The Godfather, the game

[TazFTW]

The release date is tomorrow but it probably won't be in stores until Wednesday. Anyone planning to pick it up?

Gamespot gave the PC version an 8.1, hxxp://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/thegodfather/review.html

while IGN gave the XBox version a 7.9, hxxp://xbox.ign.com/articles/696/696740p1.html

It is suppose to play like GTA in a Godfather setting. Gamespot says it takes 20 hours, while IGN says it took 30 hours with some stuff not completed. I loved Mafia when it came out 3(?) years ago and have been awaiting word of a sequel. If this game comes close to the Mafia experience then I'll be a happy camper.

hxxp://www.ea.com/official/godfather/godfather/us/blackhand.jsp (probably NSFW) Always wanted to throw someone off a ledge or put them inside of an oven. :D

[Buccaneer]

I hadn't heard about this but then again, I don't keep up. Mafia is in my top 5 favorite all-time games (and one I still play), so it would be hard to beat that game for immersion and storyline. I look forward to hearing some reviews from ex-Mafia players.

[stevew]

I'll probably pick this bad boy up with my 15 dollar coupon that i got from the EA game store. If not this month, then the next time they send me one, either way, PC version shipped for about 32ish.

[Passacaglia]

I once heard some "Godfather Beats" by Maurice Ager. It was pretty cool. And I like The Godfather. Still doubt I'll be buying this.

[Dutch]

I hadn't heard about this but then again, I don't keep up. Mafia is in my top 5 favorite all-time games (and one I still play), so it would be hard to beat that game for immersion and storyline. I look forward to hearing some reviews from ex-Mafia players.

FWIW, I just finished Mafia for the first time ever about 2 weeks ago. I never had the time to finish it for whatever reason back in the day and forgot about it until recently. Great game. Lots of fun and a really good story to boot.

[Critch]

A game that's like the Greatest Game Ever Made, but with the Greatest Movie Ever Made as a setting? That should be enough to put it on my buy-without-reading-reviews list, but something is making me wary. 20 hours doesnt sound much either, took me longer than that to get out of the first city on GTA:SA. So I'll be watching for early reviews on here before making my mind up.

(n.b. The Greatest Game in the Greatest Movie combination would actually be FM merged with The Great Escape, but GTA/Godfather is good too.)

[oliegirl]

The Godfather 1 & 2 are 2 of my favorite movies of all time...and being the impatient person that I am, I stopped at EB Games and bought this today :) Got it for xbox, I'm sure both radii and I will be playing it and we'll post opinions...I am not a big video game player, and when I do play it's more for fun than to "beat" the game, but this just looked too good to pass up.

[dervack]

I will pick it up for the 360. No point in getting it for the PS2.

[Icy]

I'll wait for your reviews, but i have read in some websites that the game is not that good, that the only good thing is the combat system but also that the story is too short.

[Radii]

I'm looking forward to it after seeing the reviews

[BrianD]

I've only just started the PC version, but it seems ok so far. It is very much like GTA, but the combat system is nice and the story is starting out well. I'll report more when I get farther along.

[BrianD]

Here is my mini-review of the game. The story is very good, but there won't be many surprises if you have seen the movie. If you want to play straight through the story, it will probably take between 10 and 15 hours. It isn't very long, but it is enjoyable.

If you want to explore more of the game, I'm guessing it will take about 30 hours to do everything. There are many random businesses to take over and rackets to buy out, and many of them lead to some kind of fighting. The fighting is clearly the best part of this game. Between fists, clubs of all kinds, and many guns, the combat mode is very entertaining. I've had lots of very tense fights with guys coming from all directions.

My biggest complaint is that there aren't nearly enough different floorplans for the buildings. I'm guessing that I've come across less than 10 different floorplans. All of the simple businesses (barbers, butchers, etc) have the same layout, all of the hotels are the same, all of the warehouses are the same. When I enter a building, I know pretty much where every guy is going to be. This makes the game feel fairly redundant. I want to take over all of the businesses, but it feels like doing the same thing over and over.

