I played the first Godfather game to 100% completion. I performed every execution style, got every weapon type and extorted every single business owner in old New York and I loved it. Not exactly cutting edge back in 2006 when it was released by EA and the biggest disappointment about Godfather 2 is that not much has changed. Is it worth 60 of your precious gaming dollars?

Gameplay

You play as Dominic and you’re being ordered by Michael Corleone to take charge of the family after the death of his New York Don Aldo Trapani from the first  Godfather game. Your goal: lead your family to defeat other mobs, take control of various businesses and crime rings over three cities: Havana, Cuba, New York City, and Miami in order to become the most powerful Don in America.

While the controls for gun combat have stayed fairly tight and satisfying, the cars still handle like three dollar RC Cars on sale at Radio Shack. Their turning radius is so slim that you’ll often be pulling three point turns in the wide old New York roads during fire fights. Now, I’m willing to admit that I know nothing about the cars from the year the game is based in, and it may be a realistic portrayal, but in a game, you shouldn’t be fighting the driving engine that much on a regular basis.

You shouldn’t be fighting the driving engine that much on a regular basis

Just like the driving, both the enemy AI and your crew’s AI can be downright awkward. Your family will block doorways you need to pass through and step in front of your gun while you’re firing at regular intervals. If you make it to Cuba, the last map of the game, you will be treated to the unstoppable Cuban police force. Again, I’m not claiming that this isn’t necessarily an accurate representation of how crime was punished in Cuba, but conflicts seem to escalate to full scale riots at the slightest digression of the law. I bumped into another car in the streets of Cuba and suddenly my car was in flames and I was running for my life in a hail of gunfire. What’s really at fault is the difficulty progression in the game. When you reach the final location, instead of giving you harder to secure businesses or hit targets, they make it so you have to exit to the main menu after each job because you won’t be able to escape the cops or lose your wanted level. You will just keep running or gunning down the cops until you die.

You want to control as many illegal businesses and 
extort as many legal ones as you can

Now in the Don’s View mode, you get to experience the most innovative part of the game. It’s just too bad that you really can’t do a whole lot with it. Like the first game, a lot of the gameplay takes place at the top level. You want to control as many illegal businesses and extort as many legal ones as you can. EA has also introduced a monopoly-style bonus system that rewards you for having certain ‘crime ring’ locations in your possession. For instance, you get access to armoured cars if you control all the chop shops. This kind of top level stuff, combined with the ability to order your men to protect your interests if you can’t get to them in time, makes the game truly fun. Still, the rest of the ground level gameplay just can’t compete with these interesting and bordering on RPG concepts, making it a bit of a lost cause.

Graphics and Sound

Another thing that has remained unchanged since 2006 is the graphics in Godfather 2. Now don’t get me wrong, some of the faces in the game are gorgeous, at least until you see them attempt to speak. The modeling looks great in still frames, but they animate in a truly weird and awkward way that comes off as a little more than creepy.

The environments look alright, but suffer from a lack of diversity. Despite there being three cities this time, it just kind of looks like they took one big map, divided it into three pieces that you now cannot access without going through the airport, and gave them each a light touch of differing textures. There really isn’t much detail in the game and most buildings look the same within each city, which are pretty tiny as well. Somehow the three cities come off feeling smaller than the giant old New York from the first game.

The guns sound realistic and sweet

The game sounds pretty good actually, and the guns sound realistic and sweet. The dialogue is not bad, but it was a little hard seeing someone who looks and sounds nothing like Al Pacino playing Michael Corleone in the game. A buddy of mine even remarked how close EA’s rendition of Michael looks like Otter from National Lampoon’s Animal House. That, combined with how much he sounds like Tim Matheson, made it impossible to take anything he said seriously for the rest of the game.

Value

There’s a lot of stuff to be done in The Godfather 2 and it’s a shame it didn’t get a little more polish along the way. I put in 12 hours, trying to get every business and do every mission, and you could probably 100% the game in that time. However, if you are bothered by the lame driving physics, the enemy AI and the not so hot visuals, you won’t make it to the finish line. If I saw it on sale for say, 30-40 dollars though, I would snap it up as it’s just as addictive and fun as the first game. 

Really, this game suffers most from post-GTA4-itis. As in, it’s hard to look at a sandbox game that looks this rough after games like GTA4 and Saints Row 2 came out over a year ago. If this game had come out in 2006, it would be a different story, but it’s hard to ignore now

Conclusion

The Godfather 2 is a great game in a lousy shell. There is a truly interesting Mafia-style game in there, trying to get out. It’s almost a shame that the Godfather story elements are shoe-horned into the game because they often feel the most out of place and are the hardest to translate into gameplay.

If EA turned around and made the third entry in this series into a competent sandbox shooter and improved on the Don’s View mode, making it more useful and adding more depth to it, dropping the Godfather movie tie-ins, it would be a lot easier to recommend. There just isn’t anything really new or improved about the second installment of EA’s licensed series, Godfather 2. As it stands now, you can find games that do what this game tries to do a lot better.