Grand Theft Auto - The Godfather
The gameplay of The Godfather is extremely similar to Grand Theft Auto. If you have played any of the more recent GTA games like Vice City or San Andreas you will be very comfortable with the gameplay. The goal of the game is to become the Godfather after starting out as a nobody in the family. To complete this goal you have to complete various missions and take over businesses to increase your respect within the family. Taking over businesses requires you to persuade the owner to allow the Carleone family to provide protection for a weekly fee. The persuasion process involves destroying the cash register, meat counter, cigar closet, etc. There are various neighborhoods that other crime families have control of that can be reached by car or walking. Read the gamespot review for more info on the gameplay. The gameplay is the highlight of this game since it is based on the very successful formula that GTA established.
The controls of the game felt different than GTA even though I have played GTA in awhile. In order to fist fight someone, you have to lock onto them with L1 and then use the right analog stick to punch them. It was difficult to go from one enemy to the next with the L1 locking option. I did enjoy the option of after locking on a character, you could move the target to the arm or head and take out the enemy that way. You can also manually move the target to the enemy. You cycle through your weapons using the direction pad which was awkward. The controls took a little while to get used to.
I was highly disappointed in the graphics. The animated characters had a white line around them that distinguished them from the backgrounds in a bad way. Visually the backgrounds like the buildings, streets, vehicles, characters, and inside buildings looked crisp, but the white line troubled me. There was no graphical distinction between one barber shop, cigar shop, tailor or another. Most male characters are wearing a suit or at least a tie and most of the women wear dresses. The look of the characters seemed to fit the time period.
I had no problems with the sound in this game. When dynamite goes off when you are opening a safe, it sounds realistic. You can hear the bullets whizzing towards you. From the view cut scenes that I watched, the voice acting seemed to be well done. The actors played their parts very well and did not overdue any dialog. You can really hear the fear in the business owners voice when you have them ready to accept your protection. I wish the characters walking around the city had more lines.
Overall, I thought this was a good game, but I don’t plan on buying it. If you are looking for another GTA game with a different story and slightly different approach then this is your game. EA should have spent a little more time ironing out the graphics.