Gaming Trend

Gaming Trend Review

The Sopranos

1. Official Site
2. Platform: PS2
3. Publisher: THQ
4. Developer: THQ
5. Release Date: 11/14/06
6. Genre: Action/Adventure

by Mitch Youngblood

If this reviewer can be honest for a moment I would like to take this space to express how mortified I am at the thought of receiving another package with the THQ stamp on it. After receiving then burning through their latest rip-off cash-in of a popular show, in this case HBO’s The Sopranos, I no longer have faith that they are capable of publishing anything approaching quality.

About 30 seconds into The Sopranos: Road To Respect the player will find themselves staring at one of the ugliest and most lifeless games to hit the PS2 in a long time. Roughly 30 seconds after that they’ll find themselves entranced by James Gandolfini’s roaring Tony Soprano barking orders at them. So begins the relatively short journey down the "road to respect" because a full minute into the game was when Yours Truly begin to think things were not quite as well realized as they could have been.

As a fan of the show when it first debuted, the above opinion also applies to the HBO mega-hit itself. A show with practically limitless talent and roads for storytelling opts most frequently for the cheap one-off episode that bears little to no consequence throughout a season until the final one or two episodes. In other words, nothing of much importance happens until near the ending and the same could definitely be said about the game.

The graphics score would actually be lower but the character models for the primary cast members were very well done. The shame of it is that remains the only impressive visual trick in the entire game. Do not get me wrong, it is extremely cool to walk up to a guy that looks fairly close to Tony Soprano and hear Gandolfini’s voice bellow forth. But when you walk around a generic dock or a generic parking lot or a generic hospital you start to draw the conclusion that this was entirely a rush job. Games this bland, in terms of the visuals and other aspects, do not result from hard work, love, and attention to detail.

As for the regular character models, they are serviceable but none of the generic characters, of which there are dozens, stand out as well as the stars do. Heck, even the majority of the non-player characters just stand around or sit around and don’t interact with the environment. There are a few exceptions when one of them opens a door and walks through it, but otherwise people just stand still in one drab level after another.

Maybe if there was more of a world to explore then there wouldn’t be so much to complain about, but the game limits players to very constricted locales. I snickered when my new assignment, following a successful mission, was to "explore." All well and good but it started me in the parking lot of the Bada Bing and wouldn’t let me walk more then a few feet to either side. So by "explore" the game actually meant "go inside the Bada Bing and start your next mission."

Yes, it is as boring as it sounds.

The true highlight of this otherwise awful game is the voice acting by the principle cast from the show. Star Gandolfini owns the screen every time he steps up just as he does on HBO. There is a great extra in the menu of a recording session where we see Gandolfini shouting at the man who voices the main character. The scene they’re working on is right at the start of the game and watching Gandolfini grow increasingly animated is a fun sight. Once they’re done recording the other actor just grins ear-to-ear like any fan of the show would were they given a chance to go toe-to-toe with the big man himself.

It saddened me that a five minute extra provided more entertainment than the rest of the game, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

The other crew members all step up to the plate and nail their characters as well. I’ve long been a fan of the Paulie Walnuts character, primarily because he looks exactly like my grandfather did while I was growing up, and character actor Tony Sirico is excellent as always. Ditto Michael Imperioli as Chris-ta-fur Moltisanti and Steve Van Zandt at Silvio Dante. It is great fun listening to them bicker back and forth and throw orders in your face.

The remaining effects are pretty weak overall. Heck, even a handgun sounds more like a pop gun than anything else. For the most part, the focus of the sound effects was on the voice acting which is, as noted, terrific. In between the lengthy cinematic sequences of never ending exposition are the action scenes fueled by the sounds of doors opening... and chain link fences sliding shut... and the clanking of various objects against people’s skulls. No, there isn’t a whole lot going on outside of the voice acting.

Like most everything associated with this game, the controls leave a lot to be desired. Almost every fight winds up devolving into a flurry of button mashing which quickly tires one’s hands out. Whenever you engage an enemy, which averages out to about every 30 seconds or so, the camera will sometimes pull a 180 and go from looking over your shoulder to staring you in the face. This happens most frequently when in a confined room, but what makes it especially painful is that the two or three guys in the room will get to you in the time it takes to rotate the camera around so you can see what’s going on. The camera randomly spinning around and obscuring your view really doesn’t help in confined areas with several bad guys breathing down your neck.

That’s also just the start of the misery fun.

