A great game based on the film, with a few new characters. It makes one feel the dangers and works of a classic mobster.
History (you are not required to read this for the review to make perfect sense): Your father is killed at the orders of Don Emilio Barzini, who happens to be the leader of the strongest Family in New York. You witness your first act of "business." Despite the famous line, "It's not personal, it's strictly business," there is always going to be crime done for personal reasons. Many acts in the world are out of feelings. However, it is wisest to never let one's feelings get in the way of their judgement, for it can take it to a bad level of pressure. The beginning of the game is the beginning of your immigrant's tale. With the part about immigration left out. You are in the world of 1940s New York, where five mafia Families have taken over the city as if their own. Anyone that is in danger would never be alive for long without the protection of any one Family. You are pushed to join the Corleone Family (a good choice at that, not that you get much choice..). You have their friendship, protection, and a small cut of their power as long as you remain loyal. The game's beginning, where you have no upgrade to any health or speed or etc. at all, gives a good feeling about how dangerous the path that you have chosen in the game would be in real life (you can die as many times as you wish in the game, but when you die without trying to, it gives me a good feeling of how efficient the kill is, and makes me smile in a way that makes me seem eccentric. Of course, many writers are eccentric, so I don't deny I am..). The game has a good pace and side missions (what better side missions than contract hits!?) to go with the main plot. The main missions are done much better than the hits. This would be a reason why the game can get boring after you finish all hits, missions, and extortion. You still have banks to rob and secrets to find however. There are very few glitches (I've encountered one so far) and some interesting but hard to find secrets to it. One of the secrets, trying to find a film reel, involve blasting your way through a lot of people that look like they belong in hotel staff (red uniform with buttons and all.). The secrets, though, make up a small portion of the game. The extortion is one of the more fun things.
Extortion is a simple classic. The extortion in this game is basically what we already know (if you've seen the episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus where the mafia tries to extort a military base) and what we're about to learn. Some extortion is just plain fun, like smashing up a person's smoke shop, torching innocents in the bakery's oven, killing mobsters in front of a store owner's face, and beating the store owner himself. A lot of swearing can be witnessed here (one of the racket bosses showed a pretty rude gesture to me) but that can be just hilarious ("Where the **** did Paulie go!?"). And if the swearing isn't your thing, well, this game is rated M.
The main missions and the fighting is what the game is all about. The fighting consists of hand-to-hand combat, and shooting combat. The hand-to-hand combat is what the most fun type of fighting in this game is. You move the right thumbstick up to punch, back and then up for a pretty strong punch that would knock an opponent's teeth out, and move the thumbstick upper right/left for a different attack. This can get pretty fun after a while. You can also grab people and beat them silly, while you can kick people in the head while they are zoning out of conciousness on the ground. The shooting combat is mainly like GTA. You aim using the left trigger, and obviously fire using the right trigger. you can aim at different locations to see various effects (knee to get them off their feet, shoulder/arm to disarm them, stomach to make them spit some blood out for a second, and head to instantly kill them). This can get pretty fun.
The missions are based mainly on The Godfather film's plot. The missions include getting vengeance for Mr. Bonasera, driving Don Corleone to the hospital to save his dear life, getting at Paulie Gatto for betrayal, and killing the heads of the Five Families. The missions can be short or long. There aren't too many missions, which is what makes me a bit unhappy, but you should be able to keep the game at a steady pace if you do missions, extortion, contract hits, and bank hits at good timing. The missions are generally well done, with plenty of action, and some of them with a good feeling of the film (ex. Clemenza shooting Stracci in the elevator). Other than that, you get to shoot. A lot. Which means you get to kill just as much. This game is not meant for people with picky mothers. There is a lot of blood, swearing, and organized crime in this game. This game is also not meant for people who think they are the Simon Cowell of GameSpot. Those people will just pick out the tiny details and put it in their reviews to give the game a bad name. Some people would shoot you for that. However, people will not kill you for merely disliking the game. I even bought the game as a used game (checked for quality, obviously.). A smart person would rent a game or read up reviews of a game that they are interested in before buying. Play demos, watch gameplay videos, do what you need to do to not tell the world you wasted your money on buying a game. A smart person is what people like. So be a smart person and "Don't do anything stupid." (That's in quotes because some of the mobsters in the game say that when you attack them)