The Godfather Review

Overall Rating

Very good graphics. NPC modeling excellent with detailed faces and good voice acting (all of the still living performers, except Pacino, lent their voices to the project). Your character gets to take part in many famous scenes from the film. Good variety of weapons, Absolutely WONDERFUL rendering of New York city (more on this later).

Some of the locations are very simialr (but this is OK becase I understand this is how they minimized load times). Gameplay a bit repetitious after awhile (drive there, meet him/her, drive there, do that, kill him etc). Only about 6 or 7 types of vehicles to drive. Missions part of game, (to me at least) too short.

I had been waiting for The Godfather to come out for quite awhile, and, quite frankly due to a couple of delays, sort of forgot about it. I found out that it was out, saw a couple of good reviews, and decided to pick it up. After a few days with it, it is one of my favorite games in my library (and I have quite a few). Once I started playing I was absorbed for hours (this game is very addictive). Briefly, what goes on is, you play the son of a minor character who gets killed by rival gangsters. As a boy you meet Don Corleone, and about 12 years later, you begin to work for the Corleone family. The story missions are the main part of the game, in which you carry out various tasks for the Corleones. Meanwhile, at the same time you are "freelancing, " taking over businesses, and "rackets" owned by enemy gangs ("families"). For each business you take over, you get money every week; the Corleones get their "tribute" or tax, from you (it starts as a 70/30 split). As you work your way up the respect and acommplishment ladder, you get to keep more of the money you make. There are various ways to fight, numerous weapons, and tactics you must learn; you need to know which weapon or plan to best use in certain situations. It would take me hours to tell you everything you can do in this game. My favorite thing about it is it is for the most part 'open ended" like the GTA games; you can do the missions, if you want to advance the story, otherwise you can just explore the city and do what you want. One last thing--this game takes place in New York City, which is beautifully renedered--and the neat thing is it's the New York City of the 1930's. You get all the neighborhoods, Little Italy, Hell's Kitchen, Midtown ,Manahattan, the Holland Tunnel, the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges...it's awesome. I spend a couple of hours yesterday just driving from borough to borough lol. I highly recommend this game.