Oh, joy. Another game based on an old movie franchise.
But with the recent success of old cult classic movie turned video game The Warriors (from Rockstar Games) I was filled with more than my usual sense of hope that this game would, yes, not suck.
Finding out that Marlon Brando was reprising his role as the Godfather in this game (along with Abe Vigoda and two more big names whose names kinda slipped my mind at present) was the icing on what would be a good review, so to celebrate I gather the family together and asked them all what kind of mob family we here at Anime Boredom would be…

…this went about as well as the day I reviewed BMX XXX, which is to say not so good…

Joe - “Sly Lou Santorini.”
“Meh?”
Joe - “Sly Lou Santorini.”
“Uh… and you’d be…?”
Joe - “Probably the dodgey dealer who finds a load of “merchandise” that fell off the back of a lorry.”
“…a what…”
Joe - “…”
“Sorry. My bad… (I’m the only clueless one it seems half of the time)… uh…” (points at Otaku Kei) “And you are…”
Otaku Kei - “Guiseppe the Rat. So apparently I’m the fella who’s going to turn state evidence against the rest of the family and… gcckkktt…”

Like the well toned ability to strangle the life out of your enemies (which I did often in this game), The Godfather (PS2) is set to strangle the life out of lesser movie to game translations by taking the whole Grand Theft Auto clone idea and flipping it on it’s side by providing highly original gameplay along with the freeform style that you are familiar with in the GTA franchise.
As the game opens your family is visited by the Godfather himself, Marlon Brando, only to end up on the business end of a bad day as your father (who you play briefly as an introduction to the gameplay mechanics) fights back only to end up getting whacked.

That’s when you are taken under the wing of the Corleone family and, years later by the bequest of your mother, you become an outsider to the family as you are brought into the family. From here on in you are given a safehouse (complete with two barely clothed young ladies who spend all their times in the house… dancing… and only dancing… because apparently the whole prostitution thing wasn’t touched here after the whole Hot Coffee controversy from San Andreas) and from there you get your first missions.
These missions gets you into the game, as well as teaches you things you never did in GTA… mainly the art of the negotiation and extortion. Money here, unlike San Andreas, isn’t made through violence and bloodshed. The majority of your money is made through extortion, this means you’ll need to ply a diplomatic mindset towards your victims (but more importantly you’ll need to be abit patient with this game). At the start you’ll find it hard to use influence to ply businesses towards your way of thinking, which might drive you to use force and violence more and more, however once you become an “Associate” and later a “Soldier” of the family you’ll find all that respect you built up from lots of hard work and determination turns into an easier time influencing others (as you level up your character you’ll also level up your ability to influence others which again works well in opening up businesses to your family’s influence which means more money to your pockets per week as they pay out).
Everything influences respect, from the way you act towards others, your dress (which you can buy new clothes to upgrade your respect greatly depending on what new threads you are wearing which usually makes you (at highest respect ratings) look like your ready for a game of Fizzbin while your Fliver sits by and William Shatner waits for his cue while on

the set of “A Piece of the Action”). Also respect can be gained through the completion of missions (both side missions and main story missions) and “hit jobs” (side missions where you assassinate rivals for respect and money, whose amount depends on whether or not you can accomplish a key “requirement” of the hit… for instance whacking someone without anyone witnessing the hit, or using a garrote to strangle said target).

Thus this game is a game of patience and hard work. The longer you play the more you gain in levels, and thus the more influence you gain on others which makes it easier to ply your trade. You’ll also become stronger which means it’ll be easier to snuff out rival families which you’ll have to deal with soon as they prove to be a clear and present danger to yourself and your family as the story progresses.

