Gaming Trend

Gaming Trend Review

The Godfather: The Game

1. Official Site
2. Platform: Xbox
3. Publisher: Electronic Arts
4. Developer: EA Games
5. Release Date: 03/20/06
6. Genre: Action/Adventure

by Mitch Youngblood

I believe in America. America has made my fortune. And I raised my daughter in the American fashion. I gave her freedom, but -- I taught her never to dishonor her family. She found a boyfriend; not an Italian. She went to the movies with him; she stayed out late. I didn't protest. Two months ago, he took her for a drive, with another boyfriend. They made her drink whiskey. And then they tried to take advantage of her. She resisted. She kept her honor. So they beat her, like an animal. When I went to the hospital, her nose was a'broken. Her jaw was a'shattered, held together by wire. She couldn't even weep because of the pain. But I wept. Why did I weep? She was the light of my life -- beautiful girl. Now she will never be beautiful again. - Bonasera

It’s obvious from the first frame to the last that the team behind The Godfather video game was drunk in love with the movie and the time period it was set in. At first glance, the game would appear to be little more than another in a long string of Grand Theft Auto III knock-offs and that description is not far wrong the further players go. It also recalls a masterpiece from a few years back called Mafia that proved to be a stunning masterpiece of electronic entertainment.

The Godfather is not exactly stunning, but it will sneak up on you in unexpectedly entertaining ways. Heck, Luca Brasi walks the player through the tutorial and teaches them the ways of the street. How can that kind of an offer be passed up?

I’ll be honest right up front. I think EA way overpaid for a license that has long since fallen by the wayside. What I wasn’t counting on was just how fun a game it can be to extort your local butcher by bouncing his head off the cash register only to walk into a backroom and discover a secret gambling establishment. I’ve played games where you can do one or the other (most notably Mafia and the Prohibition sim Gangsters) but not both. In so combining these elements, EA has a surprisingly fun and lengthy title on their hands. But how recently you played any of the Grand Theft Auto games may be the deciding factor in whether or not you enjoy The Godfather because it could easily be viewed as total conversion with a gangster theme.

My wife is crying upstairs. I hear cars coming to the house. Consiglieri of mine, I think you should tell your Don what everyone seems to know... – Don Corleone

This reviewer does not consider himself a slave to top-notch graphics yet could not help feeling let down by the way everything looked in this game. The game world stretches from Brooklyn across to New Jersey and focuses on the land between the East and Hudson Rivers, and all of it looks drab and dreary. I was not aware so many shades of brown and grey could be in a single game not made by id Software, but The Godfather caught me by surprise. There was hope for the world to look slightly better once night fell, but lo and behold if my wondering eyes did not see curved lines stretching from one horizon to the next upon glancing to the heavens.

In spite of the lifeless colors and tendency of even brighter hues to blend in with the background, the world is filled with people walking along the streets talking to one another and sometimes themselves. Sometimes two-bit crooks will mug a bystander and watching the two NPC’s slug it out is amusing. Once players jump into a car and take off down the street the majority of those same people vanish presumably to prevent the game from taking a performance hit on the Xbox.

That being said all is far from lost. While the game world itself remains fairly bland The Godfather sometimes sneaks up and delivers when you least expect it. I was unimpressed with the game’s visuals right up to the point where I dealt with a crooked police sergeant. Without spoiling the mission, let’s just say it ended with me smiling ear to ear and truly enjoying what happened on screen. After playing several hours more I came to realize that while it may not be the prettiest belle at the ball, there are enough tricks up its sleeve to keep people interested and it is in the details that the game succeeds.

For example, try driving right into a light pole. The resultant shower of sparks is extremely easy on the eyes, as is the way the extensive character creation actually plays a part in the game. The mini cut-scenes always use close ups and watching the character you designed interact with characters and essentially act is very cool. The facial technology faithfully renders the primary characters enough to give the sense that you’re talking with various members of the five families particularly the Corleones. The game engine isn’t strong enough to convey true emotions through the graphics, but it comes close more times than I would have given it credit for.

Probably all the other Families will line up against us. That's alright -- this thing's gotta happen every five years or so -- ten years -- helps to get rid of the bad blood. Been ten years since the last one. - Clemenza

Any fan of the original film series will absolutely geek out when they hear Marlon Brandon, James Caan, and Robert Duvall in roles they immortalized in the early 1970s. The voice acting and writing is top-notch across the board with even the lesser roles filled out with true actors. The primary three appear only sporadically, but each time they do it does sound like they reconnected with their characters despite it being over 30 years since the first film came out. Caan in particular sounds like he’s having a ball playing Sonny again, but that’s not surprising considering his role was the scene stealer of the group.

The people on the street may not have that many different voices between them, but whenever they speak it lends credence to their individual stations in life. If someone walked up to my character and told them in a monotone that they were happy I whacked some local thug then I wouldn’t believe it for a second. If, on the other hand, they genuinely sound pleased and excited that my mobster character is cleaning up the streets then the atmosphere grows that much more immersive.

The guns vary in quality of effects but it’s easy to look past that by examining which weapon you’re using. The little snub nose .38 pops when it fires whereas the shotgun’s blast is a deafening crowd pleaser. Little details like cash registers exploding from a gunshot or someone’s head rebounding off it are great but there aren’t enough similar and original effects to really bring the world to life. If there is one major complaint about the sound scheme it is that parts of the game feel empty because the ambient sounds are so generic. But this goes away once the player gets up close and personal with both friendly and enemy gangsters and the various pedestrians.

