The Godfather
Review
It lacks in variety, but will certainly entertain the fans of the movies
by Magus
reviewed on PC
Repetitive life of an enforcer
But after the first few extortions you will discover the game's worst problem: the lack of variety. There are about five different building models, and a dozen different character models (something that might seem incredible if you take into account that the character creation has a random character feature that could also have been used). Once you extort your first four or five businesses you will begin to notice why this lack of variety is so bad. Not even the characters' positions inside the buildings vary, not in the slightest. If there was a mobster waiting for you just behind that particular box and he scared you witless (maybe even killed you) the first time you found him, then you better get prepared because there will be a mobster standing behind that same box in every single building.
Novel controls
The game's default controls take a bit to get used to (since they deviate quite a bit from other similar games). One of the things I found most annoying was that if you push the move left key (default: A) while standing still you will strafe left, but if you are already moving you will turn (slowly) to the left. And if you press the key while aiming, the movement is so small that you will feel as if you were still moving forward.
The game puts great emphasis on fist fights since they are the main persuasion technique and it succeeds in one of the few areas Grand Theft Auto hadn't got right. To lock on an enemy you use the right mouse button and then you can press the W key or the E key to throw a left hook or right hook respectively. If your opponents are down or dizzy you can execute a killer move by pressing V. If you press the left mouse button while locked on to an enemy you will grab him. Grabbing enemies is a very useful way to deal with the more bothersome enemies since it will keep them still and you can even choke them to death to get stealth kills. But not even the fighting engine goes without flaws: the enemies can naturally free themselves from your grip, but if you had any type of melee weapon equipped before grabbing the enemy then you will take a good fifteen seconds to take it out again. And after that you will be most probably dead.
The gun handling is also vastly improved from the Grand Theft Auto series. You press the right mouse button to aim at an enemy, and if you click it again you switch to aim at another prospective target. The longer you keep the right mouse button down, the better you aim and the more likely your bullets will hit their target. You can also move the mouse once you have locked on to an enemy to move the aiming cursor and shoot the enemy in the hand to disarm him or in a knee to knock him down. While this system works wonders, and is really interesting from the point of view of persuasion, it still needs more polish because there will be many times in the middle of a gunfight that you will find yourself aiming at an innocent bystander; but by any measure it is one of the best aiming systems I have tried in this type of games.
Overall
The Godfather brings a lot to the table: the license, fighting system, gun fighting, character customization and many more things, and it actually makes the combination work. While it takes a lot of inspiration from the GTA series, it really is a completely different product and not just a washed out copy of the previous title. While the lack of variety in the buildings and characters is very disappointing, if you are a fan of the Godfather series then this game belongs in your collection. If you aren't a fan, you should still give it a shot because a lot of this game's mechanics are so good they will certainly become the standard for this genre.
8.0
fun score
No Pros and Cons at this time
