|
The Godfather makes its way to the Xbox 360. EA’s announcement that they would license The Godfather angered many of the film’s enthusiasts. They couldn’t believe that the evil corporation was willing to sacrifice the film to get in on the popular Grand Theft Auto market. The Godfather, originally released for PlayStation 2 and Xbox about six months ago, proved to be an enjoyable game. The Xbox 360 version holds up equally well—and if you haven’t already played the game this is definitely the version to get—but it isn’t enough to warrant a repeat purchase.
In The Godfather, you play as a brand-new character. You create this character using a system similar to the character creation system of the Tiger Woods games. When the game begins, you find out that the character’s father is murdered. A few years later, your mother asks the one and only Don to look over you. It turns out that your character’s mother is quite lucky and happened to ask the Don on his daughter’s wedding day—no Sicilian would turn down a favor asked of him on his daughter’s wedding day. Luca Brasi, part of the Don’s entourage, obeys the Don’s orders and agrees to look over you.
One of the game’s highpoints is how well it integrates material from the film with new stuff. Although the character you play as wasn’t featured in the films, he fits in well with the rest of the cast. You begin by being a henchman for the Corleone family. You’ll have to bully merchants into paying protection money, usually by causing damage to their person or business. Once you do so, you’ll be able to collect weekly payments. The Xbox 360 version introduces favor missions where you will do a favor for a business owner in exchange for a cut of his business revenue. The favor missions add much-needed flavor to the standard extortion missions. While the side missions do increase the game’s length and allow you to unlock clips from the movies, the variety just isn’t all that great and it eventually becomes a bit dull.
Thankfully, there are more interesting things to do in the game such as take part in the horse head scene, drive Don to the hospital after his run in with the rival gang, or participate in Sonny’s toll booth ambush. As you complete missions, you’ll receive respect points. You’re able to use these points to improve your health, speed, street smarts, shooting and fighting statistics. The game also rewards you with better weapons.
Aside from missions, you can run around in the city and cause general mayhem. Much like Grand Theft Auto, you’re able to run over citizens, shoot people at whim, borrow cars and of course, escape the police. Again like GTA, as you commit these crimes your heat level increases and the cops will be more aggressive to take you down. That said, you can’t expect to have the same level of mayhem because the game has a more realistic damage system, so you won’t be able to take several shotgun shots before falling. The game does adapt the formula to The Godfather world since you’re able to bribe police officers to leave you alone if you don’t feel like running away.
The shooting in the game is well done. The game features the typical lock-on and free-aim shooting modes. You’ll find guns ranging from shotguns to revolvers, but you’ll also find other melee weapons like lead pipes. With respect points, you can upgrade the weapons and each weapon can be upgraded two times. Melee combat is also enjoyable. You lock on to a person and then you can unleash on them with slams, punches, and tosses. The AI in the game is a bit uneven, sometimes performing very well and struggling at other times. New to the Xbox 360 version is the ability to bribe police so that they take out your rivals for you. If you bribe a policeman in a certain part of town, if you go back there and get into a shootout you’ll see the police helping you out.
The game’s visuals are pretty authentic. The main characters look very realistic as great care taken to make sure that they look the part. The Xbox 360 version features improved character models for the main characters, making them look noticeably better than they used to. The other citizens look decent, although the character models tend to repeat a bit too often. New York City is faithfully recreated in the game. If you wanted to experience what 1940s New York City would be like, this is your perfect chance. You’ll be able to find scenes from the movie in the game. Some parts of New Jersey are also in the same. The game also boasts a number of interior locations that you can enter without any loading. The Xbox 360 version includes many new interiors, giving the game some variety in that department.
The game’s audio is great, as well. The background music comes directly from the film, creating a feeling that you’re really in 1940s New York. You’ll also hear The Godfather theme, although you may not like it quite as much by the end. The voice acting is stellar since the original actors provided their voices for the game. The only exception is Al Pacino who chose to not voice Michael. The voice acting for the general citizens of the city isn’t quite as great, but good enough nonetheless.
The Godfather, at its core, is a very satisfying game, especially for fans of the movie trilogy. The game does a lot of fan service by allowing you to collect film reels and unlock clips from the movie. The Xbox 360 version of the game is the definitive version as the additional missions and side missions help alleviate some of the repetitiveness that the game previously had. -- Jose Liz, PGNx Media
---- Sep 25, 2006
|
