Difficulty:

Easy

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Solid"

Typically games based on movies are as bad as movies based on games (Street Fighter, anyone). So anyone would be a bit skeptical going into a game based on a movie from the 70s, and that's exactly how I felt going into The Godfather - skeptical. Being a fan of mafia movies, though, I hoped for the best, and that's exactly what I got. Amazingly, The Godfather is a very well made game, probably the best GTA clone to date.

Gameplay in The Godfather is pretty standard GTA-style. You run around the world doing mostly Point A to Point B missions, usually gunning down waves of enemies between points. However, The Godfather branched off from GTA by adding other things to do besides missions. In The Godfather you get to run around extorting businesses for protection money. Some of these stores you extort are fronts for gambling or prostitution joints. If this is the case, you can make an offer to the guy running the place, and you can get the illegal joints as well. You can also blast down supply trucks to find fronts, which will also give you a quick buck. Eventually you'll be taking over warehouses and family compounds. All these different gameplay mechanics flow together just right so that you consistantly feel like you're playing the same game. As you come up in the mob world, you can also buy new clothes and safehouses with all the money you're collecting.

Combat situations are typically fun and interesting, which is important considering the amount of time you'll spend blowing away rival families. Shooting is simplified with auto-aim, but you can tweak your aim to hit certain body parts. Hand-to-hand fighting involves you locking onto an enemy and then flinging the right analog stick back and forth. The hand-to-hand combat gets repetitive if you do it for a while, but as few-and-far-between as hand-to-hand situations are, it never becomes an issue.

Visually The Godfather is amazing. The Don himself is so lifelike I'd swear I was watching Marlon Brando the whole time. All the other characters are well done as well. The city itself is epic in scale with five whole neighborhoods to take over, each with its own family running things. Every enemy model, however, is generic, and the only difference between them is the color of suit they wear. This not only makes the visuals repetitive, but it creates problems when you're shooting your own because you can't tell what color the suit is. The cars all look fairly different, and there's a good selection of cars in this game. The biggest visual flaw is when you start getting to family compounds. Every compound has the same exact layout. This makes taking over compounds way too easy once you've figured out how to take one. The other four will be done the exact same way.

Audio in The Godfather is absolutely amazing. I loved hearing the likeness of Marlon Brando throughout, because, as we all know, Marlon Brando is the only person who should be The Don. James Caan, Robert Duvall, and Al Pacino all lended their voices to the game, which makes the audio that much more part of the movie. The music is top-notch, and you'll instantly notice every score from the movie when you hear it. Sound effects are atmospheric and, usually, right where they should be. I never noticed any sound effect that I thought was out of place or unrealistic.

The mission design puts you through just about every key scene from the movie, and it's really fun to play through most of these sequences. The guy you play as in the game was implied in the movie but never actually revealed, which allowed the developers to make familiar missions without putting the player in the shoes of a critical character. It makes you feel like you're part of the movie instead of simply in the movie. Actions tend to have little outcome, however, on how people respond to you, which was a bit disappointing. Overall, however, you can't complain.

My only gripe with this game is that once you're done, you're done. You can try to get 95 percent and become Don of NYC, but the game really doesn't motivate you to once you've done the main story; it feels pointless. Even die-hard Godfather fans most likely won't find themselves playing through this game multiple times, because it never really changes. What the Godfather has in main missions it lacks in side stuff. You can run around New York taking over business after business, but that will eventually feel like work. You can take hits, but the further you progress into the game the more of a waste of time it feels like.

Overall, I was thoroughly impressed with how good they made this game. It's not the best game that's ever been made, but any mafia or Godfather fan or just fan of the GTA series will find that this game is a good way to spend your time, at least until the main story is over.