by: John Olin

March 21, 2006

The game does mesh with the story of The Godfather pretty well, and if you are a fan it gives you a lot of “Aww that is pretty neat!” moments but then again, it also seems to mesh somewhat bad with others. The scene where Michael Corleone is there to see Vito, has you there waiting in front of the hospital, not the man with the flowers from the movie, and it does seem to bend it a bit, but it doesn’t overdue it at all. The great thing is, towards the end of the game, you eventually will become the Don of the Corleone family in NY, in which that time Michael moves much of their operations to Las Vegas.

There is definitely plenty to do, and the mechanics are somewhat complicated. You are given a respect level that will help indicate where you are in the game, and also it would help if you actually have seen the movie to help give you an idea of where you are in the game as well. There are plenty of meters and things you have to keep track of in the game, but for the most part, as long as you are paying out the cops, and get your respect meter up there, you will be fine. A full review is coming soon, but I spent a good fifteen hours on it and still was probably only half way there. Of course, I did look around a bit. The missions are also fairly hard, and are unforgiving, so anyone who plays this game either better love the movies, love action games, or love games like this. If you were wondering if you need to see the movies to even enjoy the game, yeah it probably would definitely help so that you understand certain parts, but you will at least enjoy the action all the same. To completely understand the mythos, feel, and the music used however, I suggest you rent (or better yet buy) the movie right this instant, and get the game in a few days while you’re at it.



Also like GTA, the game uses the Renderware engine, which thanks to EA buying out the company that owns the Renderware engine, they can squeeze a lot more out of the game visually, than GTA could have ever hoped to. The game also uses the Havok physics engine, which was used in Half-Life 2 and Halo 2 as well. It works especially, well to show the bounce, and a touch of hard control with the vehicles you drive around in. The vehicles themselves let off spectacular sparks, and crash animations, and the particle effects in the game such as fire are done well also. The game overall has a sort of gloom to it that you would expect from a game based on mafia families, and while at times the visuals of the current-gen systems can show there age, for a game as big as this, it is quite impressive.

A lot of the music is done well, taken from the movie, helps the authenticity but some of the music is mixed strangely, trying to give it a more contemporary feel. A lot of the voices are there, or voices that sound similar but a few of the most important voices such as Michael Corleone, and many of the Corleone brothers have been changed a bit. The strange thing is, is that even though the actual actors play the Corleone brothers from the movies, they still sound much different. A lot of this has to do with the fact that they are of course older, but truth be told, James Caan (Sunny), Robert Duvall (Tom Hagen), and plenty more. In all despite the age gap between when they did the part, and the voices in the game, there are twenty actors in all. Marlon Brando’s voice is used throughout some of the game, with the remainder of the part done by a very convincing voice actor. Duvall doesn’t sound to much different than he did, at least in the game, and even Abe Vigoda (Sally) is in there! The game’s soundeffects are all done fairly well, with the guns blast punctuating the violence, and the sickening crunch of breaking someone’s next bringing you deeper into a violent world of crime.

What About Xbox 360?
According to the guys on the Godfather team, they were all about getting started on the game in the beginning, but had to hold off on it due to a longer than expected development process, and getting the current-generation versions out there. The game is coming at sometime towards the end of the year, and the wait should be worth it for those of you who are going to be buying an Xbox 360, or think you can hold off on The Godfather until then. As I understand it, besides vast visual improvements, and Xbox 360 Achievements, the game will also offer more to do, although what that is remains unclear. I guess we will just have to wait until E3, and hopefully we will learn more.

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I know what you are thinking—The Godfather is one of the best (if not the best) damn movie of all time! It is blasphemy that they even think about making a game out of it. I thought the exact same thing about it at first as well. If you can get past that though, those deep seeded feelings, and see the game for what it is, it does follow the movie, and book pretty well, and hopefully this is just the first of a series of Godfather inspired games to come. One thing is for sure though—this is one of the few movie-inspired games that is actually good—is it as good as the movie? No it isn’t. Still, if you are a gamer, and a Godfather game this is one you have to pick up. If you are just a gamer though, you might want rent this offer first, and then see if you can refuse.

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