If you're a fan of the movies, you should defintley give this game a try!
The Godfather is the official game from the very famous movies, the Godfather (Wouldn’t guess that without me would ya?). It is very similar to the GTA series, but with a few twists, imho they’re good twists. :)
Just like the movie, it takes place in the 1930s in New York; the city looks great and immerses you inside it. The large city is divided up into Brooklyn, New Jersey, Hell’s Kitchen and Midtown. If I were to guess I’d say the game area would be a bit smaller than that of San Andreas. Each area, or parts of areas are controlled by a different criminal organization. Just like from the movies there are, the Corleones (Your family), Barzini, Cuneos, and Tatalgia.
You start off by making your own character, customizing his own features and such, once you get money later on in the game you can choose to purchase new clothes. After that there is a cut scene of you as a small child and you witness the murder of your father, the Don takes you in and you begin to work for him. Then it goes into the future and just like in the beginning of the movie, the wedding is happening. There you see your mother pleading to the Don to help fix you up, apparently you “fell into a rough patch”.
Anyhoo, the Don sends good ol’ (and still fat) Luca Brazsi. He finds you being beat up by a bunch of guys. He picks up a wrench and whacks the shaizer out of one of the guys and grabs the other two. This is where you learn the basic mechanics of the game, such as the new “Blackhand Control System”, I’ll describe this later in the Gameplay section of this review.
After you beat the crap out of the guys Luca tells you to go meet the Don, and that’s where the game really begins, with the hijacking of the cars and the beating of the innocents.
Gameplay 9/10
As I said before, there is a new control system in this game, known as the “Blackhand Control System.” There are many new elements to this system. When you are fighting somebody you first have to lock on to them, then you have a selection of options for you to choose. You can choose to just punch them using buttons “E” and “Q”, you can grab them, you can execute them (cool little animation where you grab the person and break their neck or shoot them in the head), or strangle them.
If you decide to grab the person you can either use the punching buttons to beat them or you can control how hard you punch them, or throw them, etc, using the movement of you mouse. For instance, if you were to jerk your mouse hard then your character will give a good hard punch. Also, if you are near an object you can smash the person into it, or if you’re standing close to a ledge or window or oven you can throw the person into oblivion, always fun.
There is also a lock on button where you lock on to a person and shoot them, a lot like in the console versions of GTA. One of my favourite options is the damage system. For instance, you can shoot someone in the leg and they will crumple to the ground and try to crawl away or something of that sort, or you can disarm them by shooting them in the arm, and etc… It’s all very interesting and extremely fun, although you may need some getting used to for these mechanics.
Another interesting aspect of this game is extorting businesses. The point of this is to get money and take over the business. Basically what you do is you walk into a store of some sort and you “talk” to the manager. You can start off by talking to them, and if they’re nice or scared of you they will automatically give up. Others won’t go down so easily, so you may have to break some stuff in their shop, or beat them a bit to come out. There is a handy little bar in the top right part of the corner which tells you how close they are to giving up the money. If you go too far you will anger them and they will fight back, eventually leading to their death and you losing out on some money, but if you do get them to pay you will get a weekly payment from them, a small part of this payment goes to you, the rest to the family. As you gain a higher rank in the Corleone family your pay raise will rise.
You can also bribe the police not to come after you, and they will even help you out when you’re in trouble. Your fellow Corleones will also help you out if they’re in the area. One of my best moments in the game was when I just emerged from a Corleone controlled hotel and I was about to steal a car. I jerked open the door and a guy came out, wanting to fight. He was just about to punch me when I heard a gunshot and the man dropped dead. I turned back to find my fellow Mafioso and saw him clutching his gun towards the direction of the fallen victim. I was laughing so hard at that moment.
The only semi-bad part about the controls is the car handling, in my opinion anyway. It just feels rather unnatural, and definitely not how a car from the 1930’s would move. They just handle too well, they turn too well, drive too well, etc… They seem to maneuver better than you would expect a NASCAR car to. But, if you don’t mind unrealisticness then you will love how the cars react, “like a dream” as quoted by some of the game reviewers.
The weapons in this game are quite fantastic, ranging from your very first tiny pistol to the sweet Tommy gun, my personal favorite gun. There is also the garrote wire, which is used for sneaking up behind people and choking them, EXTREMLEY FUN.
Graphics 7/10
The city environment looks great, the buildings, the roads, the burning garbage cans, etc. I especially like the fires and the car exploding animations, they look a few hundred times better than that of GTA’s. Unfortunately the cars don’t look too great, but they’re still fine, but can be much better. See for yourself (Screenshots below.) Some of the textures can be quite bad. Some of the cut scenes look absolutely horrific, the in game graphics are much better. To be more exact, the cut scene graphics look like they’re from GTA Vice City, except the character models are slightly more detailed.
There are A LOT of flickering objects, and it gets extremely frustrating. When you’re driving down a major road soaking up the scenery you spot a building flickering like mad from normal to grey you can’t help but feel pissed off.
Another thing is how the cars and people spawn. They practically appear out of nowhere. Sometimes you’re just driving and you see a rectangular shadow in front of you and as you get closer it turns out to be a truck, and this also gets super frustrating, especially when you’re trying to get somewhere fast and these objects appear out of nowhere. Another thing that can be worked on are the objects fading out. For instance, if you knock a lamp post down it’ll fall, sparks will come out, it all looks nice but then it just fades out, and really quickly too, it doesn’t look good at all. This happens with car remnants, people, and any other things you may destroy. What is nice though, is how the things are destroyed and the many destructible things, such as crates, barrels, carts, etc… When you shoot them, hit them, whack people into them, splinters will break out of them and you will see each phase of deterioration, although sometimes it can happen too roughly, especially with cars. For example, someone shoots the car and it automatically becomes dented.
The game is also extremely repetitive, location wise. Nearly every warehouse is the same, hotel is the same, all the stores are the same, etc… Even many of the character models are the same. It can be quite disappointing when you’re having a shootout against fifteen people that look exactly the same. The car models also don’t vary too much, there are about six or seven different models and even less different colours, but you don’t really notice these things in the game as you are so enthralled in it.
The characters from the movies all look just like themselves, except for Michael Corleone, which is a shame, since he is my favorite character, but other than that they all look just like their movie counterparts.
Sound 10/10
The sound in this game is absolutely magnificent. The voice acting is so believable you’d think you’re watching the actual movie. EA games actually got professional actors to make them, and they actually got some of the characters from the movie to do the voices.
I think it’s safe to say that this game has one of the best soundtracks ever made in a game. They took all of the songs from the movies and shoved it into here, and they all sound marvelous and all come out at the perfect moments.
Sound effects are also very good, from the roar of the engine to the gunfire of a pistol, they all sound genuine and just the way you would expect them to.
Artificial Intelligence-AI 7/10
The AI isn’t quite miraculous in this game. In fact, most of the time they seem to just run out and get shot. Sometimes the enemies will just turn around and pretend that nothing is happening. Other times they will take cover behind objects and peak around corners though. The lack of good AI isn’t quite noticeable though, seeing the fact that there are usually so many people shooting at you at one time that you don’t quite notice.
Pros
Blackhand Control System is really fun
Extortions can be really fun
Captures the movie really well
Great graphics in most areas
Garrote Wire is super wicked
Cons
Not the greatest AI
Damn those flickering objects
Not too many variations in car models and locations
Graphics in cut scenes suck most of the time
Conclusion
In conclusion, despite some of the cons of this game, it is still a great game, one of my favorites in fact. I portrays the movies quite well and is a great joy to play. And if you like your games to be realistic, then this game probably isn't for you, or any game for that matter