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Mind numbingly repetative

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 9
Date: November 16, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game was fun for about a week. Then you realize every thing you are doing is the same thing over and over. All the stores are the same, just in different parts of Manhattan or Jersey. I used to look forward to getting home to play this game, but after I took down the Tattaglia Family and a good portion of the Cuneo Family, I just lost interest and never played again. I paid $50.00 + tax for a used game and the fun lasted a week. Not the best purchase I ever made. I know everyone here loves the game, and my experience with the game was very much a 5 out of 5 rating, but only for the first few days.

couldn't get into it...

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 12
Date: January 05, 2007
Author: Amazon User

i wanted this game to be good, but it just didn't do it for me. the godfather is a great move franchise (minus 3), but i'd pass on the game if i could do it over again.

'Respect the Game'

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 10 / 12
Date: November 18, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Movie tie-ins are usually a rather tiresome affair. They sell bundles of units and are more often than not a large pile of mediocrity. The Godfather game is different. Obviously it's been made on the back of the unparalleled success of Francis Ford Coppolla's gangster masterpiece. And it will sell for this reason as well. However, The Godfather game has it's own place in the epic narrative.

It would have been easy for EA to put the player in the shoes of Michael Corleone - the main protagonist in the movies. Indeed, it may have been due to the failure in securing a license to use Al Pacino's voice and likeness that forced EA's hand in creating a fresh perspective on the famous storyline. What we're left with is a new take featuring your good self; a narrative that sees you seamlessly weave in and out of events loyal to the film. For example, when Luca Brasi is stabbed through the hand and garrotted - at the start of the first movie - you look in on the event through a window, you're spotted and the scene turns into a revenge mission. It's expertly executed as you feel a part of a story that is genuine and loyal to film.

The violence has been superbly recreated also. The realistic nature of the firearms in The Godfather makes for interesting gameplay. As you might be used to the rather `cartoonish' gunplay of Saint's Row and GTA, The Godfather might at first seem unforgiving. And it is. But it's realistic - take one bullet from close range and you're sleeping with the fishes... it's as simple as that. Conversely your own guns carry the same clout, so shootouts often become intense and challenging affairs, if a little frustrating. Where as in GTA's gun fighting success is dependent on how quickly you can change targets and get your shots off, The Godfather sees you picking your shots and timing runs between cover. It's obvious that EA's development focussed heavily on the walking and shooting parts of the game, as this is where most of the appeal lies.

Driving however is a different affair altogether. Given the nature of The Godfather EA were limited on what is and isn't possible for the driving sections. The physics of the cars mean they are frustrating to play with. Most of the vehicles are slow and the faster cars seem unnaturally quick. The handbrake turns that work so well in GTA are irritatingly difficult to pull off, especially when being chased by the coppers. Cars bounce off kerbs but smash right through lampposts practically unaffected. Other vehicles, however, are seemingly made of concrete.

Also, getting from one way point to another can be at times be tedious - GTA gets round this by the superbly scripted radio stations, but The Godfather doesn't have such ingenuity - you're instead treated to a violin-based soundtrack that is depressing once the novelty has done a runner. The valid excuse is that most of this isn't EA's fault - this is more or less what it was like to drive a car in 'them days'. There was no radio; the cars were lame, classic, but moved like pair of concrete boots. Where the violence is so real, so must the rest of the game be if only for consistency.

As you would expect much of what you do is directed by the storyline. However there have been provisions for those who are more impulsive. Outside of the missions there are businesses to extort and rackets to take over. Doing as such will build your weekly wage, which you can then in turn spend on clobber and sorting your hair out. You have a respect bar that increases with each completed mission, but coolly this isn't the only way to gain kudos amongst fellow gangsters. Buying a nice wise guy suit brings in the plaudits and boosts the respect meter as much as whacking a guy. Each time your character levels up you get a point to allocate to his attributes. It's a bit of a weak RPG element, but worth thinking about when acquiring garments.

Extorting businesses is tricky, but worth the effort. You'll usually have to take out two or three 'bad guys' before being able to get to the owner. When you do the situation requires thought. Essentially you need to scare the businessman into paying, and you do so by finding his or her 'limit'. So while some owners will agree to 'protection' as soon as you ask, others will have to be battered to the brink of death. Pretty sick, but then the life of a gangster isn't for fairies. Be warned though, going over the top or killing the proprietor will render the business inactive for a while and you'll get nothing but a bruised set of knuckles. It's a fantastic sidetrack to the main game that has to be taken seriously if you want to hire muscle and buy more powerful weapons for later missions.

