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The Sopranos make their videogame debut. The popularity of the Grand Theft Auto series has brought Scarface, The Godfather, and now The Sopranos. Although The Sopranos on HBO is a critically acclaimed series that dominates the Emmy Awards whenever the run, the same cannot be said about The Sopranos videogame. Although the game isn’t horrible, it isn’t doesn’t quite live up to the source material.
Road to Respect takes place in between Seasons 5 and 6 of The Sopranos. In the game, you play as Joey LaRocca, son of Sal Bonpensiero. As with other games of this nature, you begin the game as nothing more than a simple street thug. Tony Soprano quickly learns of Joey’s bad deeds and offers to give the kid a chance by giving him a job as one of Paulie Walnuts’ henchmen. The game follows Joey as he tries to become a made man. Road to Respect is laid out like any other episode of the television show and the story is actually one of the game’s highlights.
Although the game paints itself as an open-world game, this is by and large a linear experience. It seems as though you can go out of the way and explore North Jersey but if you go too far from the expected path, you’ll be warped back to the beginning of the level. Combat, then, becomes the focus of the game. Joey has a number of moves at his disposal broken up into light and heavy attacks, as well as grapples and special attacks such as chokes and arm breaking. Aside from hand-to-hand combat, the game lets you use a number of weapons such as baseball bats against his opponents. While this makes for some entertaining fights, it also makes for some unfair fights. Joey is incredibly strong and this becomes even more obvious when you give him a weapon. Although the combat is enjoyable, it never becomes a challenge.
In addition to fighting your way to success, the game also has you sweet talking people. When asked a question, you can respond with a tough (threats), smooth (passive) or neutral (can be either depending on the situation) response. While it is sometimes necessary to respond in a tough manner, overusing this is a sure-fire way to get you into a lot of fistfights. Likewise, it’s possible to talk your way out of a fight using the smooth response.
This ties into the game’s respect meter. As you complete missions, you’ll gain respect and get one step further to becoming a made man. However, responding incorrectly to situations (such as a tough response when you really had to talk your way out of something) decreases your respect, increases the attention on the Sopranos, and ultimately increases the likelihood that you’ll get whacked by the Family. You can try to fix these relations by paying tribute. You can earn money by completing missions, searching defeated opponents or play a game of Texas Hold’em with the rest of the Sopranos. Aside from just keeping you alive, you can pay tribute to unlock some content in the game.
The game’s visuals are pretty good although there are some inconsistencies. Some of the characters like AJ and Christopher look strikingly similar to their real-life versions, while others are definitely stuck in the uncanny valley. Nonetheless a lot of attention was spent to make sure the character models are detailed and look good, and despite some creepiness, the developers succeeded in this regard. Many of the environments are ripped from the show and look nearly identical to what they look like on the show. However, this is compromised by the fact that there is little interactivity in the game.
The audio in the game is very compelling though. The soundtrack has some songs from the show like “Woke Up This Morning” and “Girls, Girls, Girls” as well as other licensed songs that fit in okay with the Sopranos world. The sound effects are pretty good, too, although nothing mind-blowing. The voice acting is obviously the highlight of the game since it was provided by the show’s actors.
The Sopranos: Road to Respect isn’t a perfect game. The combat is somewhat fun but unbalanced, there are problems in the presentation, and the game like this would have benefited from being less linear. However, fans of The Sopranos will probably enjoy the story which really does play out like an episode of the television show. -- Jose Liz, PGNx Media
---- Nov 25, 2006
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