The Godfather is a decent game with some interesting ideas, but still feels like a missed opportunity. *M
In the game, you assume the identity of a good-boy-going-bad everyman character whose family was cared for by Don Vito Corleone after their father was killed in a mob altercation. The first playable portion dips you nicely into the basic gameplay and melee combat mechanics of the game. The larger-than-life enforcer Luca Brasi saves you from a group of lowlife smalltime gangsters trying to muscle you out of your share of heist loot. Brasi makes quick work of your leader, then rather humorously he forces the other two members of your group to allow you to wail on them while learning the basic fighting controls in the game. These controls are generally well done, and give you a wide array of options when considering how you want to beat and eventually kill, if you deem it necessary, your opponent. Attacks range from knees to the face, various degrees of punch potency, and even flat out tosses to the ground, among many other things of course. The gun controls aren't introduced here, but they are easily picked up as it consists of a lock-on system with an option for free-aim(more on this later). After this, your new friend Luca introduces you to some of the basic objectives of the game, including the methods to activate storyline missions, which normally means talking to a Corleone family member sporting a special symbol above their head. The game is free roaming, and has many features which closely resemble the Grand Theft Auto series, which works both for and against your overall experience, and the aspects which work against you are usually due to comparison to a generally superior product. Basically, though, you have all the time in the world to wander around and do whatever you want, though it is certainly noteworthy that psychotic rampages are not quite as practical and ergo not as satisfying in The Godfather as they are in GTA, though sometimes one can't resist the temptation to shoot a few people in the leg, or needlessly grab onto someone and throw them in front of a car. Other than the series of storyline missions, the main objective in the game is the extortion of local businesses, which are controlled by rival families. The extortion of these businesses is not only a necessary task for completion of the game, but it also provides a significant portion of your revenue, which you need to purchase weapon upgrades and safehouses (where you save your progress), among other things such as clothing (more on character customization later) along your journey. The extortion process involves applying "pressure" on the storekeeper, which is represented by a bar on your screen. Pressure is applied by physically harming the storekeeper, damaging the shop, threatening with weapons and/or combinations of these. The more you pressure the storekeeper, the more money you get from them after each "week", but if you push them too far they will push back, and you either have to kill them, or run away. Running away, as humiliating as it may be, is likely your best option as it allows you to return relatively soon afterward and pick up where you left off. Otherwise, you'll get a sign on the entrance saying that the store has closed up due to a death in the family, which forces you to wait much longer in order to proceed with the extortion. In addition to the initial extortion, many stores serve as fronts for illegal rackets which must be taken over in a similar fashion to the stores themselves. They give you additional funds, but are often guarded more vigilantly by the controlling family, and can be riskier to overtake. It would therefor be wise to always have your ammo reserves topped up by buying new safehouses which usually contain weapons, or by visiting black market venders. It can take you a long time to extort all the businesses and rackets, but with the exception of the repetitive interiors of the buildings, it is generally enjoyable and it can be fun to experiment with different ways of applying pressure on shop-owners. Along with shop and racket extortions, each rival family controls a number of warehouses which serve as hubs for the smuggling activity in a given neighborhood. After having cleared the warehouse of the slew of rival family members which guard it, you get a rather hefty weekly reward for your trouble. The other main "business" from which you are meant to take money is the bank of which there are several branches across the city, and they can all be robbed for a disappointingly small amount of money. Nevertheless, it's something you want to do at least once simply for the sake of knowing you did it.
There is another set of objectives in the game which operate separately from the main missions, and they are a group of "hits" which you may execute (pun intended) at your own pace. Each assassination has a set of optional circumstances that, if met, provide extra rewards in the form of "respect" and money. The respect system allows you to upgrade your abilities, such as you total HP, fighting skills, shooting skills, etc. Respect can also be gained by finding the various hidden "film reels" around the city, similar to the hidden packages and Wang Cars in GTA. Be sure not to forget about these respect upgrades, as they can be handy in the later and tougher missions in the campaign, and can prove important in handling the special circumstances in the "hits" missions. An example of these special circumstances: killing someone by throwing them into an oven as opposed to simply shooting them in the face. These assassinations are generally fun, but can occasionally be frustrating. One hit calls for you to run over the target in a car, but your target almost instantly hides in a train-car when you come near him. That, combined with the half-baked car controls, can make it unnecessarily tricky to kill him.
