Written by: Chris W.

 

 

 

If you’ve ever thought that Monopoly with mobsters had a lot of potential, then "The Godfather II" may very well appeal to you. You’ll be ruling with menace: sending others out to do your dirty work, bombing rival businesses, protecting your own and more.

 

It’s a bloody business but one that pays well.

 

 

Set in the 1960’s, you soon witness the death of the Don of New York: the main character from the original game. Taking over as new character Dominic (you can cosmetically alter his appearance), you are then tasked with carrying on these major responsibilities.

 

The story has a very vulgar script but is exciting and moves along at a frantic pace, with you meeting up with different characters in New York, Florida and Cuba.

 

 

 

The Godfather II shares many elements from the original game: you’ll still be shooting people and driving around, intimidating business owners to force them into paying out protection money to your family, and using vicious executions to show that you truly mean business. To say that The Godfather II is a mere repeat of the original game would be completely unfair, though, as the new tactical elements make sure that this just isn’t the case.

 

The basic gameplay elements range from great to serviceable. For shooting there’s an auto-aim which can be adjusted with the right stick, a solid melee combat and a basic cover system. Holding/tapping a button is, meanwhile, just silly in this day and age, whilst the driving is largely a means to transport you from one area to another, but is still a lot of fun.

 

The ultimate goal is to loosen the grips of all the rival families (spread over compact maps of New York, Florida and Cuba), by taking their businesses from them, weakening them and eventually forcing them to cowardly retreat to their swanky strongholds, wherein assaulting and blowing them up will result in you completely wiping them from the map and out of your hair for good.

 

 

Much should be said about The Don’s Eye View, as if you want to make full use of the tactical side of thing, it’s here in which you’ll be doing just that. From this well presented 3D map you can send your made men to assault rival businesses or to protect one of your own from an enemy assault, you can also bomb a business to take away one of their perks (more about this later), and manage the amount of guards protecting each of your own individual businesses. It’s good to feel in control.

 

It‘s up to you, you can send your made men to attempt a takeover of a rival families business, or you can do it yourself, taking up to three made men with you for company and backup. The made men are your trustworthy and high-ranking soldiers, they can be found in your businesses and compounds, are upgradeable and each boast a helpful skill. Some of these guys can bash doors down with their limbs, cut through wire fences, blow up weaknesses in doors or walls, tend to your wounds and return you to a vertical base after you hit the deck, amongst other actions. It certainly can make missions play out differently depending on who you have under your command.

 

 

 

Right, those perks I mentioned. Taking over crime rings grants you these benefits: perhaps you’ll receive bigger ammo clips for conquering one, others may give you cheaper guards (don‘t worry, they still do their job), bullet-proof vests, armoured cars and double the income (you‘ll have to keep an eye on your funds, if you want things to continue to bob along nicely). It’s an interesting idea and one that, at times, may make you think before making your next move.

 

 

Problems come in the form of your made men being too good at what they do, and if your advisor thinks that an attack will be successful, it normally will be. The opposing made men are, meanwhile, pretty much proper enemies with longer power bars, with no increased intelligence to speak of.

 

Also, when rival families had particular perks, they didn’t really give me too much bother: certainly not enough to make me want to go all out to remove said perk from their cold, dead hands after wiping them out.

 

 

Character and vehicle models look great, the environments less so due to some atrocious pop-up.

 

Aurally, the theme music is used liberally and the voice acting is superb, though those expecting Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone from The Godfather films, will be sad to learn that he’s absent once more.

 

 

The multiplayer is decent enough but is largely forgettable. This portion of the game can be played by up to 16 players in Team Death matches (what else? Kill the rival team), Safecracker (use one of your safecrackers to open safes dotted around the map), Firestarter (start fires in particular places), and Demolitions Assault (blow things up).

 

Interestingly, you’ll use your made men from the single player, and they can earn licences to be granted the use of new weapons, something that they don’t really need.

 

The lack of auto-aim is an annoyance and, on the whole, I would rather invest my time in better online games.

 

 

"The Godfather II" is a lot of fun with some neat ideas, although it’s just a shame that some things weren’t better thought through. I could certainly see something like this being more successful sometime down the line, so I just hope that EA will keep this same mindset for any future games in the series.

 

 

 

+ The strategy elements have some good ideas
+ Great story and voice acting
+ On-foot and driving are very respectable