And so you've got two sections of the same game that sit paradoxically to each other. The superbly well balanced combat game play that forces you to be thoughtful and timely. And the very dodgy vehicle part that frustrates and bores more than anything else. It's difficult to review a sandbox game without making a comparison to GTA, although it's slightly unfair to do so with The Godfather given the rules imposed by the subject matter. At it's very best it delivers a gritty realism, but by the same realistic token, it can be at times terribly dull.

It is difficult to dislike The Godfather as EA have been so faithful to everything we loved about the films - but this is the undoing of the game also. It would have been forgivable to exaggerate the gameplay in places in order to make it more entertaining. But The Godfather is a game for the purists and in order to please it has to feel genuine, The Godfather certainly is.

Even with it's flaws, The Godfather is great

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: February 13, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The Godfather video game tells the tale of a young man that you name, create, and customize as he joins the famous Corleone family of New York to not only raise through the ranks & become a made man, but to seek vengance on the people who brutally murdered his father many years earlier.

This game plays like GTA, and by this I mean it's an open ended game. You can traverse all over a beautifully crafted (and large) New York & New Jersey. You get to do side missions that are covertly named "Favors" and "Hits" where you'll find yourself doing numerous amount of things like driving someone somewhere to taking out a well armed & protected caporegime from a different family. On top of that you can go and take over rackets, extort businesses (so much fun.. you can bash the owner's head into a cash register or shoot up his building), bribe police, hire protection, collect film reels which unlock parts of the movie, hijack cars, rob banks, buy safe houses & hotels, blow up 100 safes, participate in boxing matches, hijack racket drug trucks, bomb enemy businesses, perform all executions, earn money as well as respect, and take down enemy warehouses and compounds. On top of all these extras, you have to do the main storyline which takes you through the entire Godfather 1 and beyond In addition to all of that good stuff, you can also buy clothes and mess around with his hair, eye, and facial hair color. For clothes its mainly like suits and stuff... things that people wore back in that time period. The customization is pretty deep, besides what I mentioned already, you can choose how muscular or skinny he is, how big his jaw or eyebrows jut out, lip size, skin tan, etc.

You get a huge variety of weapons in The Godfather which include revolvers, shotguns, tommy guns, bombs, handguns, molotov cocktails... they are all at your disposal and are able to be upgraded via black market merchants scattered throughout New York, although you must buy these upgrades. Furthermore, if you have access to the X-Box Live Marketplace then you can buy & download even STRONGER weapons for you to purchase within the game.

It doesn't stop there. As you progress through the game you gain levels which, in turn, allow you to upgrade your characters abilities. These include aiming & precision, speed, strength, how well you fist fight, how much ammo you can hold, and many more categories. Also, by going up levels and upgrading yourself, you go up in rank which means you can hire better crew members/protection.

Graphically speaking, I have to say EA did an excellent job creating New York and all of the characters within the game. Each character looks like their real life counter part practically to the T.. it was amazing to see the detail and effort put into the character model. New York looks amazing as well, you can really see the difference in culture from back then to present day and its really cool to see it. Marlon Brando looks AMAZING. Easily a 10.

The music was spot on and really fit with the game, creating the perfect mood and atmosphere for you to enjoy it. The sound effects are perfect, I've never heard or seen a more satisfying explosion in a video game in my life. The voice acting is superb, sporting most if not all the original cast reprising their roles.. amazing.

But with all this good stuff, why didn't this game get a 10? Well the targetting system can be tricky at times, meaning that you will wind up aiming at an enemy behind you instead of the one standing right in front of you. Additionally, the game's difficulty is like a rubber band - one minute its ridiculously easy, the next its super hard. The cops seem to come at you for almost any reason, and the same goes for rival families. Finally, your radar and map are complete garbage when it comes to pinpointing your objectives.. I can guarentee you'll drive or run right past it maybe 3 or 4 times because the map doesn't indicate where it is very well. Also the ending was strange because your character becomes the Don of NYC & the Corleones... what happened the Michael Corleone..???

To sum it up, this game is guarenteed to give you atleast 30 hours of excellent gameplay that will drag you deep into the mobster lifestyle. For casual gamers and die hard fans of the book/movies alike, The Godfather is a must buy.

Great game with a lot to do.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: March 21, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I thought this was an all around fun game. Graphics are very good and game runs smooth as butter. A few hiccups when there is a lot going on at once but never really affects game play. A lot of story and side missions to do so the game never gets dull.