The main mission campaign is placed for the most part on the same timeline as the plot of the first movie. It runs you through many of the main portions of the movie including Luca's assassination, the "horse-head scene", Don Vito's shooting, the attempted assassination at the Hospital, Sonny's death, etc... Seeing each scene in the fresh perspective of the main character of the game can be neat at times, and it is interesting how they fit you into the scenes; giving a face to some of the unnamed characters in the films and adding an interesting new dynamic to the context. The scenes are acted out by many, though regrettably not all, of the living original actors. The most glaring and devastatingly disappointing absence is that of Al Pacino, who was working on the Scarface game at the time of production. His likeness was not used in the game, and we are forced to be re-introduced to a different Michael Corleone. This character is one of the most important characters in film history, and it is unfortunate that he had to be transformed for the game, though they did an adequate job of recreating him. Other than this, the voice acting is pretty good. James Caan and Robert Duvall's voices are notably more gruff and aged than they were 30 years ago, but their characters do not suffer when they're on their own. The effect isn't quite the same when the characters are conversing with each other, as they are often citing lines from the movie in a much more distant, lame fashion which sort of makes you shake your head. Regardless, it is definitely a treat to see (or at least hear) these fine actors return to their respective career-launching roles.
Once you've worked your way through the story, you'll have probably spent about 10 hours in the game. It culminates with your promotion to Don of the Corleone family, which feels incredibly out of place and is not set up well whatsoever. It provides no tie-in with the events of the film, and it just simply feels lame and tacked on. In order to become Don of the Corleones, however, you must first eliminate the other families by taking over the rival families' compounds in all the 5 neighborhoods in New York, with the exception of Little Italy, since that is the Corleone compound and is already in your control. All of the compounds are pretty much exactly the same and involve shooting past sentries and planting bombs in the basements of the two buildings on the premises. The game is not over there, however, because your ultimate goal is to become Don of NYC. This involves extorting all the businesses in the city. There are also the hidden film reels to discover, and the weapon upgrades to buy, which can get pricey and might take a bit of saving up. Along with the unlockable film scenes, the game delivers a pretty decent bang for you buck, and the entire process will likely take you 15 to 20 hours and possibly more depending on how thorough you are. Despite the brevity of the storyline when compared to the total time you spend in the game, the missions are still pretty well done. Most of them are fun, and they introduce you do some of the characters you didn't get to know very well in the movies as well as introducing a memorable assortment of new ones, which I won't disclose here. The combat mechanics are applied very well in the missions, and except for the occasionally dumb AI and lock-on system you'll probably be finding yourself fiending for more of the delightfully bloody action between each mission.
