We get a hands-on review of Xbox 360's new free-roaming title by Electronic Arts. Is Godfather another GTA-clone or does it hold its own? Find out below...
We can all remember the Godfather films, an adaptation of mob life in terms of street violence and terror, but also families becoming legitimate in the eyes of authority. How this all transfers over into EA's new open-ended game for the Xbox 360 is crucial, but does it deliver?
Join The Family When you first start up the game, right away you'll be introduced to the beginning cinematic, without any menus. On top of this, this cinema is also showing off the in-game graphics. While most gamers won't be awed by the graphics, they will notice the incredible amount of detail in the character models and the remarkable representation of the mob life. And be warned, the violence is not absent in the game.
After you are introduced to the Don as a young child, you are given the opportunity to avenge the death of your father. You are then taken to a menu which allows you to create your very own living, breathing mobster. You start out with very little funds, so you won't be wearing a tux anytime soon. EA has installed "create-a-character" mode in nearly every game they have created and with great success. The same can be said here. You can mold your character's face, name him, outfit him with different styles of clothing and more.
Where you character really shines is in the cinematic scenes, either in the main plot missions or during side missions. Seeing your character interact violently or interrogating business owners without flaw is amazing. The first time I saw this honestly stunned me because in most cases your created character doesn't "fit" alonside the main characters, such as Sonny or The Don. But what you get in Godfather is a very unique and surprisingly satisfying experience when interacting with the family.
Graphics Trust us, we have explored the next generation of free-roaming titles, ranging from none other than Just Cause to Saints Row. Godfather is definitely not the sharpest knife in the draw when it comes to graphics, but what cuts through all of the graphical problems is the actual "feel" of New York. It's gritty, dirty, and extremely populated with civilians walking around casually. Due to the large buildings, you're mostly in the shadows of New York's monuments and it all looks great.
Of course, there are some anti-aliasing issues with certain buildings in the distance and during my endless hours of playing the game, there were only two times I saw popups. However, what amazes me is the interiors of buildings are nicely detailed, furnished, varied, and plain gorgeous. Most of them even have interactive objects.
What is most noticeable is the day and night cycle in the game and it works wonderfully. If this wasn't enough, EA included storms which randomly appear, eithe during day or night. Especially at night time during mob battles, storms really give the game that eerie feeling, possessing you to let your inner moster out.
Anyone that watched the Godfather series will notice flaming barrels on the streets, steam, industrial clouds. This same theme is also found in the Godfather movies, so touches like this are excellent. The amount of buildings to walk into, explore, or takeover has been massively expanded over the current gen versions.
Let's Get Down To Business As we said before, you can create your own mobster, but you aren't one of the favored members of the Corleones just yet pal. You've got to work your way up by completing a load of main missions, favors, hit contracts, business takeovers, racket takeovers, interrogating - you name it. The Corleones have been robbed of their rightful shops, business, and territory. Your job is to help them take it back.
You'll start out by hustling businesses, such as hotels, butcher shops, and more. What I found amazing is that there are many ways of accomplishing the goal of taking over businesses. Some owners will downright blow steam and get angry and usually you'll have to "convince" them. It is your goal to find the owner's weak spot, whatever it may be. Either grab them, smash their head against the register, pull out your weapon and point it at their face, beat them up a little - these are all techniques that could work. Yet every shop owner is different.
For instance, just beating up one shop owner will make them pay up, but if you are dealing with someone who is relentless, you might have to go after their customers, shoot up some of their goods, or throw them out their own darn window. You have to be careful because it is a balancing act; you can gain the shop owner's trust but being too aggressive can lead him into a fight. If this happens, he'll fight for his business until he dies. Your goal is to get as much cash out of him, or the max money potential, before he breaks. A meter shows you if you are breaking him or making him angry. And boy is it fun.
Most shops aren't too easy to get to, especially if the Cuneo or Barzini families are protecting them. Guards will be stationed outside, patrolling the area in real fashion. Approaching a guard will cause them to react in various ways, either it be taunts or aggressive talk. What is awesome is the game is very realistic - you cannot just roam around the city with a gun, like in many of the free-roaming games. You have to be careful when you arm yourself or you could find yourself in a crowd of panicking civilians or even worse. Mob Wars and Crews The shooting mechanics are brilliant. Like in Splinter Cell, you can take cover near walls, crates, or any other object. You'll find that your enemies will shoot blindly in cover, lean against walls, taunt you, and move slowly between objects. By locking onto your enemy, you can target certain areas of his body. Capping his knees will make him fall to the ground, immobilizing him completely, and finally allowing you to perform an execution.
There are well over forty execution styles in the game and it all depends on what weapon you are using. With the shotgun you'll push him to the ground and shoot him right in the back. The game is not family-friendly, mind you. It is incredibly violent, but with proper taste due to the fact that, yes, this is mob wars we are talking about.
Mentioning mob wars, if you end up killing too many "soldiers" of families, you'll find a meter warning you of the family's vendetta level. Not only this, but you'll also have to worry about your heat level (cops!). If it reaches its peak, a mob war will break out. This means the rival family will start burning business, hunt you down, send out hit and runs raids. To stop this, you can either blow up one of their business or bribe an FBI Agent. Dying during a mob war is both good and bad. How can this be? With you in the hospital, the Corleones will suffer major losses, such as burnt down buildings, etc, but on a good note the mob war would be over due to your "death."
You'll probably want to have a crew with you during certain missions, because they literally protect your back. I tried taking over a warehouse by myself, as an experiment, and it was very difficult, but once a crew member was beside me, he'd warn me of enemy locations, and more. He will even protect the player's back, which in many cases is vital for survival when taking down a warehouse. When your mobster climbs the ladder of ranks, you'll be able to hire crew members with better weapons; crew members will lay their lives on the line for you. You can tell them to shoot out your car window to slow down the cops or the bad guys.
Car controls are great and vary from vehicle to vehicle. Some cars are incredibly slow and if you are lucky you'll find the fastest of the bunch. But when entering a different district, you might find some framerate problems, which only happen during this time. Thankfully, they aren't abundant. Cars reflect the environments in a relatively good manner, considering how open the world is.
Variety Counts Most importantly, many free-roaming games have been GTA copies, slapped together with the GTA gameplay and attitude, but given a different title. Godfather isn't like this, thankfully, and that is why it is so convincing and apart from GTA. Godfather provides you with many missions that differ in difficulty and task. In one mission you'll be gunning down the bad guys to takeover a racket to gain the business' profits, or you'll have to sneak around warehouses your garotte wire to kill silently.
Merchants will ask you for favors, such as taking out pestering drunks in the back alleys or former employees that will not leave. These are other ways of taking over businesses and gaining trust in New York also gives you a good name. You'll even find conversation on the street stay on track to current events; if a major compound is taken over, you'll see a group of people commenting about the situation. Or if you rescue someone in the family, praise comes your way. The world feels real, vibrant, and finally up-to-date with city life and mob life as well.
Arming yourself with loads of weapons helps but getting upgrades is as important. It costs loads of money to upgrade, but it changes the weapons dynamics completely. The sound of the Tommy Gun is awesome and terrifying (especially in the arms of the bad guys).
Owning New York City In the end, when playing alongside crew members and such figures as Clemenza, Micheal, or Sonny it can be so exciting and unnerving to successfully help the family in the proper way. Fighting the four families, plus trying to avoid cops, can be tense. The innovative way of providing the player with wall cover in the game gives it a more realistic appeal, plus standing in the open can get you killed immediately. Planning out your attack in an open-ended world has never been the focus of many streaming games, but The Godfather does it in a perfect matter.
While the game isn't perfect, the mission variety, performing countless contract hits with different bonuses, performing favors and executions, and finally raging a battle alongside the Corleones has never been so much fun. The only complaints that can be mentioned is with some frame rate jitters, plus some graphical bothers. These can easily be looked over due to the beautiful (and plentiful!) interiors to explore, plus a wide open mob world to overtake without anything to get in your way. Well, except maybe the cops. Overall, the era of the game, the steam coming from the streets, the mid 20th century designs in nearly every aspect makes this game a truly unique experience. We just hope that EA follows up with another Godfather game. We love the gameplay mechanics so much we hope they are adopted into other open world titles.
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