The driving part of the game is fine, but nothing special. Most of the driving is done to get from one place to another. A few missions involve chases, but not too many.

Hijacking delivery trucks is also an exercise in frustration. There may be a trick I haven't figured out, but it is nearly impossible to get a truck to stop. They seem to be able to drive through any kind of roadblock and they will push your car for miles. I don't even bother with this anymore because it is such a pain.

All in all, I am enjoying the game. I've got 13 hours in so far, and I'm about 60% through the story. I've also taken control of about 33% of the business and rackets, so there is still plenty to do. It isn't a great game with all of the redundancy, but it is pretty decent.

[Radii]

Hijacking delivery trucks is also an exercise in frustration. There may be a trick I haven't figured out, but it is nearly impossible to get a truck to stop. They seem to be able to drive through any kind of roadblock and they will push your car for miles. I don't even bother with this anymore because it is such a pain.


If you use the magnum(it might work with other guns, but it definitely works with the magnum) and fire at the truck 3 times, it'll stop and two guys will get out of the back of the truck, usually(always?) with tommy guns. Kill them and then you can interrogate the driver.

[Karlifornia]

The game is pretty sweet. The fighting and shooting was done wonderfully, and it's beaten my expectations. Really makes you want to watch the movies.

[Radii]

The game is pretty sweet. The fighting and shooting was done wonderfully, and it's beaten my expectations. Really makes you want to watch the movies.

I totally agree. According to Tom's Report, i'm about 58% through the main story missions, but have taken less than 10% of the shops and rackets, I have a number of hits and all of the warehouses and that sort of thing left to do.


I have a question... do you guys just take over places until you start a mob war and the pay off the FBI, or do you take over a few places and then do something to actively lower your vendetta rating? i'm not sure what to do to lower that rating... I'll take over a couple of Tattaglia places and then go do missions until it goes down, but I haven't figured out what causes the vendetta rating to go down.

[cartman]

I picked this up on Tuesday, and started playing it last night. Next thing I knew, it was 1am, and I hadn't done any stuff with the FOFC-BBCF league.

:o

[BrianD]

If you use the magnum(it might work with other guns, but it definitely works with the magnum) and fire at the truck 3 times, it'll stop and two guys will get out of the back of the truck, usually(always?) with tommy guns. Kill them and then you can interrogate the driver.

I have been using the shotgun, but the magnum is probably a better option. In fact, I use the magnum for almost all of my battles.

Taking over delivery trucks has gotten a bit easier. I usually only do it when the truck is trapped behind other cars, but it might work in normal traffic too.

[BrianD]

I totally agree. According to Tom's Report, i'm about 58% through the main story missions, but have taken less than 10% of the shops and rackets, I have a number of hits and all of the warehouses and that sort of thing left to do.


I have a question... do you guys just take over places until you start a mob war and the pay off the FBI, or do you take over a few places and then do something to actively lower your vendetta rating? i'm not sure what to do to lower that rating... I'll take over a couple of Tattaglia places and then go do missions until it goes down, but I haven't figured out what causes the vendetta rating to go down.

I am almost done with the game at this point. I've done 100% of the missions and 100% of the hits, though I did about 5 hits after I hit 100%. Three families have been taken out with only the toughest one left.

As far as vendetta ratings go, I usually bribe the FBI when things get rough. I believe your vendetta rating goes down when you do a mission, so by mixing those in with the takeovers, it stays pretty manageable. Now that I have no missions left, I usually take over a few businesses until I get to a point where I'll get shot on-sight, and then visit the FBI. Later in the game when things get tougher, getting killed lowers the rating as well.

[BrianD]

Ok, I'm going to call this game complete. I didn't get all of the collectables, but everything else is done. I'm a little sad that I didn't save up enough money to get the Street Sweeper earlier in the game. I think that would have made things a lot easier.

[Buccaneer]

Picked this up yesterday and read through the skimpy reading materials at work today. A couple of things I remembered:
- looks like I can easily change the controls to be like Mafia, and that's a good thing
- a red flag went up when they mentioned icons and stuff over people's heads. I hate games where there are stuff over people's heads, particularly any of the newer sims-like games. The only thing I like would be health bars, if appropriate. Ugh.
- from the map, it appears the game world is much smaller than Mafia, which was an absolutely joy to be in, but it does appear that there is more kinds of stuff to do.

I think it's going to be worthwhile just to be in the Godfather world, which is my favorite movie(s) of all time.

[cartman]

I'm a little sad that I didn't save up enough money to get the Street Sweeper earlier in the game. I think that would have made things a lot easier.

After I read this, I went and figured out how much it costs, and where to get it. I LOVE this weapon. I keep find myself quoting Ash, shouting "This is my BOOMSTICK!!!"

:D

[BrianD]

After I read this, I went and figured out how much it costs, and where to get it. I LOVE this weapon. I keep find myself quoting Ash, shouting "This is my BOOMSTICK!!!"

:D

Sadly, I got this very late in the game. As a result, I had a bit of a hard time taking out members of the tougher families. They seem to be able to survive about 4 or 5 magnum blasts which means facing 2 or 3 in the open meant death. With the Street Sweeper, it was back to 1 or 2 shot kills. The only problem I had with it was that I kept blowing up cars. I tried to hijack a delivery truck, but it blew up after 2 hits.

[Buccaneer]

Don't think I'll get into this. I blame part of it on having to compromise the PC game into to make it similar to the consoles. Mafia was a true PC game that just had a bad console port. After player Godfather for about an hour, I found the player movement to be awkward and a little off (esp. the extra gyration to get it facing in the right direction); the physics of the various autos suck (they all seem to run in the same, arcadish manner); the exterior (cityscape) is not as immersive or interesting as Mafia, even playing GF at a higher resolution. Yes, there are many more interiors in GF and that's a plus but despite this game trying to be a hybrid (i.e., having to control the protections and rackets), it renders the interiors as the same thing over and over (just as a way of getting money and leveling up). The genius of the Godfather movie is the story. While the cutscenes in the game are fascinating, the seem to be more of a filler between you having you do the same seriers of actions (go in interior X, talk/beat up, etc.) that makes this more of a leveling-type game instead of a story-driven game (which Mafia excels at). I think I would have them spend far less time on the MobFace gimmick, less on ranking and dollar points and more on a mission-driven, GF-inspired action/adventure game.

[Radii]

That's a fair assessment I think, Bucc. I wonder how many here are playing on the PC as opposed to a console? I have it for Xbox and couldn't fathom playing it on the PC. The story portion of the game is severly lacking(just way, way, way too few missions) but if you enjoy the other stuff its done well enough to make up for it. I come from GTA instead of Mafia, and have been calling The Godfather "GTA Lite", which is great for me. I should probably pick up Mafia, so many people seem to love it :)

[Buccaneer]

Radii, just make sure you get the PC version of Mafia, as well as the last patch, if you pick it up.

[stevew]

Okay, so i picked up the Wii version of this yesterday. Grabbing a guy and beating the fuck out of them is fun as hell. Of course my arms are going to be sore as hell. I only played about 10 minutes thus far, can't wait until I have more time to play.

[st.cronin]

Grabbing a guy and beating the fuck out of them is fun as hell.

qotm, please come back

[Karlifornia]

Okay, so i picked up the Wii version of this yesterday. Grabbing a guy and beating the fuck out of them is fun as hell. Of course my arms are going to be sore as hell. I only played about 10 minutes thus far, can't wait until I have more time to play.

I think a Wii version of Final Fight would be the best workout OF ALL TYMIEZ!!!