Huxley - “Hey!”
“….” (?) “…huh?”
Huxley - “That’s my job!”
“…oh…” (let’s Otaku Kei go) “…target with the L1 button, grab with the R1 button and strangle holding down both the left and right analog sticks (R3 and L…)” (blinks) “…never mind. Your job…?”
Huxley - “I’m Bruno the Spanker.”
“…you’re what…”
Huxley - “Bruno the Spanker.”
“…aren’t you Michael?”
Huxley - “?”
“Michael. Michael. You’re the Editor hence you’re Mic--” (-_-) “…doesn’t that make Otaku Kei or Mr. Blonde “Sonny” and then there’s the guy who mentors you at the start of the game but he gets whacked before the end of the first hour or two and then there’s…” (blinks) “…don’t we have a Godfather?”
Silence
Huxley - “I got my name from http://gangstaname.com/mafia_name.php.”
“….”
Silence
“…Marlon Brando’s laughing at me right now, isn’t he.”

Since you live in a virtual New York of post WWII 40’s you’ll have to deal with rival families, each with their own territories (that bleed into your own turf of Little Italy until you… ahh… “remove” their influence one business and one corrupt cop at a time) you’ll find yourself having to face them down one at a time. Kill those you must, but not all as racket owners and warehouse owners (for instance) will be more than willing to turn their business over to you with the right amount of money (and influence). Anyway go San Andreas on the rival families, and bend down too hard on them and you’ll start a gang war, which can only be resolved through either destroying two rival family holdings (not easy) or finding an FBI agent and bribing him to end the war in your favor (easy).

Level progress from rank to rank is not, however, done solely through business acquisition and gang wars (this is the side quests that keep you playing for hours on end). Progression is done through the meticulous reenactment of the Godfather movies through story levels specifically reenacting movie parts. Be warned, however, just doing this and not touching on the side missions (which there are many) will make this a short game as the primary story is not too long (maybe about a dozen or so hours give or take). Beating these missions unlocks extras in the form of movie clips, but instead of these clips being cinematics from the game they are cutscenes from the Godfather movies, themed directly to the specific missions.

Fighting is also something improved over the GTA system. Instead of just punching buttons to do actions like punching you find yourself locking onto targets with the L1 button, then using the right analog stick to carry out melee attacks. This makes for a more vibrant melee system as you can combine grabs (R1) with your attacks to smack around an enemy, do severe harm to them, choke them (solid idea if you only have one enemy and you don’t want to start a panic by shooting wildly) or just throw them about or use the heads of uncooperative business owners to crack open their own cash registers.

This is a far superior melee system than I have seen in any other game. Shooting is also slicker, with the L1 to lock in you’ll find targets lock faster though rotating through multiple targets is abit of a pain as sometimes the target lock refuses to lock onto the most immediate threat which is abit frustrating when your being hammered by multiple enemies.

The game doesn’t seem to have any real flaws in it at all, though I suppose the greatest flaw this game seems to have is the lacking ability to pick up body armor or at the very least use your greater powers (as you rise in the ranks) to commission soldiers to do your dirty work. I made it up all the way to Capo (one step shy of Don of the family) and I still couldn’t get people to back me up on warehouse raids, which is abit much since these raids are downright hard and you usually end up doing it all yourself (which brings a new meaning to the TV Series name 1 Vs. 100). If anything that is something Scarface : The World is Yours excels over this game in that you can hire people to do your dirty work, though there is more satisfaction is doing your own work and reaping the rewards of your own hard work.

The look of the game is nice, and for a PS2 game the visuals are solid without a complaint from me. Music is sparse, mostly from the Godfather soundtrack I suspect, and as a true sign of the times you’ll find that running on the roads will not be a problem for you as you are quite capable of outrunning most non getaway speed vehicles since vehicles in this game travel as a speed far slower than you are capable of running (which makes driving abit more difficult as you have to dodge a 101 slow moving vehicles which is a great pain if your speeding along while having rival family cars in hot pursuit and the road is littered with the vehicular version of the undead). One thing about the graphics of the game, though, is that the whole game takes a page from an entirely different franchise (mainly Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland) by providing you an entire city that is loadtime free. Except for missions (which require load times) you’ll find that you can travel from Little Italy to Brooklyn or Midtown or Hell’s Kitchen (future home of Daredevil) without a single loadscreen to hinder you, nice considering I vaguely remember you couldn’t travel 500 feet in GTA : San Andreas without a load screen popping up.

