The Godfather: The Don's Edition

8.0
Great

Gameplay	8.5	"Hit New York City with a trilby hat and a machine gun."
Graphics	7.0
Sound	8.0
Value	8.0

By Dene Benham

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If you’re at all familiar with The Godfather movies you will have some idea of the story that drives this game. In fact, there is a good chance that even if you’ve never seen the film, you will still have a pretty good idea about the world where The Godfather is set. It is the story of the Mafia, and the five families that control organised crime in New York City. The Corleone family is one of the controlling five families, and Don Vito is The Godfather of the Corleones.

You, however, are a thug. A decade earlier your father was killed while working for the Corleones and now your mother has asked Don Vito to take you in and teach you the business. You start out running errands. You threaten people that need to be threatened. You beat people up that need to be beaten up. You kill people that need . . . well, you get the point. Inevitably, those people giving you orders start to meet their own sticky ends, and you begin your rise to power.

Before you begin your climb there are a few things to sort out. The first of these is your face. Electronic Arts brings you Mobface: essentially the application attached to their sports simulators. Here you have a fairly detailed control on your character’s looks and body type - of course in The Godfather it is limited to the looks and body shape of an Italian-American male. Then it’s onto the game, and for the next couple of hours you will be walked through the finer details of taking over a criminal empire.

The story missions in The Godfather continuously touch on the plot of the original movie. You meet all the main family members: Vito and his sons Tom, Sonny, Michael and Fredo. You also take part in a number of pivotal events from the film. However, it is the non-story elements of the game that makes The Godfather a rewarding experience.

Respect is of greatest importance in The Godfather. With respect comes skill points, and with skill comes an increase in your stats. Completing missions, killing enemies, and taking over businesses all increase your respect. You can try to take over stores and businesses by negotiation, but failing that you can do it the old fashioned way: by beating up the owner or smashing up the store.

Once you have the store in control a back room will often open. It is in these back rooms where you find the illegal rackets. Take over the rackets and you will eventually find a rival families’ warehouse. The warehouses then lead you to one of New York Cities five families’ business hubs. Take these over and you begin to take over the city.

However, rival gang members are always prepared to defend their territory with plenty of weapons and plenty of backup. Kill members of rival families and your vendetta meter will go up. Do your killing in public and your wanted level will increase. Before long cops and mobsters will be attacking you on sight.

Being attacked causes problems because weapon combat in The Godfather is often brutal. Machine guns and shotguns will kill you very quickly, so it’s a good idea to get help. For a price you can buy yourself a crew; for a bigger price you can hire yourself a hit squad. These men are ready to lay down some serious fire. They are also essential to progressing through the game’s later missions and for taking over well-defended warehouses and hubs.

If you don’t like the idea of weapons you can stick with your fists. The game’s combat mechanics tap into the PLAYSTATION 3’s new Sixaxis wireless controller. With the old vibration function gone the controller is now able to react to gestures. Grab an opponent with the left trigger, punch him a few times with the right analog stick, and then toss him off a roof by shaking the controller in the correct direction.

The Godfather is a faithful tip of the trilby to the films that defined the Mafia genre. Without The Godfather there would be no Goodfellas and no Sopranos, and Grand Theft Auto III would have been a much different animal. But the game itself gets a bit lost in its faithfulness to the films. There is no humour in this violent homage. The evocative theme that plays over the titles quickly gives way to kneecappings, narrow streets and the rather limited graphics that come with the game being a second-generation port. A good effort but mainly for fans of the films.

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