The first Godfather game was a pretty decent open-world action title. As such, I was excited with the promise of this new game, when its details were first announced last year. Instead of another GTA rip-off, it promised something more creative, allowing you to manage various resources, including businesses and personnel, on your way to bringing yourself up to the pinnacle of the criminal underworld.
The game does feature the promised gameplay, allowing you to recruit skilled personnel into your fold and taking over businesses in your area. In fact, both additions create an interesting facet to the game that many similar action sandbox games don’t offer.
Hired guns (you can get up to seven) bring along their own special set of skills such as demolitions or lock-picking, making them potentially valuable assets when you go out into missions. Problem is, you can only bring three with you. Choose the wrong sets of guys and some places will be impenetrable – you’ll have to restart the mission if you want to get through.
Businesses, on the other hand, add an important management aspect to the game that can eat up a lot of your time. Gaining control of certain businesses affords you certain perks, apart from the regular cash flow it creates. Owning the prostitution rackets in New York, for example, gets you brass knuckles. While that one’s not really that big of a deal, others are, such as the bulletproof vests that you get when you control Florida’s diamond smuggling operation. Rival families will try to both sabotage and steal your businesses away, so protecting them ends up being a fun game all on its own.
All that, of course, apart from the main storyline (which isn’t all that good) plus a number of multiplayer options round out the game. It’s a fun title, don’t get me wrong, but for a game that showed so much promise, it does little to advance the genre. In fact, the game feels rushed and unfinished: AI is no good, dialog is stale, physics is retarded at times and some of the game mechanics are just plain dumb.
Personally, I enjoyed the game, all issues notwithstanding. What’s sad is, with smarter planning and better production values, the Godfather II could have been a lot more than what it is now.
Godlfather II – Available @ Amazon.com Price: $59.99
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