All around fun game with tons to do and see. Just one gripe and it's very minor. I can't figure out why they didn't add a feature to save cars in your hideouts. Would have made things a little easier but it's not a big deal.

This game will take a while to finish so you get your dollars worth out of it. Plus, Amazon had the best price for it and with free shipping and no tax you can't beat this deal. If your into opened games with hours worth of stuff to do, get this game, you won't regret it.

A side note to Amazon: How do get orders shipped so fast? I swear I order something on a Tuesday it's at my door by Friday, Saturday the most. This company has twisted turn around time. Sick how fast they get merchandise sent, especially with free shipping, this company is the best. Keep up the great work.

The Godfather the game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: November 17, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Its alot of fun being a [not for real] ganster. Lots of action and missions to complete. I'm not a criminal at heart but its fun to be bad in this game. Worth it.

An addicting timewaster, but nothing to write home about

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: December 17, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The title may be somewhat misleading, but this game is fantastic. It'll definitely be one of those you'll pick up to kill 30 minutes, then realize the sun is coming over the horizon. Very few things detract from quality, excepting if you buy the Xbox version, which has a lot of meat cut out of it, and is very fun. The only problem is the storyline has little in the way of originality, and while being retconned well, should've been more about the protagonist rather than follow the plot of The Godfather almost part for part.

Graphics: 8/10: Definitions are good, and the buildings, vehicles, and characters are well rendered. The fires are a little fake, but not obviously so. The character creation screen has great versatility, allowing for very good likenesses of whomever you wish, within reason.

Sound: 10/10: Voice acting is stupendous. Until I read otherwise, I'd thought Marlon Brando had done the voice acting for Vito, which he had, but was later replaced. Other character voices are easily recognized and spot on. The background music is well done, and the sound effects during combat are realistic.

Gameplay: 7/10: Some slight stumbles don't interrupt an otherwise smooth and almost intuitive fighting system. Hand-to-hand tries to emulate Fight Night, a lofty goal, but partially succeeds. Ranged combat is automated but still requires skill to make difficult shots. Relying on the computer is a sure path to defeat. Skill advancement is progressive and challenging without being overly hard to understand. The side missions and storyline missions are put together well, as each is a mini-tutorial for a particular skill set, rather than one monstrous training mission.

Story: 3/10: See above. While being the Don's right hand man is fun in its own right, I'd have liked to have had a more original storyline to follow, interacting with the Godfather story rather than being hammered into it.

Overall: 8/10. A solid piece, with great replay value. Something you can pick up and play over and over for the missions and sidequests. Just don't get the regular Xbox version, which was gutted like a fish.

The game was pretty good!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: January 07, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I liked it alot. It has a bunch of mini missions and such and the game has alot to offer. Overall this game is a very good game.

Great Game for the lovers of Godfather series

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: February 13, 2008
Author: Amazon User

The game puts you right in the middle of events from the first movie. Excellent gameplay with some unique actions and story...I loved playing the game so far...also it supports upto 1080p and looks great if you have HDTV :) excellent graphics, sound and yea bonus movie clips :P Must buy if you liked the original godfather movie and books and sequels...u get the picture :)

The Ultimate Godfather: The Game Version!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 15 / 17
Date: September 21, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Look no further than this version. It tops all others in looks and in bonus content. Previously released on PC, PS2, XBOX, and PSP this all new XBOX 360 version is by far the best looking with all new higher detailed textures and surfaces. The buildings look even more real and the cars have that shine that you'd see on real cars. All of the character animations have been improved and the fire effects have been bumped up as well. This verison also featured weather effects and fully interactive stores and places of business. Even more amazing is the fact that EA actually got Godfather actors Robert Duvall, James Caan, Abe Vigota, and Marlon Brando to do some of the voice work. Marlon Brando recorded an hours worth of voice work but only a few lines from that session could be used, due to his failing health at the time that effected the quality of his voice. They are used in the earliest story sequences that feature Don Corleone. The final word from EA says that they used 3 sources for the voice of Marlon Brando: 1. voice over session 2. audio clips from the film 3. a sound alike.

If you love the Godfather film then this game is a must own. This is by far the best looking and the best playing version. If you like Mob or gang videogames then this game might have what you are looking for. It is a lot more organized (like the mob itself) and places great emphasis on that organization. Not just random mindless violence. Respect points must be earned and vendettas have to be watched and kept in check to avoid the fall of the Corleone Family. You want organized crime? You wanna be a part of the most legendary mob family in history? Look no further!

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