Xbox Hardware & Games

Do you have what it takes to be the Don?

Video: 3
Sound: 4
Gameplay: 4

The name alone is enough to command attention, and its roots in one of the greatest movies ever made—the Best Picture of 1972—make The Godfather an ideal candidate for HT Gamer. The story essentially piggybacks onto the events of the seminal Mafia film, tying into key characters, filling in certain gaps, and largely spinning off into its own completely original scenarios. Even the hero's involvement with the Corleone family is born of the pivotal "The Don can refuse no request on his daughter's wedding day" rule.

Your character can be customized much as you would an athlete in one of EA's stellar sports titles. You're a young up-and-coming hood destined for great things as you learn from the best, committing all manner of street-level crimes, including fighting, shooting, and, well, grand theft auto. The similarity to that other notorious game does not end there, as you are set loose in a sprawling free-roaming New York City environment with no waiting for different levels to load, even when moving in and out of storefronts. The game dynamics are fairly sophisticated, incorporating (I am not making this up) an extortion system that rewards the skillful use of intimidation of business owners to maximize their payments. (Even in the 1940s, apparently it was all about the Benjamins.)

As you progress, expanding your territory and raking in still more loot, you need to seize warehouses and the hubs that channel illegal goods—killing, flirting, and bribing our way to the destruction of the compounds of the four rival families. This is largely a quest for respect, with penalties for excessive violence, for example, and you even come to worry about the consequences of potential witnesses to our shenanigans. Picking up the tricks of the trade can take a while, but handy tutorials are available.

You are fortunate enough to rub elbows with many members of the famous extended family, most notably Tom Hagen, Sonny, and Don Vito Corleone, all looking like their big-screen counterparts and, more importantly, voiced by original A-list actors Robert Duvall, James Caan, and Marlon Brando, all newly recorded. The fact that the great Brando returned to this role shortly before his death makes this game even more of an event. Conspicuously absent, however, is the voice and image of Al Pacino as the movie's true main character, Michael Corleone.

Several movie clips are on the disc—you must unlock them, either by completing certain missions or collecting film reels in your travels. Dialogue is cleanly and beautifully presented as part of the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundfield. Explosions are powerful and realistic, while the sounds of the city noticeably surround you. Nino Rota's music is like an old shoe (or is it just me?), plus Bill Conti wrote more than an hour of new interactive music. The interlaced image offers some fairly expansive views of the city streets, detailed period exteriors that would break the bank of a Hollywood movie. In addition to a booklet, the game includes a detailed map of New York City and pertinent outlying areas, with a Corelone family tree on the back. Graphically, the people, the places, and even the cars start to seem a bit familiar before too long, though. Aliasing was mild, although strange artifacts also appeared throughout.

The M-rated Godfather is violent, of course, not so much for the blood quotient as with some other games but rather with the ability to target specific parts of your victim's body. The deaths often carry great dramatic weight, enough to be disturbing to the squeamish. The language can also be harsh. Although there is a lot of content and a lot of potential challenges here, the idea that you continue to dirty our hands battling at street level after you've risen to the level of capo is a bit odd. A gamer/film fan like me might be sufficiently hooked to see this adventure all the way to its end, but youngsters not raised on the Corleones might be happier with a more current, even hip-hop version of the same organized crime/revenge saga. The bar is set awfully high for this franchise, so, while it may not be a blockbuster on the scale of its book/movie lineage, The Godfather is a worthy extension of the grand film—and a fine game in its own right.

Xbox 360 and PSP UPDATE

Video: 5
Sound: 5
Gameplay: 4

Electronic Arts' Xbox 360 upgrade to their popular open-world titles is essentially the same type of game, only much bigger and more detailed, as befits the current top-of-the-line console. The high-definition graphics have up-rezzed textures that are particularly welcome on character faces. The explosion effects are top notch, as well. This time around, once your up-and-coming mobster is accepted into the Family, you can hire a crew of Corleone soldiers, and the longer you play, the higher-caliber big shots you can recruit. Full dynamic weather and shadows, double the number of pedestrians and cars, and much more environmental interactivity await. You benefit from intimidating potential targets—not just killing them, which can actually be twisted fun—as you try to figure out what exactly will make a shopkeeper, for example, flip and play ball. You can also rough up a guy while you talk to him, uninterrupted.

There are three full new story missions, in addition to epic battles, also known as mob wars. You can even kill Moe Green, the abrasive casino king who famously took a bullet in the eye during the climax of the first film. There's lots of additional in-game dialogue from original stars Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, and James Caan, although there's none from Alex Rocco, which is surprising since he does his share of voiceover work. Seeing classic scenes re-imagined in these new, higher-quality digital graphics is one step away from watching the movie itself in high definition; as the film is yet unavailable on either Blu-ray or HD DVD from Paramount, this is a welcome and captivating experience. The Godfather has always been a premiere drama, and the improvements here all expand upon the credibility of the journey, thereby enhancing said drama.

In addition, Electronic Arts has released a Sony PlayStation Portable spin-off, The Godfather: Mob Wars, specifically with the handheld crowd in mind. Key points of the console version carry over (you can still plant a horse's head as needed, have no fear). There's also a turn-based card-style game within the game, which features more than 250 cards in seven types. This Mob Wars mode—virtual cards played on a virtual board—is unique to PSP. It's essentially a strategy battle with the goal of taking over enemy turf, and, from there, you can go to the street level and crack some skulls, although without the same extent of interactivity. The missions will seem familiar if you've played The Godfather on other platforms. While Mob Wars feels a little claustrophobic in contrast to the Xbox 360 version, it is designed for you to play a casual 10 to 20 minutes at a time. You can jump in, extort a business, and jump out whenever real life intrudes. So, if the idea of taking a "Godfather Lite" around with you sounds good, give it a shot.

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