The Godfather II

"This game is an offer you can refuse."

I bought The Godfather II, thinking I would get even more out of it than the first game. I was wrong.

GAME PLAY: 6/10

The controls were rather simple to get, which is always a good thing, but they were clunky. Once you get multiple weapons, switching them out in the heat of battle will annoy you. They don't seem to follow a set order, but instead a random order. Plus, if you use your explosives, you need to manually switch them out, which will get annoying fast.

The game itself is ridiculously easy, and short. It's fun at first, but it gets old quick. You'll be constantly harassed by the other gangs and have to sacrifice most of your money to keep them guarded, which really is annoying when you control all of New York, but only make $75 each day from them.\

The "Crew" option is the best thing I can think of in game play. You'll be able to rank up your men, mark them for death, and customize their outfits to fit your style (Nothing quite like walking down a street with a gang of mobsters in suits, or hipsters dressed in crazy euphoric colors...) but they seem to be rather stupid in battle. They have no sense of self preservation and will run head on into enemy fire. You won't last long in the game without a medic (who also runs blindly into enemy fire). Sadly, without your crew your character is a hopeless idiot. There appears to have been a gap in knowledge from the first game to this one. No loner can you act alone, but you rely on these men to get you into place, unlike TGF1, where you could do things yourself, and a follower was just someone to help get those you missed. While the "Crew" is a fun feature, the game makes you dependent on it.

STORY: 3/10

This game is ridiculously short, and a boring story to be honest. You'll expect most of the twists unless you've been covering your ears and screaming LALALALALA during the cut scenes. After the story, the only driving force is to conquer the other families in the game and then you can just cruise the lifeless streets of New York, Florida, and Cuba to your hearts content.

GRAPHICS/SOUND: 5/10

The graphics, while nothing spectacular, are decent. They're on par with TGF1 PS3 graphics. The game could sound better though. The radio is poor and you won't likely notice it at all unless you really pay attention. The sounds of the cities are rather boring and, like the cities themselves, lifeless. The gunfire really has a problem of sounding the same as every other weapon level you have. A level one and a level three shotgun sound and look exactly the same. To bottom line it, the graphics are decent, the sound rather poor.

PLAY TIME: 2/10

As I said before, it's short and you may play it a second time through if you missed something or wanted to see something again, but other than that nothing really compels you to play again unless you love to shake down store owners constantly. If you want to try again you could do "runs" like the No Medic run where you don't use a medic, or an Assassin run where you go Agent 47 an use the Garrote Wire and Silenced Pistol to take out your targets (but you will have to use other weapons.)

BOTTOM LINE:

This is a rental game. While it tries to take on new games like GTA IV, or Saints Row 2's sandbox style game play, it's not up to par. You may enjoy it the first time, but other than that it will just be a game taking up space in your collection. I simply cannot excuse the way the game is executed. I would excuse it if it were running on a last-gen console, but they could have done so much more. This is 2009, where we have console powerhouses like the 360 and PS3, while this game seems better suited for the PS2.

I'd really only recommend purchasing this game if you're a die-hard Godfather fan. If you still want a Godfather game, I recommend the first myself.


FINAL SCORE: 4/10

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 05/09/09

Game Release: The Godfather II (US, 04/07/09)