The Godfather 2 Review - Xbox Gaming in South Africa

The first Godfather game took one of the greatest movies ever made and attempted to recreate the film using a mixture of free form GTA missions and star power to lure gamers into its vision of New York. Unfortunately, gamers weren't too pleased with the GTA-lite gamplay and fans of the film were disappointed with the liberties taken with the story. Can EA redeem themselves with this second Godfather game, or will it sleep with the fishes?

First off, EA has decided that the GTA model had to go, so they've thrown out the mission structure from the first game. Rather, they've decided to make Godfather 2 a unique combination of Risk style gameplay and hands-on dirty work. It's very similar to Scarface: The World is Yours, in that you have to build your family up by slowly taking over businesses, and strong arming rival families out of your turf. EA has also decided that rather than trying to recreate the events of the film, Godfather 2 will present a story that runs parallel to events in the film. You'll start off in Cuba with Hyman Roth proposing a joint venture for all the families in Cuba. This truce is short lived though, as Cuba is thrown into turmoil with the outbreak of the Communist revolution. The tutorial level finds you fighting your way through to the airport as you try to make your escape to New York. From here on out you're tasked with taking over New York, Florida and finally Cuba as you gun your way to the top.

The game itself is split into two parts, the strategic map of the city you're currently in showing all the businesses and family compounds, and the city level where you can drive around with three other members of your family to try and take over businesses. The strategic map allows you to control the number of guards at each of your businesses, as well as sending any of your made men to businesses where rival families are attacking you... and attack you they will. Every few minutes you'll either need to rush over to a battle against another family or hope that your guards can hold their own. It should make the game more strategic but all it does is add a bit of irritation that distracts you from whatever mission you're currently busy with.

As for the missions themselves, they usually entail you making your way to a business, shooting 20 guards or more and then punching up the business owner until he agrees to hand over his takings to you. Rinse and repeat that a hundred times and you have the game in a nutshell. Yes, there are some side missions you can do such as robbing banks but they're not the real meat of the game and are few and far between so as to make no difference. In addition, random strangers constantly ask you to beat up, kill or smash someone or someplace in return for money, favours or information on how to kill the other families' made men. Now unless I'm very much mistaken, it doesn't seem right that the head of the Corleone family should be running petty errands for nobodies on the street. They should be the ones begging favours from him. While the core gameplay manages to hold your attention for the first hour or two of the game, from there on out it becomes more of a chore to work your way through as you move from New York to Florida and then Cuba.

On the positive side, the gunfights are fun to play through, with gunfire that has a powerful feel to it and some brutal execution moves that you can use on downed opponents. There's also a rudimentary cover system and auto-targeting which both work well. The AI of your made men is competent enough to prevent them from running head long into enemy fire so there can be few complaints on that front. After a few missions are done, a cutscene is normally triggered that is used to drive on the game's story but for the most part, the plot of the game is non-existent and makes far too little use of the movies' rich history. It's also interesting to note that the number of original actors' voices used in the game is far less than the first game; with only Robert Duvall returning as Tom Hagen, while the remainder of the characters use competent sound-alikes. Speaking of characters, the graphics used throughout Godfather 2 are remarkable for their mediocrity with character models looking downright ugly at times and even though you might travel from the US to Cuba, you'll be hard pressed to see any beauty in the cities you traverse with bystanders all looking like cardboard cutout replicas and cityscapes that show no semblance of creativity in the slightest. When compared to the streets of Liberty City, Godfather 2's environments look mediocre and could have done with far more work.

Godfather 2 is a game that manages to show us that EA are still apt to releasing shameless cash-ins with the best of them. The game doesn't seem confident enough to step out from under the weight of the movie licence it bears, and its too afraid to step on the toes of film buffs. The end result is a game that feels like it only toes the middle line in hopes of pandering to the lowest common denominator. There are a few bright ideas scattered throughout Godfather 2, so gamers with the patience to look past its flaws will be rewarded. As Michael Corleone said, "I'll change; I'll change. I've learned that I have the strength to change."

Pros: