The Godfather II

Publisher: EA Games
Developer: EA Redwood Shores
Release Dates
N Amer - 04/07/2009
Intl - 04/10/2009
Official Game Website
Also available on: PC, Playstation 3

Launched a few years ago, The Godfather: The Game was EA’s first foray into the lucrative world of sandbox crime dramas. EA seemly poured buckets of money into the game’s development, licensing a sizable chunk of the film’s cast for voice work and likenesses and doing everything in their power to make the game as authentic an experience as possible. The game was fairly well-received, and now EA is releasing their sequel, The Godfather II.

More than a simple rehash of the original’s gameplay mechanics, The Godfather II introduces a fair amount of new features and gameplay elements, including a new focus on the strategic growth and development of your crime empire. Players must micromanage their business, employing guards to keep watch over them, wage war on rival crime families, and have specialized soldiers at your command to help with missions. The Godfather II is a very deep addition to the Godfather franchise, and ultimately one that fans of the genre will want to check out.

The game takes a fair amount of liberties with the plot of the films, and doesn’t really follow the second film in the Godfather trilogy all that closely at all. In the game, you begin by once again creating a new character named Dominic from scratch, and having them form their own crime empire. With the help of Don Michael Corleone, you must form your own crime empire while taking out you and Corleone’s mutual enemies and positioning yourselves at the top of the heap in several different cities throughout New York, Florida, and so on. While there are characters from the movie that make appearance and play key roles in the development of the game, it’s pretty safe to say that this game is loosely based on the film, at best.

While the original Godfather: The Game was more or less a straightforward foray into the sandbox crime-action genre, the sequel opens up the gameplay substantially. As you’re now in the position of a full-blown Don, you’re able to build your crime empire like never before. You’ll have to take over businesses for money laundering purposes, attack rival families and their assets, employ defenders and guards to protect your business, and many other tasks associated with running crime rings. The amount of depth for this is pretty substantial and might be overwhelming to some, but fortunately the Don’s View interface system makes perusing your crime empire a breeze, intuitively allowing you to micromanage your business effectively and easily.

One key part of building your empire is building up your family by employing soldiers to do your grunt work. Soldiers are a huge part of playing the game effectively, as hiring the right ones can simplify the gameplay a lot, or make things quite difficult. Each possible soldier has their own skill-set, which can include safecracking, bombing, arson, or healing your other soldiers should they be injured in a shootout. The tactical side of the soldier element is done quite well, as they will act without a substantial amount of babysitting, even allowing you to send them off to run specific missions or protect your properties without you being there. As you earn money, you'll be able to upgrade them and even promote them within your family in order to give them access to new skill sets.

Still, if you’re a bit more of the hands-on type, you’re also able to go in and perform the nitty-gritty missions yourself. The game features an improved version of the Black Hand combat system from the first Godfather game, letting you attack enemies with several different kinds of melee attacks, from punches to grabs and chokes, as well as use a variety of weapons. If you wear down an enemy enough, you’ll be able to execute them, which is a different brutal kill-move depending on what weapon you’re currently using.

The mission structure in The Godfather II is pretty varied, allowing you to perform more than just the standard driving missions that line out a lot of sandbox games. You’ll have to take over businesses (forcefully, more often than not) in order to gain power. Creating a crime ring of a specific vice will give you and your soldiers a special boost, including bulletproof vests, car armor, brass knuckles, and so on, depending on which industry you currently own a ring in. Other missions have you earning favors from people on the street, performing assassinations on rival Made Men, and so on in order to gain the upper hand.

However, there are a few stumbles in The Godfather II. The game’s mini-map function works well for the most part, but the lack of the routing system similar to GTA IV’s GPS tracker can make navigating to your destination in a timely fashion somewhat less than intuitive and a lot harder to navigate cities unless you know the layouts pretty well.

Additionally, there’s no feature that allows you to immediately retry a mission should you be hospitalized or arrested during it. While dying doesn’t really have any serious ramifications (you’ll still get to keep your arsenal of weapons), any Family members who had been taken down will remain in the hospital for a while, tying your hands for a day or so until you can use them again, which prompted me to simply restart the game a few times just to avoid this.

Graphically, the game doesn’t have the same Hollywood-gloss production as the first title, but still doesn’t look too shabby. The character models don’t really have the same uber-realistic facial details as before, but they look pretty good and are well animated. The environments are also pretty nice looking and boast some nice effects, and there are some pretty impressive special effects, like explosions that look really good.

The voice work isn’t movie-caliber either, but is handled quite well. The score is very good, featuring some great tunes that help pull you into the game’s time frame and setting.

The Godfather II is a deep and compelling game, with plenty of features and options to keep sandbox fans busy for a while. If you were at all a fan of the original Godfather game or of sandbox games in general, then you should probably give this one a look.

Review Scoring Details for The Godfather II

Gameplay: 8.5
The strategy elements added to the sandbox action gameplay are a great touch, as they add a new deep element to the franchise and allow for many different ways to play. The Don’s View is also an inspired addition, allowing you to effectively and easily manage your empire. The action is solid as ever, as are the driving mechanics, although the mini-map and mission system don’t feel as intuitive as other games in the genre.

Graphics: 8.0
The graphics lack the authentic detail of its predecessor, but it still looks pretty good for a sandbox game. The character models are well-animated, and the environments are huge and boast some nice details.

Sound: 8.5
While not done with the films’ cast, the voice work is very well done, and the music adds a great feel for the time period and the setting.

Difficulty: Medium

Concept: 8.0
The Godfather II does a great job of improving upon the original game, adding in some compelling and deep new features. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really add much to the storyline, instead forgoing many of the plot elements from the film in lieu of some pretty standard crime drama fare.

Multiplayer: 8.5
The game allows for 16 players to take each other on online in a four different modes and six maps.

Overall: 8.5
The Godfather II is a great sequel, expanding on the content of the original game while making some fine additions to the formula. While the story elements aren’t too impressive and there are some design quirks, the gameplay is deep and engaging, and easily recommendable for fans of the original game or of the sandbox-action game genre.