The Godfather is based on the 1972 movie of the same name and it borrows very heavily from the Grand Theft Auto series, but it still has its own feel and atmosphere, which makes it well worth to play through.

In the beginning of the game your father is been killed by Barzini family. After that your mother asks the godfather on his daughter’s wedding day to take you under his wing in Corleone family and train you to be a mobster. In the game it is your job to rise in the ranks of Corleone family all the way to be as the Don himself. Perhaps you even have what it takes to be the Don of New York City.

Graphically The Godfather is pretty good and worthy of a special mention are the character models, which look a lot like their real life counter parts. Environments are open ended and help to create a feeling of New York City in 1940’s. Unfortunately sometimes there’s too much particle effects on the screen and this makes the frame to take a serious hit. This usually happens in the driving parts and distracts the experience in some way.

The Godfather is a third person action game, in which you start by creating your own character. I made my guy to look just like myself and just let me tell you: I would not be a convincing mobster crook. Just like in Grand Theft Auto, you do missions and side missions in your own pace, extort businesses to get more money and with more money you get better guns and other upgrades. I like this gameplay formula better in The Godfather, because in my opinion the missions make more sense in terms of the big plot than they do in Grand Theft Auto. There’s a lot of shooting in The Godfather, but luckily there’s also a targeting system, which works pretty well. If you remember to equip yourself with proper weapons and armor the missions won’t be too difficult for you to get painfully frustrated. It will take around 10 to 15 hours to go through the main quest and after that if you choose to do many of the side missions it will give The Godfather about 10 to 15 hours more of gameplay time.

Sound effects fit the action, but really the musical score is what creates the atmosphere. Main theme song will be heard a few too many times, but other than that the music is solid. Voice work is provided by the original actors excluding Al Pacino as Michael Corleone and this really helps to create the feel of a movie.

The Godfather owes a lot to Grand Theft Auto, but it manages to bring in its own vibe into the mix and making good use of the film license. This game is surprisingly good.