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The Godfather Review

Jon Wilcox

28/03/2006

TVG joins the mafia in Electronic Arts' adaptation of Puzo and Coppola's works...

Delayed from its original end of 2005 release date, Electronic Arts' adaptation of The Godfather based on both the movie by Francis Ford Coppola and the novel by Mario Puzo, finally arrives on the current-gen consoles and PC. Xbox 360 and PSP versions are expected to follow later in the year, and TVG will have further coverage of those in the future.

Set across the same ten-year period of the movie between 1945 and 1955, The Godfather sees players begin as an unknown crook given the opportunity to rise through the ranks of the infamous Corleone family in New York City and become mob-boss of the entire city. During the game, players will find themselves in the background of many key events from the movie, including the iconic horse's head moment, as well as helping to spread the family's influence across the other NYC districts. Players will find themselves planting the gun used by Michael Corleone in the restaurant scene, and racing Don Vito to hospital after the attack outside the barber shop, which keep the links between the game and the movie/novel going. The latest attempt to bring a sandbox experience to rival Rockstar's infamous Grand Theft Auto franchise, The Godfather features a number of side-missions and objectives away from the main storyline of the game, which aim to introduce the sort of variety that fans of GTA are used to in such an environment.

In addition to the sandbox elements found in the game, there's also a certain level of Role-Play in The Godfather with the inclusion of Experience-like 'Respect' levels, which increase as players complete the various 'quest' missions. Following the initial creation of the player's character, additional attributes including Shooting, Fighting, and even 'Street Smarts' aim to develop the strength of the character as the game progresses however It's quite difficult to assess how much of an impact these attributes have to the overall experience of the game because The Godfather doesn't have the same scope of full-blown RPG and MMO titles. Character development on a more superficial scale, where players can buy different clothes and hairstyles, is a much more tangible and successful element in the game (though the idea of introducing gameplay-changing attributes, such as the ability to improve the likelihood of bribing a cop, is something that should be recognised).

Besides the main plotline, The Godfather features a number of side-mission types that aim to entice players to explore the rest of the city. Hit missions, where players are given a target and gain a further bonus if that person is killed in a specified way, are one such mission-type that runs alongside the story of the Corleones. Despite this particular side mission being perhaps a tad too samey, it's worth noting that it would have been all too easy for the developers just to provide gamers with a Hit target and allow them to kill that person any way they see fit. But by giving them an incentive to murder in a specific way, the game throws in more of a challenge. One of the more common side-mission types is extortion and racketeering, where players take protection money from many of the businesses throughout New York.

Split into two distinct areas, certain businesses will have a legitimate operation fronting a more seedy side, for instance, a butcher store may hide an illegal casino. In such extortion missions, which raise the player's monthly income (after the Corleones have taken their cut) and also improve the level of respect with the family, players have to coerce the owners into paying protection money to the Corleones than one of the other families. Using scare tactics and threats, players increase the likelihood of an owner cracking, but there's always the risk that taking it too far will send them over the edge and fight back. If the extortion works, players then get the chance to take over the racket, which simply amounts to handing over a certain amount of cash to the main racketeer.

Whilst one of the stronger ideas in the game, it's fair to say that the racketeering isn't taken quite to the extent that it could have been. Going back to the illegal casino idea, why can't then play some poker or roulette? Hopefully further development of the ideas will be implemented if EA decides to continue with the second and third parts of The Godfather trilogy. Further side-missions include a GTA-like 'collect 100 film reels', which unlock snippets from the film; not particularly original the component is unlikely to be achieved by many gamers not because of its difficulty but because there's no motivation to seek them in the first place.

In addition EA has created a rivalry system in the game, so that players can try to take over the whole of New York City for the Corleones. The other families, which have their own businesses and safe compounds, are all rated on their toughness across the city so starting a mob war with one in particular may not be the best move to make. When a mob war is started, usually when a player pushes his Vendetta meter with another family too far ( generally accomplished when they kill a few too many of their members), the Corleone's businesses and family members are themselves open to attack. Such wars are ended when a player either bombs a couple of the rival family's own businesses or by bribing a federal agent.