The basic gameplay engine in The Godfather can be described as a watered-down Grand Theft Auto. The idea of a free-roaming Godfather game is tantalizing, to say the least, and it can certainly be satisfying to explore the nicely rendered '40s version of New York City, with its several neighborhoods including Little Italy, Midtown, Hell's Kitchen, Brooklyn and New Jersey. Each locale has a different combo of cars, pedestrians and architecture appropriate to the real-life areas in NYC. Getting from place to place, however, is a pain. There are only a handful of different cars in the game, and they all control the same way...badly. The cars, in every sense, feel incredibly underdeveloped. They look rough, sound rough, the physics are poor and the control is inconsistent and frustrating. The traffic AI is also very simplistic and annoying. The cars are essentially only useful as a way of getting places quickly, which on the surface doesn't seem too bad, but when you are forced to spend so much time in a car they should at least be fun to drive. That is, after all, the point of playing the game to begin with...to have fun. The gunplay in the game is generally satisfying, and there are a decent amount of period weapons to choose from, though there could be more. They include pistols/revolvers, a Tommy gun, shotgun, various melee weapons such as pipes or baseball bats, and my favorite...the explosives which take the form of sticks of dynamite, molotovs and bombs, which can be used to crack safes or destroy shops and/or buildings and cars. The weapons are fun to use, and there is a decent amount of control variety to keep things convenient and interesting. The ability to automatically conform to available cover at the press of a button is certainly a lovely addition when used in conjunction with the sometimes-stupid lock-on system. Unfortunately the system hasn't got a brain, as you occasionally are stuck struggling to acquire a target who is having at it right next to you. Nevertheless, the weapons and the combat system in general is fun to use. While you're using these toys, though, you're sure to garner some attention from the police. The "wanted" system is similar to GTA; you commit a crime and your wanted level (referred to here as "Heat") rises. Once it gets high enough, the police will start coming at you full force. Before that, however, you'll hardly notice them, which is a little strange. You can decrease the amount of pressure put on you by the police by offering bribes to beat officers who are scattered across the map. Similarly, there is a Vendetta meter which increases when you commit a crime against another mob family, usually it means killing a member of that family. If you make them mad enough, it will start a mob war. If you're caught in enemy territory during these wars, they will start shooting at you. These wars are not well explained, and only if you're lucky you'll discover that the easiest way to "win" the war is to bribe FBI agents who are found in the basement of most of the churches in the city. Otherwise, after the time which appears on-screen elapses, you'll get a notice saying that you've "lost" the war, and that several of your businesses have been bombed. Also similar to GTA, when you die you are revived in a medical clinic, though there is little or no penalty for this, and it will probably happen to you a lot. There are times when there are quite a few baddies coming for you, and you just will not be able to fend them all off. Either that, or the idiotic AI will have you trapped between two vehicles on the verge of exploding. Either way, the hospital shouldn't be feared. It makes you no less of a (wo)man if you spend a few nights there.
Like GTA: San Andreas your character is customizable, though in a slightly different way. After the initial cutscene, the game allows you to alter the appearance of your character in many ways: Height, weight, an extensive array of facial features and hair, various types of clothing to buy, etc... This is a nice feature, and can be fun to experiment with. It can be interesting to change the appearance of your character as the story unfolds, and compare his appearance at the end to the beginning, adding a nice little self-induced cinematic flair to the proceedings.
The visuals in The Godfather are fairly well done, in that they are atmospheric and the character's facial textures in particular are very true to their real-life cohorts (with the exception of Michael, of course). There are some areas of the game that look a little underdone, as I mentioned before with the vehicles in particular. In general, though, the city looks great, and most of the characters look good despite the lack of variety in enemy/pedestrian models. The game scales decently well on lower end PCs, so you shouldn't have to worry too much about if you can run it or not.
Audio for the most part is good. There are nice combat sound-effects which correspond well with your actions, and all the guns sound appropriate. There is a decent amount of variety in the conversations of pedestrians, but needless to say they are no-where near as quirky as those in the GTA games. The music in the game is dynamic, dramatic, generally well composed, but often inappropriately applied. There are strange moments when you'll be hearing very intense music in a relatively peaceful period of gameplay, and visa-versa.
The Godfather is a decent and enjoyable package from EA and was certainly a welcomed idea to the gaming community. Unfortunately, the game is the victim of many flaws, and also the victim of comparison. When someone has a product and slaps the name of a franchise as synonymous with greatness as The Godfather, there is an inherent expectation from consumers that the product be at least somewhat as great as its title. Alas, this is not the case here. When the big picture is looked at, and the movie license is stripped away, The Godfather is a merely decent game which relies far too heavily on its title for value. I would certainly recommend it to fans of the series, as it does capture some of the Coppola magic from the films and it does have many intriguing gameplay features which add to its overall value. There are, though, similar games on the market, most notably the Grand Theft Auto series, which offer the same basic gameplay in a much more enjoyable and thorough package. I would give this game a rental if you're interested in it.
P.S: for PC players...don't be surprised if the game doesn't support your gamepad...EA's marvelous track record for glitches is in full force in this game, too.