The Godfather II (the game, this is, not the movie) fails in many ways to capture the spirit of the films and instead offers up some tedious action with healthy portions of strategy. You play as Dominic, who you can style to your every whim. My Dominic looked like a cheap 80s softcore porn star, with healthily vibrant handlebars, lightly cropped afro, and suave threads.
Unfortunately, the Mobface creation tool was one of the better things about The Godfather II, which ultimately fails to immerse the player in its world of crime and extortion. The character creation tool allows for fairly interesting characters to be created, but to costume the avatar seems pointless, as later game bonuses such as Bullet Proof vests cover your shirt with no way to hide them underneath.
The first Godfather game had a vibrant, massive New York cityscape, and was pulsing with life. The franchise looked to be a successor to the GTA throne. This sequel lets you play in three cities - NY, Miami and Havana, Cuba - but all three together would not even be a fifth of the size of the original's playspace. This would not be a problem if there was plenty to do, but there are next to no side missions, few randoms on the street, few banks and not many cars to smash. Is this supposed to be fun?
However, its not all terrible. There are a decent variety of weapons and weapon licenses to collect, and the combat system is fairly well designed and intelligent. The AI Enemies may not be the most intelligent in the world, but
they do make for some interesting gun fights and encounters. The thrill of taking down an enemy compound is really something, but enemies do have a tendency to spawn behind you and shoot you in the back at point blank range. And this, as in real life, means death.
The game is also fairly generous with the Achievement Points it offers. By only doing a slight amount of exploration in the entire game, I managed almost 800 of the 1000 Points on offer. If that is a deciding factor on which games to play, as it certainly is for me, then that may be enough to sway you into a rent. It's not a long game, and I saw everything there was to see after about 8 hours of play.
The Godfather II also offers a rudimentary online multiplayer mode, where you and your made men from the single player campaign can duke it out with up to 11 others. At the end of the campaign, a message pops up on the screen saying that to continue your Godfather II experience, you should play on Xbox LIVE - however, those hoping for an spiritual progression of the game's single player will be disappointed by what is essentially a free for all Gears of War deathmatch without any workable cover mechanics.
I was expecting quite a bit of this game and it failed to deliver fully on many levels. Personally, I am disappointed with EA's decision to put the franchise to rest; it would have been interesting to see the developer, challenged by this game's tepid response, fix up some of the issues with the game and improve what could be a solid concept. This iteration has many problems, little niggling elements that keep the player from ever getting anywhere immersed. But its worth playing for fans of The Godfather and action games alike.