When your character finds himself in a fight the two key buttons are X and square. The X button is for a light attack and the square button is for a heavy attack. As you progress you’ll unlock more powerful versions of these but the basic controls remain the same throughout the game. You have to hold the L1 button to pull out your gun which then auto-tracks the nearest target. Hit R1 to pull the trigger but note you only have 16 rounds in the handgun. I found a shotgun later in the game that only carried about five rounds so don’t expect much in the way of machine guns or rocket launchers.

The triangle button actually winds up being one of your best friends in combat because that picks up a weapon. The key thing to remember though is when you actually have a weapon in hand like a tire iron or hacksaw, you have to hit the X button to use it. The circle button comes into play whenever you want to grab someone during a fight. When the enemy is stunned, hit the circle button to grab them by the shirt and if you’re near something in the environment that can be used against them you’ll be prompted to hit the triangle button. This initiates a "special move" which, if pulled off successfully, usually leaves your foe on the ground.

Why all of this gets a low score is that none of it is intuitive or responsive. Whenever you’re trapped on the ground underneath a bad guy and he’s pounding on you, rapidly hitting buttons may reverse your situation but if his friends hit you then its back to the floor you go. It’s very easy to find yourself trapped in a vicious cycle of button mashing and frustration during combat. Unless you grab a weapon off the ground before the rumble starts in which case the fights are over in about four seconds.

Say your character runs into a room and a fight initiates, but one of the enemies gets to you before you can move. He grabs your character and a tussle ensues. The both of you fall to the ground with him pinning you down and he starts punching your character in the face. A prompt will come up that shows you have to rapidly hit the X and square buttons as fast as possible to flip him off of you. So you pound your controller as though your life depended on it and you flip the enemy over onto his back. Then his friends come up behind you and smack you with a two by four and suddenly you’re pinned on your back again.

Now repeat this process for five or six minutes straight and you now know what close quarters combat feels like in The Sopranos.

This is easily 80 percent of the entire game with the remaining 20 percent devoted to talking. Yup, the ability to talk to people in either a taunting, neutral, or smooth manner completes the terrible fighting mechanics to make a complete game. Somehow though this reviewer was left not feeling whole so much as ripped off because a bad fighting game where you can taunt, bore, or smooth talk your way through situations is about as emotionally fulfilling as punching a jackass.

Oh, but what about the mini-games the developers put in? Well, when you run through a casino you can play the slots. When you’re in the back room of the Bada Bing you can play poker with the boys. Certainly when you get in fights you’ll wind up punching buttons like a maniac. If you’re wondering whether that’s all for the mini-games then wonder no longer. This game is not exactly long on substance, or entertainment, and none of these so-called "mini-games" will hold your attention for longer than you can blink.

So why do I cite below that this game is well-written but still doesn’t make sense in the context of the Sopranos universe? Let me explain the narrative to you and just see where you lose interest. Players take control of Joey LaRocca, the bastard child of former Sopranos right-hand "Big Pussy." Sometime after he turned rat and was taken out by his friends (spoiler) his son Joey gets taken in by the Sopranos clan and offered work. Along the way, the ghost of "Big Pussy" and Joey hold lengthy conversations and never once does Joey ever think maybe he’s just a little insane. Along the journey to becoming a made man, Joey takes turns working for every man under Tony Soprano including Tony’s son AJ.

If you lost interest at the beginning of the previous paragraph then you’re not alone. I got bored just writing the thing and Yours Truly has played through the whole game.

Trying to think up reasons why one would want to replay this game is akin to conjuring excuses to kick yourself between the legs. You know it’s a bad idea that is only going to result in a lot of pain, and no good will come from it. But for the masochists among us, and you know who you are, know that after you play poker for the first time with the boys of the Bada Bing then you can play it again from the main menu. There is also the option to pay Paulie tribute and unlock concept artwork which is also available through the main menu. Otherwise, you’re better off watching an episode of the show to get your Sopranos fix.

Games like The Sopranos: Road to Respect make me hate my job. Titles like this make a person in my position want to throw in the towel because it’s just not worth it. For the sake of the people in our profession, please quality check titles before publishing them. If at any point in the testing you sense an urgency to find something sharp and jab yourself with it repeatedly then make a mental note that it’s the fault of a poor game. Also, if word of how awful this game is gets back to the locals in New Jersey, you might have a problem of a different sort on your hands. Consider this a friendly heads-up from a concerned citizen.

Gaming Trend Score

47

1. Graphics: 60
2. Audio: 80
3. Controls: 64
4. Gameplay: 30
5. Value/Replay: 20
6. OVERALL:47