Godfather is a semi-fun game that has salvageable missions that redeem it from no free roam and the banality of Mob Wars

User Rating: 6.9 | The Godfather: Mob Wars PSP
Godfather Mob Wars is a port from the game that was released months earlier for other consoles and for PC. Mob Wars takes a different approach from its console counterparts by removing missions, eliminating driving altogether, and adds a ‘card’ game (which was noted to be similar to the board game Risk by Gamespot.)

The general looks and feel of Godfather is superb, although the actual mission gameplay feels very much like it was ripped off a flop game, 007 From Russia with Love, released earlier this year for PSP (see my review). This inherently makes the gameplay poor and irritating. As far as graphics, they have been made very well, and this too can be a problem with frames freezing and general slowdowns.

Mob Wars is an attempt to replace lost missions and free-roam from the console editions, and it is not executed very well. Instead of experiencing the action of The Godfather the film, we are tossed into a complicated card game that has its own complex instructions that hinder a gamer from getting into a plot. While the console and computer editions of Godfather allowed free-roam in order to extort businesses, Mob Wars unfortunately haphazardly deals with this. EA’s choice in removing free-roam was a poor one. Although you might not want to keep this game after one complete playing, it is too long for a weekend renting. The missions not only get tedious but many are naggy and have very sluggish framerates. You might find yourself boxed in a corner cutting into a wall as guys pummel you to death. Sometimes enemies attack from unknown areas, although a HUD shows them. The controls basically define a good PSP game, and unfortunately EA decided to copy much from a failed Bond game. This PSP edition misses on a lot of things from the consoles which made them fun. Nevertheless, the mission mode is fairly long and entertaining, filled with many cutscene interludes.

GRAPHICS: 8/10 (Really great, detailed characters. Scenery decently done. Blatant framerate issues)

SOUND: 6/10 (Voice acting and cutscene sounds are decent for PSP game)

CONTROLS: 5/10 (Fairly complex, esp. hand-to-hand combat, yet intuitive. Your character can do quite a bit of things that involved using many fingers at once.)

DIFFICULTY: 8/10 (Shooting missions tend to get gritty, especially with poor reload time and inability to gain cover. Mob Wars is fairly hard and losing means certain takeover.)

VALUE: 4/10 (Not much replay value, actually not much playing value either in Mob Wars, but great video clips from the original movie)

LOAD TIMES: MEDIUM (Enough to irritate. Also, very, very slow to resume from sleep.)

OVERALL: 7/10 (Decent, fairly lengthy mission mode with expected issues)