it stayed there. In fact Blood spatter is way better than it was in GTA 4. I think at this point for the parents out there wondering what the game is about and are reading my review I must say do not buy this game for your kid. It is a mature game with mature concepts. There are **** in the game. Not once but aways. Females are not wearing tops (awesome for us adults not for the kids). Plus I don't want to have to come across another rude punk like I have who think they are all big and bad. Now for the rest of us who are generally interested in the game. The blood spatter is larger and better and more realistic than GTA 4. It is there and you can easily spot it vs the tiny amount you get in GTA 4. Not GTA 4 bashing here just pointing it out. It goes on the walls, floors, ext. Another good point is the bullet holes on the bodies. These are not persistent but they are awesome none the less. Parents hint hint not for kids.
Now for why games are played game play. A key new feature is the Don's View. It is a 3d map where you can buy guards, send your made men to defend or capture places, see where things are which include police stations and the hospitals. Which make it easy for you to find things. The Don's View is where you can view your made men and upgrade them. Made men come in three levels. Soldier 4, Capo 2, and Underboss 1. Underboss being the strongest. The upgrade system could have been deeper but it is nice to have. You can upgrade your character as well. Ah I forgot when you first start out you make your character the way you want. There are restrictions but as someone put it once it is nice to have a character that is part of the story like Dominic is. Thus there will be many different Dominic's throughout the world and you can choose the skin color, but they are all the same name and voice and they talk. Speaking of talking that is what your guys will do as you can form a crew and bring them with you. They each have skills and you will need to have the skills to use to get through places, obtain things, and basically kill people. It is a great system as you need to have certain skills at certain points. Skills I found the most useful were the medic, demo, and safe cracking skill. As you move them up in rank they get one new skill. There are some characters you can find that have two skills to begin with which are useful. Upgrading them is about the only thing you will use money for. Now comes for a unique part. You use your made men to fight online and their honors are persistent and needed to get a better weapons licence which allow them to use better weapons. This is pretty awesome and their skills are used online in different modes. Like Arson and demo have specific game modes for their abilities. Now the game play is about taking over rackets. The X-box magazine whines about this because god forbid a game use its main concepts. I had to put that in there as I did not like the review that it gave. To me it screamed "we wish we could give it a worse score but our credibility will be shot if we do". You should see what they said about the expansion to GTA 4 but that is not why you are here but I feel it is important to say that they are wrong the game is fun. Awe Fun the main reason we play games. Heck if it isn't fun why play it. There really is no point if it isn't somehow fun and Godfather 2 achieves this and then some. To point out how well it does this let me say this. I am not a huge fan of traveling over large distances. I like it but sometimes it does wear thin and gets annoying. This was not the case for godfather 2 (and yes there is a point to this hold your horses lol). There are three cities (New York, Florida, and Cuba). New York is a nice starter city being small but not too small and lets you have a good time and get places quick. Florida is more huge. It is pretty decent in size and you can drive around a lot. Florida is the largest city and has the most Rackets and businesses. And finally you have Cuba. When you first arrive you will only be able to take certain places but not all will be unlocked till a plot point is reached. I will keep it a secret as you probably don't want it spoiled and if you do to bad. LOL. Then that is where the final family is located but before going on with that I have to point out something else. It is small like New York sized, but it is action packed to the point of annoyance. You can't start nothing without Rebels or the Police getting on your case. Which is good because the police are more lenient then in the other cities thus keeping the fun factor going. Taking down the other families is your key goal here plus getting more power, places, ext. But families taking down is what you will do. You do favors which are basic missions to ether kill, bust a place up, or ruff a person up. Other favors which don't net you kill conditions but money or huge favors from corrupt officials, are blow a place up (even if you own it but to quote "hey it's only business") and I think that is it. Kill conditions are needed because if you just kill regularly the enemy made man will only be taken out. (one time I held him and cops were shooting and he got arrested when he died. Speaking of which cops won't pull you from cars. This is extremely funner than getting ripped from a car in other games to be arrested. You are only arrested if you die by being killed by a cop). They ultimately come back and can lead assaults on your businesses. You kill them a specific way and they are dead for good. It has been pointed out that it is easier to just kill them all at the compound at the end of the stage which I did near the end of the game at a certain point after killing enough of them but it is fun to hunt these people down and kill them a special way. Well most of the time they are. A couple can be frustrating but most are fun to do.
Executions are back and simple and simpler to obtain and there are many unique for each weapon and there are two types. Standing and and kneeling ones. The game uses its rich whatcha call it from its movies. Good for fans, not really important for those don't know the movies. It doesn't screw you over if you haven't seen the movie but if you have and I haven't it enriches the experience. Though some scenes I knew from other places which I don't remember from where but it made the game good. You are the key to certain parts of the movie. The Senator's dead hooker, you. The game has many things going for it and to just some it up game play is good.
In closing the game was fun to play and I recommend it. Only though if you are mature enough to handle it. Parents use discretion with this purchase mature themes abound and this may not be appropriate for all ages. Great game can't wait for the sequel well I can because this is going to be the sweetest year in gaming I have ever scene. Enjoy it if you get it and remember people it's only business.
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