The Godfather II Review

We weren’t surprised in the slightest to learn that EA’s Redwood Studios houses the development teams for both ‘The Sims’ and ‘The Godfather II,’ because there’s something very “Sim-like” about EA’s latest game in the Godfather franchise. The foundations laid down by ‘The Godfather’ are still here, with the main objective being to swell your power in the criminal underworld by gaining control of local businesses and illegal rackets through violence and extortion. The pace of the game has softened, however. Things have taken a step back somewhat, and now your ability to succeed is dictated by how well you manage your resources just as much as your use of sheer brutality and firepower. A significant proportion of time is now spent flicking through the menus, organizing your crime family, upgrading their skills and using the new 3D map to plot your next move – a host of new features that advance the series from the repetitive gun-play of the original.

There are also some visual clues that 'The Sims' influence has rubbed off on the design of the character models, who saunter around the city streets, chins out straight and arms by their sides, while others dance in the night-spots with the same robotic grace of their Sims brethren. The new style of the Godfather II has taken us a little bit by surprise and as a visual spectacle it rarely impresses, whereas the newfangled gameplay has also taken us a little time to get used to. But, despite being seriously underwhelmed by some of the animation, A.I., and a few technical aspects of the game, the new multi-layered gameplay does manage to draw you right into its murky world of violence and corruption and, for the most part, we’ve had a fairly good time building our criminal empire.

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