Its part of the wedding: No Sicilian can refuse any request on his daughter's wedding day. – Tom Hagen

The controls will absolutely throw you at first because the hand-to-hand fighting system is incredibly cumbersome. Players lock onto a target by pulling the left trigger then grab their target by pulling the right trigger. Moving the right thumbstick will throw punches and kicks but moving the left thumbstick will forcibly drag enemies along until they break free. Where the combat gets quirky is in the different moves available while holding onto an enemy. It took me 10 minutes of trying to complete one mission because I couldn’t hit the target in the way the game required. Fortunately, things like that are very few and even farther between.

Gun combat is a little easier but still is tougher than it should be for the first few levels. Players can manually target by hitting the white button but enemies will be shooting at you the whole time so use this option cautiously. When players are up close to their enemies they will sometimes be prompted to hit the black button which will execute your enemy in a special move dependent upon your equipped weapon. I make no secret of wanting to steal some of the shotgun-based kills for a script I intend to write someday because they are wonderfully cinematic.

Driving vehicles is basically the same as in every driving game on the Xbox since it uses both the A button and the right trigger to accelerate, the Y button to enter and exit vehicles, and the X button for both the brake and reverse. As with the previous two control options, quality driving depends on your skill level being at least above the level two mark. Fortunately, it is easy to advance a few levels without getting into too much trouble and doing so is highly recommended because it will make life, and the game, vastly more enjoyable.

You straightened my brother out? – Michael Corleone

One of the pages ripped straight from the Grand Theft Auto playbook is stacking the game world with tons of collectibles, but The Godfather does add its own spin on this idea. In addition to the collectible film reels scattered about the world, players have a lengthy list of execution styles that are terrific fun to figure out. Some of them are obviously labeled, like Road Rage, but others take a bit of experimenting which can lead to stellar bits of violence.

That sounds more twisted than I’d intended it to but the results are action sequences that are truly cinematic in scale. Just drive over a few enemy gangsters right in front of their headquarters then and duck-and-cover behind the other cars while shooting it out with their friends and try to say that’s not fun. Of course, if cops are in the neighborhood and you haven’t bribed them then they might jump into the fray as well.

The best description of The Godfather is that it combines elements of classics like Mafia and Grand Theft Auto III then adds in the backstory and characters from the movie. Where the game merits special attention is in the way it creates rich supporting characters to the famous Corleone saga and gives those characters literally hours of fun things to do. The decision to not let gamers play as any of the named characters from the movie was a good one because there wouldn’t be any surprises left for people familiar with the source material. So what if gamers got to whack Captain McCluskey as Michael? Everyone knows that happens except the both of you that haven't seen the movie, in which case spoiler alert. The next stage would obviously be Michael running around Italy collecting enough roses for Apollonia to accept his proposal.

But since the focus is on the movie’s background this let the designers unleash and despite some missions being very cookie cutter to ones we’ve all played elsewhere, the majority wind up being solidly entertaining. Once players get through the first few levels and bump their combat skills up they’ll find extorting business owners by either threats or violence, or both if you play like me, to be terrifically fun. Players can control shipping hubs but only if they take out all the warehouses on that route and then only if they figure out what the route is by interrogating drivers. But where do you find the drivers?

There are dozens of levels of complexity to the sub-missions in The Godfather and it does grow increasingly difficult to protect all of your businesses late in the game when most of the other families are gunning for you. But as players rise in ranks towards the coveted role of Don, the primary missions continue to add rich depth to the main characters as well as just being plain fun.

You blamed him for Sonny – you always did. Everybody did. But you never thought about me -- you never gave a damn about me. Now what am I going to do? – Connie Corleone

In spite of some lackluster graphics and a tougher-than-it-should-be control scheme, The Godfather contains enough inspired missions and powerful sequences that it’s one I’ll play again in the future. The game proves to be a heck of a lot of fun after getting a ways into it, and if you happen to be a collectibles nut then this one is definitely for you. In addition to all of the execution styles you have to figure out and the film reels to collect, there are also safes to crack, businesses to extort, rackets to protect, hit contracts to take out, and mob wars to start… I mean, uh, bring to a peaceful resolution. Um, yeah. There is plenty of game here to enjoy, and the world is large enough that some of its secrets take a very long time to uncover. It helps having excellent writing and a solid story brought to life by an energized cast, which means that replaying it in the future should feel like a fun thing to do rather than a chore.

Tell Mike it was only business. I always liked him. - Tessio

The Godfather is a heck of fun if you let it be. It is very easy, perhaps too much so, to dismiss this one outright as the next in a long line of shameless Grand Theft Auto rip-off’s. But the pleasures are there in the entertaining and challenging missions, excellent writing, terrific voice acting, and the way it recaptures the feeling of one of the greatest American films of all time. It’s hardly a unique video game, but it is a very fun one and at the end of the day that’s what counts.

Better and worse games will come and go but The Godfather is above all things fun and for that reason alone it’s surprisingly easy to look past the faults. Give this one some time and you may just find yourself falling victim to the "just one more mission" syndrome so few titles afflict us with lately.

Gaming Trend Score

88

1. Graphics: 84
2. Audio: 90
3. Controls: 80
4. Gameplay: 92
5. Value/Replay: 89
6. OVERALL:88