The Godfather 2  

Played on Xbox 360 

Reviewed by Coxster 

The first Godfather game was a competent GTA clone that provided more than a handful of hours of fun – I admit that I was hesitant at first because it almost seemed like blasphemy to make a game based on of the greatest Mafia tales of all time, but I came around after I got my hands on it and actually walked away from the experience quite satisfied for two reasons.  The first is that they actually stayed quite true to the source material and secondly it was a damn decent game that was quite fun to play.  Well the sequel doesn’t quite achieve as high a quality as the first one, however in saying that, the Godfather 2 is a very different game altogether.  

You play as Dominic, a captain in the Corleone mob who gets a little promotion from Michael (because he’s trying to distance himself from the public eye) to head up your own branch to run the streets because he has more important things to think about.  Not one to say no, it’s going to be up to you to take over the streets block by block and eliminate the competition.  At times it seems like the only thing this has in common with the source material is that they share the same name, but you have to remember that this is a game that follows different characters in the same universe and shouldn’t be seen as a tie in to the infamous series, more of an extension.  

You do intersect with key plot points that you are probably already familiar with and unlike the first one that starred the voices of Marlon Brando and James Caan, Robert Duvall is the only on to return in the sequel and his performance isn’t the best thing he’s ever done.

So this game is probably a bit different than you were expecting because you’re going to need a bit of a tactical mind and some patience if you’re going to see this game through to it’s conclusion (and it will take you at least a dozen hours to get there).  You start off small and slowly work your way outward as you take over more rackets and businesses. From New York you’ll have to work your way to Florida and then over the sea into Cuba, so needless to say that the scope of the game is quite grand.   If you’ve played GTA 4 (as if you haven’t) you’ll be instantly familiar with the feel of what you have to do, but things do change when you pause the game, showing you what is known as the “Don’s View” where you are able to keep track of all your activities and rackets, not to mention your family structure and how many henchmen you have guarding key establishments as there is plenty of competition who want a slice of your pie.   Once you plan your next takeover, you just have to call up your troops and head on over there to raise some hell.   

There are some light RPG elements in the fact that you can level up your crews and their abilities, not to mention the various classes that you can choose between.   You can have three men follow you or you can send them off to do jobs for you, either way they do a good job of backing you up if you find yourself in a corner.  You’ll start off with only one recruit in your small family, but as you build your empire you will unlock the ability to add new members to your gang.  You can see the structure of your family by going into the Don’s view, and when you consider that some members are explosive experts or have the ability to heal, it will be up to you to decide on who is the best man for the job.  There are safecrackers, engineers, explosive experts and since you’re the head honcho, you have to handpick each one of them.  It is a bit tricky to get your head around these concepts at first, but it soon makes more sense once you start completing tasks.   As your empire grows you can promote your made men and add new skills so that they can serve two purposes making jobs a hell of a lot easier to complete.  

For those kids brought up in the 80’s, you’ll know what I am talking about next when I say that there are real Cordial Stand elements at work in the background.  You’ll have a system that will see you balancing the costing of your guards against the profit each one of your rackets makes per day – so you’ll have to make sure that your output doesn’t exceed your input while also keeping wary of rival crews nudging into your turf.  Once you have taken over all the rackets in a crime ring you’ll get bonus upgrades like bullet-proof vehicles and brass knuckles, perks that give you an edge over the competition.  I really liked that this game decided to go down the perk route, it has worked in many recent games, and is pretty damn effective in this instance.

Not everything is perfect though, I found the graphics to be a little bit underwhelming, low res and repeating textures, some clipping and animation bugs, but at least the core gameplay is engaging and rewarding.  When you give orders for your crew to follow you or meet you at a location, they are fast and responsive and seem to work pretty well autonomously.  The trouble with this game is that at first it seems like you’re going to be in for a complex, deep game that has plenty of options and ways to go about winning but after the first half a dozen hours, the same objectives start to get repetitive and even with the welcome changes of scenery as you expand to different locations, it still feels like more of the same.  Mind you, it’s one of those game that you can put down for a month and come back to and still have plenty of game left to complete.  At least you get bang for your buck.   

Other things that bugged me a little was the repeating dialog, the repeating rackets and locations, the constant backtracking, but on the other hand, defending your turf and acquiring new family members and levelling up your crew is more fun than I can make it sound in this review.  The perks totally rule.  Possibly the worst thing about the Godfather 2 is that I had trouble finding anyone online to play it with.  There are some brilliant modes here but I just couldn’t get a game going with anyone online.  Such a shame and definitely not a good thing to see.  

Overall:  

If you liked the first Godfather, there is no doubt that you’ll enjoy the sequel.  Those that don’t mind the extensions and liberties that have been taken with the source material, will find running that around the streets as a made man with a crew in tow is too much fun to pass up.  The strategic elements compliment the run and gun mechanics perfectly and I really think they have nailed what they have set out to accomplish.  It can tend to grind two thirds of the way through and with the lack of community support out there, finding a game is pretty hard to do.  However if you want to play as the head of a mobster family, the Godfather 2 definitely ticks all the right boxes.