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EA Redwood Shores makes you another offer that you probably don’t want to refuse.
The Godfather II, the game, focuses on the sequel aspect of the movie. You play as Dominic, one of Aldo Trapani’s henchmen. Aldo, who fans of the original game will remember as the star of that game, has moved up the ranks but after a business meeting goes wrong and Aldo dies, Michael Corleone promotes you to your mentor’s previous role. It’s up to you to take control of not only New York, but also Miami and Cuba. The game takes some obvious and sometimes liberal liberties from the film including the more prominent roles of Fredo and Hagen. However, unless you’ve very recently watched the film these liberties won’t be obvious to you.
The Godfather II combines an action component with a strategy component. The action component is fairly similar to the first game since you’ll often be taking on enemies with up to three crew members by your side (though you can have up to 7 to choose from). Dominic has all of the moves you would expect from a made man including great aim and strong melee combat. Your crew members are fairly smart as they take on enemies and defend themselves with little direction from you. You can issue some commands (like follow me) but for the most part you can let them do their own thing. Unfortunately, there are some pathfinding issues with the crew members causing them to become stuck at times, which may cause you to fail the mission. They also have classes so for example, you can have a guy planting bombs and a medic healing your crew. Interestingly, you can also use in-game cash to increase the stats of Dominic and your crew.
The strategy component comes in with The Don’s View. This is a 3D map that allows you to view properties and crime rings under your control and under the control of other families. The properties are necessary since they provide fronts for money laundering while the crime rings give you bonuses (like more income for the drug ring and the ability to carry more ammo for the gun running ring). You can decide to take over certain territories in this view, as well as see when other families are attacking you and decide whether or not you want to fight back. Taking over all of any one family’s business means that you’ll have the opportunity to take out the family once and for all. You can also use Don’s View to do tasks for certain officials that will give you rewards for future missions. If things ever get too heated, you can always join the fight yourself.
The combination of the action and strategy components works quite well since you can see what your individual character is doing to promote the Corleone family’s well being while also seeing the larger war taking place. The strategy component could be a bit more challenging since the families don’t fight back with the same intensity that you do. There’s also a fairly simple (if repetitive) way of defeating the families, which further decreases the challenge.
The Godfather II also includes a multiplayer component. You’ll find the expected Team Deathmatch, but also more interesting modes like Don’s Control (where two teams bet cash on the outcome of the next battle), Safecracker (quickly break into a number of safes), Fire Starter (set off fires to score points) and Demolition Assault (destroy as many objectives as possible). The multiplayer mode allows you to win (and lose) cash that can be transferred to the singleplayer campaign. You can also unlock weapon licenses that allow your henchmen to carry better and more powerful weapons.
Visually, the scope of the game is fairly impressive since it does show three distinctive locations rather well. In terms of detail, though, the environments are good but not great due to relatively simple textures for a modern current generation game. Similarly, the character models are good but not great. The animation, however, is excellent. The cutscenes are also very well done. Added to the somewhat dated visuals, the game has some visual glitches that causes characters to become “stuck” and may cause a lost mission. Other glitches include texture pop-in and occasional questionable shadows.
Aurally, the game is quite strong. The appropriately M-rated dialogue is delivered very well by all of the characters, including the henchmen in your crew. The sound effects are all quite great, though the game’s sound shines when there is destruction onscreen.
Conceptually, The Godfather II has the potential to be an amazing game. The combination of action and strategy works quite well and accurately shows what being Dominic would have been like. However, the somewhat dated visuals, coupled with the occasional mission-ending glitches, and the relatively ease of the strategy component mean that The Godfather II is a good game but one that doesn’t fully live up to its potential. The concept is strong but all of the minor issues add up. -- Jose Liz, PGNx Media
---- Apr 9, 2009
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