The Godfather 2

7.0

Format PlayStation 3

Developer EA Games

Publisher EA Games

Genre Action

14 Comments

Alright. I have to say something. Will someone please wake up Germaine Greer? She'll want to write some liberal flag waving anti-videogame essay on The Godfather 2. Seriously though, I've never committed so much random violence against so many women in a game before. I never thought I'd even write that sentence. But I have now.

Every side-quest in this game seems to revolve around punishing a women for sleeping around or casually backstabbing a fellow 'sister' for not treating her man right.

Does it make it right that you can slap a girl about the chops and throw her through a glass display case to James Brown's It's A Man's Man's Man's World?

Swim with the fishes
One thing is certain; EA is trying hard to bring the world of gangsters, crime rings and criminality, in all its violent forms, to The Godfather 2. Battering a woman (and the occasional man) will result in favours that can then be called in - usually to find the weak spot of a rival Family's Made Man. Killing him using this knowledge, for example burning a Made Man to death rather than shooting him, will permanently send him to the fishes; get it wrong and he'll simply be out of action for a number of game days.

Why the need to extort favours? Why kill, rather than injure a Made Man? What's the deal with 'game days'? This was supposed to be a GTA rip-off, right? Well, though The Godfather 2 has the veneer of a GTA clone, and it does feature the same free-roaming cities, third-person gunplay and exploration of a GTA title, there's a simple, yet effective, strategy game buried beneath the GTA pretensions that constantly forces your hand.

The aim is to feel like a Don. The Godfather 2 is not about being a thug for hire who wants to sort out his reckless cousin or brother. This isn't GTA. You're here to build a criminal empire, to start on the streets and take over a city building-by-building; business by business... often by slapping a girl around the face.

The story is inspired by The Godfather 2 film, but not based on it, so there are many key events missing, such as Vito Corleone's flashbacks to life in Sicily (though these will likely be available as online maps, along with Las Vegas).

In this sense, and like the first Godfather game, you don't play a character from the films but a new guy, Dominic, a Capo for Aldo, the hero of the first game, who dies in the prologue and leaves his Family in your hands to rebuild.

Though you can play the game in the usual on-the-streets GTA view, there's a 3D map interface EA is handily calling the Don's Eye View. From here you can get an overview of each city's whole map, see what businesses you own, what you don't, how many men you have guarding a building, or conversely, the weaknesses of your rivals.

You can also access deeper options that enable you to spend money earned from your businesses on developing other characters in your Family. Spending money on specialist skills, Black Hand attacks or basic health increases will ensure that a character is more important and is able to turn a fight your way, if needed. Either taking these guys on a job in your three-man crew or placing them on vital businesses to defend from a takeover could quickly turn the game to your advantage. You never know when they'll come in handy.

It's these deeper options that help The Godfather 2 play differently to the likes of GTA and Saints Row 2. Success here isn't just about playing out the scripted story missions, but tinkering with your Family, building crime syndicates and forging or dismantling alliances with other Families.

Recruiting your crew
The Family structure offers a number of ways to play the game. You can hire a maximum of seven characters. These characters are found around each city and need to be recruited. Some will be hanging around your businesses while more interesting characters will be hidden away somewhere in the city.

They all have backstories, but more importantly, specialist skills. You'll have a Safecracker, Bruiser, Medic, Engineer and Arsonist to take out on jobs - and all will affect how effectively you attempt a takeover.

For example, an engineer can cut off the phone lines to a building, so when you attempt a takeover, your opponent can't call out for support. A Safecracker can unlock safes, but also doors, ensuring that you can often sneak into a warehouse or shop unawares. The likes of Bruisers and Medics are more self explanatory, though Bruisers do have the added perk of being able to break down some locked doors.

On the ground these different categories of gangster ensure that each mission can be played out in different ways, adding a unique tactical edge to what could have been simple third-person shootouts. Take the wrong crew on a job and you'll make life hard for yourself. You can order them to break doors, hack safes or set fire to things, but the command list is restricted to 'Go there, do that'. The AI is solid, and to an extent can win a takeover for you.

Once you develop key mobsters you can command them from the Don's Eye View to attempt takeovers without you, although this kind of multitasking is only really needed when playing against human opponents online, who will likely act more aggressively than the AI.

Take a tour of the city
Though there's a lot to experiment with, the game's structure does wear thin. You will essentially tour a city map, highlighting rival gangs' businesses; roll up with your crew and take them over with not too much trouble. The Florida and New York maps can be dominated in a day or so, while the Cuban map is more gun-heavy, playing more like Mercenaries than the tactical map conquering of the rest of the game.

Once you've taken over a Family's businesses, you can have a crack at their base of operations - the mansion where the Family head resides. Things get trickier here, as there'll be more powerful guards - Under Bosses or Made Men - hiding out. Handily, you can make hits on these characters individually at their hideouts, found by performing the lady slapping antics mentioned earlier.

The basic formula is sound, and as you progress, more Families join the map to ensure you'll need to think who you attack and when. But you'll repeat the same acts over and over; invade a business and take it over, slap a lady for a Made Man's address and weakness, assassinate him, before heading to the Family mansion for the final payoff.

Few real surprises
The Godfather 2's big problem is that outside of this template, there are few surprises. There's no need to explore the cities unless you want to earn extra cash or Made Man locations. The maps are quite small and there's no playfulness within The Godfather 2's cities.

While other free-roamers, such as Saints Row 2 and to an extent GTAIV, layer on bonus missions, extra story strands and hidden mini-games, The Godfather 2 is a straight-down-the-line formulaic empire builder. You can fiddle with stats and tactics within its rules, but you never step outside of them to have fun on a broader scale - which is a shame.

The film's plot is barely recognisable. Key scenes play out at certain moments, but it doesn't fit together with the new story of my Made Man's rise to Don quite as well as it did in the original The Godfather game.

The new story written for the game does at least develop the themes of the film, praying on familiar period paranoia to offer missions that saw my Don in waiting smashing up a union - "We don't want none of that Commie shit over here!" - to setting up camp in Cuba and attempting to assassinate Castro for the CIA. It's a good play on the period, especially as the music includes James Brown and what appears to be the moody beige backing track to every Colombo episode ever made.

Visually, The Godfather 2 can't compete with GTAIV and lacks the imagination of Saints Row 2. While the core gameplay works, The Godfather 2 is a very straight game.

The third-person shootouts are fine, but they lack thrills and the empire building works without ever offering any deeper freedom to manage your crime rings, while the free-roaming cities lack any of the fun and playfulness I had expected - unless you enjoy gawping at rendered tits.

The bottom line is that its disparate parts don't combine to make a better whole. Germaine Greer can rest easy.

Buy Godfather 2: Play / Amazon

Ian Dean