As with sandbox titles, travelling is a massive aspect of the gameplay in The Godfather (and in this game, perhaps a little too much). Hijacking cars and driving around the mean streets of New York form a significant part of the game experience, and as such it's good to see that generally EA has managed to convey the weight and handling of the heavy cars of the 1940s to a good degree. It does however mean that the occasional ramp opportunities are lost thanks to their tank like dynamics though some cars are faster than others and have a lot more agility.

Perhaps one of the more satisfying aspects of The Godfather is its combat system, which allows players to act like thugs as they terrorise the streets of New York. The ability to throw an opponent to the ground, drag them back to their feet, or push them through a broken window really helps to create the realisation that the Corleones aren't a group to be messing with. The idea that pulling back on a thumbstick then pushing it should simulate throwing a punch is great, and it actually works quite well. Away from the melee attacks, The Godfather is full of guns from snub pistols through to the good ol' Tommy Gun and Magnum that can be collected from the bodies of victims. Aiming does get a little cumbersome at times, especially when players are faced with more than one enemy, though it is balanced out a bit by the ability to duck and take cover around walls.

Characters in the game can be shot (as you'd expect from such a game), though EA has also implemented key areas on the bodies such as shoulders and knees, which enables gamers to stop an enemy in their tracks. A solid enough idea, its execution isn't quite as good as it should be; an enemy shot in the knee soon gets up from the floor with no sign of the injury that he should have, removing some of the believability of the situation. It just makes the idea feel a tad unpolished and incomplete.

With all the bloodshed in the game, including the tens of different styles of execution included in the game (a machine gun to the face or a broken neck are just two examples), it's perhaps no surprise that the NYPD, made up of pretty much the entire Irish ex-pat community, feature quite heavily in the game. With a similar system to GTA (except stars are replaced with police badges), players will find themselves chased by more and more police as they commit worse crimes. Introducing a bribery system, where the local police force will turn a blind eye, is a really neat idea that allows players to (on occasion) literally get away with murder although a high amount of Street Smart attributes is required for the cops to turn a blind eye to certain crimes.

Despite creating an environment that manages to reflect the time-period well, such as using the obvious stylised cars and clothing of the 1940s/1950s, and reducing the colour so it's almost desaturated at times, there's something definitely lacking in the gameworld of The Godfather and that's scope. Whereas in Rockstar's gameworld players feel part of a sprawling metropolis, the New York City developed by EA feels artificial and narrow. Buildings border pretty much every road leaving players with little choice but to drive between different locations. There's a lot of travel in the game, which for a majority of the time is incident free, and it's this rigid structure to the game world that actually pushes players away from deviating from the main story-driven missions. It also doesn't help that architecturally the city feels quite samey, despite the addition of several New York landmarks such as the Empire State Building and the Flat Iron Building and EA adding street names to the city, leaving it difficult for players to really know their way around the various routes.

As with most games developed at EA, the overall production values of The Godfather are quite high. It's been well documented that the likes of James Caan and Robert Duvall returned to roles that helped bring them into the limelight, together with a recreation of Don Vito played by the late Marlon Brando. An important character in the game (as in the movie and the novel) is Michael Corleone, who in this instance isn't played by Al Pacino. The replacement Michael does have some sort of passing resemblance however, and the actor's omission isn't missed to any great degree. Nino Rota's score for the movie continues to hold its own as an iconic soundtrack in the game, although after the first few hours it does embed itself into a player's head a little too much.

Longevity is a problem for The Godfather; in a very worrying trend the storyline can be completed in a shorter time than perhaps expected, and because of the compulsion to focus on the narrative, it's difficult to then motivate yourself to work through the various side-missions on offer. It's an area where most, if not all, GTA wannabes fall on their faces. It's also difficult to imagine a point where players would go back to The Godfather after completing it for the first time. There's just not enough variety in the game, nor the motivation to explore the limited variety created. At times it's actually a struggle to play more than a few missions at a time thanks to the repetitiveness of the missions and the narrow field of gameplay variety. The long and short of is that if you ever get motivated enough to complete The Godfather in the first place, which to be honest will probably only require you to sit down for a day, there chances of you ever going back to it is slim to say the least.