A solid game with all the trappings of greatness, you’ll appreciate this one just that much better if you sink yourself fully into all the side missions and not just blaze through the main storyline. Breakdown time.

The Godfather Breakdown
What’s Hot?
Think I said it all. It takes the GTA architype of a freeform action format and improves on it greatly to give it a whole new paint job that really shines with an originality all it’s own. With the ability to extort businesses (or buy out illegal businesses and add them to your payroll), an improved combat system that makes melee combat slicker and quicker, and lots of ground to explore and exploit which will keep you at this game for hours on end, The Godfather provides you with a solid gaming experience that takes the standard GTA clone game concept and sheds it’s GTA skin to show what a gamemaker can do when they take a good idea and vastly improve to make it all their own.

What’s Not?
The inability (as far as I know from what I managed to get through of the game) to hire backups to help over throw fortresses like the warehouses and rival family estates is abit daunting,

since these missions are nigh impossible to overcome all by yourself meaning you’ll have to respawn over and over again before you manage to crack each one of these hard nuts open. Of course it means more hours of gameplay to work on your levels and then to work on cracking these places open but still… at least if anything Scarface scores above this game by giving you the opportunity to hire thugs to help you do your dirty work (from what I know of the game). Otherwise the lack of music in this game and no interview unlockables is my only other complaint about this game, and not much else. That and the fact you’re surrounded (litterly at times) with all these hot females and the game doesn’t allow you to do anything with them… damn you parent groups and your whining over GTA : San Andreas!

Moments to Remember?
Way too much to point at here, and not just the females in all their forms of dress (nice and naughty). We also have the solid voice acting (including the aforementioned Marlon Brando who graces this game with his presence, which is a surprise to me because I heard it rumored that Mr. Brando is a hard man to work with on projects so for him to take the time to do work on this game is something special) and the solid gameplay (including the missions which reenact the Godfather movie’s big scenes) to remember here. Just don’t forget to roam this vast land given to you and get into as much of the side stuff as possible since that is where the true replay value of this game is.

What to Ignore?
Oh, let’s see… what can we possibly ignore here…
1-Why is it I can outrun most vehicles in this game? Am I moving that fast or do they drive that slow?
2-No Hot Coffee for you. Damn you for succumbing to the censormongers, EAGames.
3-Sometimes my target lock doesn’t lock on the right individual (the one who is the greatest threat). Also at times I accidentally hit the D-pad and end up swapping my weapons, or putting them away, at the wrong time (usually during a firefight).
4-Ugh. I like the extra clips but why did the game have to use the hidden items theme (in this case rolls of film) in order to unlock certain clips? I really hate looking everywhere just to find every last roll of film just to unlock every last clip (which again will keep you at the game for hours and hours).
5-I won’t complain about the fact the entire city is filled with cloned civilians… that I’m used to.
That’s it, no more… speaking of no more.

“Anyone else has anything to say before we close this review?”
Otaku Kei - “Using my middle names I end up being called “Big Stink” Tony. Not sure what a guy called Big Stink would do in the mob though.”
“He probably ends up in games like NARC… do you want to be in NARC?”
Silence.
“Didn’t think so.” (sighs) “Anyone wants to jan ken po for the role of Godfather?”

Overall?
A slice of different I hope to see in other games of this caliber in the near future (though apparently not Scarface : The World is Yours which is rumored to be a take on GTA : Vice City which is about to get a slice of PSP service with GTA : Vice City Stories). If you haven’t played this yet now is as good a time as any to do so. Now if I can only get ahold of the PSP counterpart to this game… sigh.
A game that will immerse you into the world of the Godfather, only just don’t get too immersed… as this experience has hopefully taught you sometimes total immersion is not a good thing.
And I’m pretty certain Marlon Brando’s still laughing at me… somehow, somewhere. Sigh.