The Godfather II Review

Written by: Darren Cartledge Posted: 9th April 2009

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We join the family business with this review.

The Godfather II Details:

	Third Person Shooter
	PC/PlayStation 3/Xbox 360
	EA Redwoord Studio
	EA Games

18+

Out Now

The Godfather trilogy is one of the most famous and applauded in the film industry. So it’s no wonder EA got a piece of the pie with their 2006 game based on the original film. Now here is the obvious sequel based on the second movie in Mario Puzo’s trilogy. The Godfather II is an open world third person shooter. Similar to Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto IV which it is obviously going to be compared to by many gamers and critics alike. However, unlike the many games that simply try to copy Rockstar’s crime filled formula The Godfather II takes a much more business like approach?

The game is loosely based on the second movie of The Godfather trilogy, set in the 1950’s and sees your character, Dominic promoted to Don of New York by Michael Corelone. You are assigned with building up your family and taking control of New York, however your interests will soon expand beyond the city limits as you look for new business opportunities in other places.

Instead of focusing the games action from a third person shooter perspective EA has also introduced an element of strategy with the Don’s View. This gives you a bird’s eye view of the city and allows you to plan you family’s moves, call in favours, assign guards to protect your interests and so forth. This really adds a level of depth to the game and makes you think ahead, especially since your interests in one city can come under attack from rival families even if you are away in another city.

The Don’s view also allows you to see which businesses form a crime ring! Crime Rings award your family a bonus such as access to better weapons, bullet proof vest armoured cars and so on. This feature comes in particularly useful if a family has access to a particular bonus and is causing you problems. You can make them lose access to it by successfully taking it over or if you don’t have the man power to do that! Try blowing it up or setting it on fire, which will close a business down for a number of days and make your rivals lose their bonus. As you’re the Don you also don’t actually have to get involved in taking over rackets and so on. Using the Don’s view you can actually try to take over a business simply by sending your men to do the work. This also allows you hit more then one place at the same time making it harder for a rival family to send reinforcements and adding a real strategy element.

Of course, mob life was all about getting paid and in The Godfather II this is done by putting the squeeze on business owners and The Godfather II implements an extremely violent combat method for you to utilise in order to achieve this. In fact the level of violence in The Godfather II can seem excessive and somewhat gratuitous, but then you have to remember the mob was never known for the gently-gently approach. The level of violence on show in the Godfather II even overshadows that of the Grand Theft Auto games, something for which they are famed for. This is demonstrated by being able to perform execution moves on rival family members with any of the weapons in your arsenal. Such as sticking a Tommy gun in an enemy’s mouth while he’s on his knees and blowing his brains out! If that’s not to your taste how about strangling a foe to death or simply throwing them off the side of a building! However, as extreme as it may seem the violence in The Godfather II isn’t used out of context! Whilst there have been many games that include over the top violence, simply to cause an outrage The Godfather II offers a glimpse into the violent and brutal world of organised crime and the methods used by mobster to extort businesses.

Of course, living the life of a Don you wouldn’t get any where without your family and you recruit men to join the family. This gives you access to the required skills you’ll need in order to takeover rackets, such as hiring a demolitions expert, safecracker, a bruiser and so on. As you progress through the game you can also promote your men. This makes them stronger and gives the access to new skills. You can have any of the men you have hired as part of you crew or have them guard your businesses or go out and try to acquire new interests for you family and so on. The games A.I is pretty good here, and these computer controlled family members seem to have a pretty good idea of how to go about mob life, which is a refreshing change in the genre.

During the early stages of the game, as you start to build your empire you may feel fairly comfortable with the games difficulty. However, during this “early stage” it is often emphasised that your rival family is weak. As you progress it soon becomes apparent why! New families you come up against pose a much greater challenge. They’ll attack your businesses, reinforce their men more often and simply seem tougher. Enemy A.I is pretty good and offers a decent challenge, it’s actually nice to play a game that gives you the feeling the computer controlled characters are actually trying to kill you.

The Godfather II features many missions and favours to do for people and should keep you occupied for a fair amount of time. The missions usually require you to shoot hell out of everyone and so on. The game also features several online modes to further increase its longevity. This includes an online Don Control mode that allows you to recruit other players into your family using funds acquired from the single player mode. Don Control allows up to sixteen players to battle it out on six multiplayer maps. Unfortunately we were unable to test the games online modes during the review.

We tested both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game and whilst there aren’t really any differences between the two versions. The PS3 version does make use of the six-axis controller for some of the intimidation movies. However, using this control method doesn’t seem to work as well as the analogue stick system on the 360 version. And can sometimes result in you unintentionally killing someone when trying to put the squeeze on them. As this is an important part of the game and required, for you to take over rackets! It can be a little frustrating when it occurs.

Visually The Godfather II is a good looking game, with very little to complain about.. EA has done a good job of creating a living city with lots of building and small alleys you can enter. NPC’s go about their day to day business when things are quiet However, when mayhem breaks out the street soon clears as civilians run for cover. The game environment can seem a little claustrophobic at times though, as action seems to be concentrated in small areas. Character models are good and feature a nice amount of detail. It’s also nice to see the non-playable characters not being repeated too often. However, the facial expressions of characters can be a little doll like at times and fail to convey the level of intensity required. The games audio design has been done well. Voice acting, is very believable and much of the game script has been taken out of the movie. The game features a good soundtrack that is fitting with the time period and also includes the movie theme music.

As already mentioned The Godfather II is going to be compared to Grand Theft Auto IV, and whilst the game doesn’t provide as a complete playing experience as Rockstar’s open world shooter! It is some what grittier, tries news things and will immerse you into its world of organised crime. It’s nice to see a title that can hold it’s own, even if it may not make it as the Godfather of open world shooter. Well worth a look!