The Godfather: The Game

[gillies]

The Godfather: The Game

 

 

Genre: Action Adventure

Developer: Electronic Arts

Publisher: Electronic Arts

Online: No

Release Date: March 21, 2006 (PC, PS2, Xbox), September 19, 2006 (Xbox 360, PSP)

Ratings: ESRB: M, PEGI: 18+, OFLC: MA15+, OFLC (NZ): R18

Players: 1

Multimedia:

 

 

Introduction The Godfather: The Game is a game based on the 1972 film The Godfather which was based on a book by Mario Puzo and is usually considered to be one of the best films ever made. The director of the film, Francis Ford Coppola was apparently not pleased about Paramount licensing the theme for this game, and it was made by Electronic Arts which doesn't have the best reputation amongst game fans due to making a lot of products that are generally considered to be unfinished upon release, and providing little support for them. I was hoping to get this game eventually and recently I was able to pick it up at a discounted price, so it was time to find out whether the technical problems I had heard about would get in the way of a good gameplay experience.

 

Graphics The graphics don't look too great compared to most of the games I have seen this year, but they still have a fair amount of style. Many characters are done well, others not so well. Some items have a decent level of detail, other things such as the cars have incredibly low detail. Even if the level of detail doesn't concern you the strange models and expressions on the faces of NPCs a lot of the time might, or the little glitches that are usually fairly obvious. The HUD is also extremely ugly, and can be a little confusing at first due to the same meters having several levels of information you need to keep track of added to them during the tutorial levels while you are distracted by getting to grips with the fighting system. The graphics of the PC version also suffer from some technical shortcomings like poor widescreen support and a lack of screen resolutions, though luckily this can be worked around. 6/10

 

Sound Several of the original actors from the film reprise their roles for this game. These include Marlon Brando as Don Vito Corleone, James Caan as Sonny Corleone, Robert Duvall as Tom Hagen, and Abe Vigoda as Salvatore Tessio. The most notable absence is that of Al Pacino, who apparently couldn't be involved in this game in his role as Michael Corleone due to already being involved in Scarface: The World is Yours. The other voice acting is also done well although usually fails to capture the moment during some of the cutscenes that are taken from the film. The use of the musical themes from the film sets the scene very well and its superior artistic merit makes this one of the best things about this game. 9/10

 

Gameplay This game includes a character creation system that lets you customize your mobster at the beginning of the game, and throughout the game you can buy clothes to customize him further. You will begin the game unarmed and expected to fight with your fists. Luckily the fighting system has a lot of moves that you can pull off to injure and kill NPCs which can result in some interesting brawls, but after a short time this is mostly relegated to only being useful for "negotiating" with people. Gun fighting is introduced quickly, and you will probably use it more due to most of your enemies carrying guns. There are a range of guns and also some melee weapons that will prove useful sometime where fists alone aren't good enough, the selection is a bit limited but the guns all have upgrades that can help out if you are having trouble. You gain respect points from most of the things you can do and this gradually increases your respect level. Some storyline missions have respect level requirements, but these respect levels also allow you to upgrade some aspects of your mobster that give you some bonuses that are useful for surviving the mean streets where your enemies will be the members of the "five families" that played a part in the events in the film, as well as the police.

 

In ponyfarm you can engage the enemy families in turf wars over protected stores, and many of the stores contain rackets which can also be taken over. This is a way of providing you with income, of which a lot has to be tributed to the Corleones. It seemed to be quite easy to get pinned in an unfortunate spot during gunfights and being killed very quickly, so you really need to make good use of cover, as well as the other tips you pick up as you go along, to avoid a vary quick death. The streets of New York are filled with pedestrians as well as NPC traffic, and you can acquire a car pretty easily and drive around instead of walking. It isn't very exciting because there are only a few cars and most of them are pretty slow, but it's still faster than walking. Having to evade other cars pursuing you can be a pain because they seem to be able to drive much faster than you and will pull in front of you to bring you to a stop with extreme precision. Due to how touch and go it can be in these situations I think car chases are overused in the storyline. 8/10

 

Storyline The main storyling follows events depicted in the film, and although a lot of liberties have been taken with it to make a game about a character that didn't appear in the film this is done quite well and provides some interesting tasks and also some story about characters that had minor roles in the film. Unfortunately a lot of the cutscenes that reflect parts of the film come off as a bit cheesy but most of the time it isn't too bad. The missions are quite large and usually involve several tasks to complete. Despite the length of some of the missions the storyline is quite short. Fortunately there are a lot of things to do during ponyfarm if you want to them, and the game doesn't end when the storyline is finished. 7/10

 

Conclusion This game has a few problems that could have resulted in a lower overall score, but due to the subject matter and overall good gameplay it is still a fine game that is worth getting if you like action packed games, or if you like the film. The Godfather: The Game is out now for all the platforms at the top of this post, and versions for the PlayStation 3 and Wii are coming soon.

 

7/10

Edited June 23, 2007 by gillies

[vint_cool]

Nice review

 

Even I played this game and found its mob wars and fight system very good....the only disappointing factor is its replayability which is very less compared to other games of this genre(esp GTA) , there is no scope for stunting, good side missions etc ! The only side missions is extortion and taking over turf....which once completed offer no reason to replay !

[gRiM-reapa]

Ugh. In The Godfather, you become the Godfather way to fast. And it was fairly short.

[Archaon, Lord of End Times]

Extremely well written, Todd. I, too, loved this game. I was thrilled to get my hands on it, being a large fan of The Godfather Movies. I love the blackhand fighting style. Makes hand-to-hand combat very fun and the shooting system is pretty good too, in my opinion. Despite the glitches I found, it's a great game.

[B Rob]

Great Review. I thought the game was pretty good. I own it and beat it in like a week. The storyline missions are way to short and too easy. The mob wars and taking over territories are great though. You can create your character and make him anyway you want to, which is also cool. It's a must play for Godfather fans and fans of shooting games.