Take the Multiplayer, Leave the Cannolis

Back in mid-December--right around the time we were embroiled in the teeth-baring, fist-flying deliberations for our game of the year--EA rolled through town with a playable group demo of the multiplayer component in The Godfather II. This game, like its predecessor, plays a little fast and loose with the setting of the film it's based on. You rise up through the mafia ranks in late '50s Miami, essentially climbing into the Michael Corleone role as head of the family by the end of the game (though Michael himself is still a separate character).

We caught a bit of The Godfather II's single-player at an EA event last summer, where I think we were all fairly impressed with it. That's mainly because of the persistent strategic conquest of territory that underlies the traditional mission-based open-world structure. The city is broken up into districts that are each controlled by a specific crime family. You're constantly at war with these other families over the territories, and you can do things like send an AI wrecking crew to attack a district, or engineer a war between two other families to weaken them so you can move in for the kill. It all at least sounds engaging, and the 3D tactical map that breaks down all the territorial action looks really nifty.

The Godfather II's multiplayer stuff feels more rote, with a lot of old standby modes (team deathmatch, anyone?) and the sort of stock action controls--cover mechanics, zooming, a weaponless sprint--that you expect out of an online third-person shooter. There are some objective-based modes too, granted, and the controls are perfectly functional (other than an irksome inability to toggle inverted aiming in the build I was playing). But stock multiplayer modes like this one have a way of feeling unnecessary in games where the single-player component is already so sprawling and involved.

Where I think Godfather II's multiplayer may have a legitimate hook, then, is in its ties to your single-player empire. Offline, you roll around with a "family" of seven gangsters whose skills and abilities increase with your territory and influence. Your guys don't specialize in a specific skill; instead, they can acquire any and all of the abilities--engineering, safecracking, demolitions, and so on--and add them to their repertoire. There are also multiple per-character weapon licenses; each upgraded license allows that character to use bigger and more badass weapons. If you meet a well-equipped potential recruit who you want to add to your crew, you can mark your weakest soldier for death and let your other characters violently weed him out, so the new guy can join. It all sounds to me a little like an RPG party system.

Actually, EA just put out a trailer showing off all the professions your characters can master. Here's that.



How all this relates to multiplayer is that your single-player characters go straight into the online matches with their stats intact, and then any experience and money they earn there comes with them right back into the single-player again. So if you have a particular guy on your squad who's mastered all the skills and has top-level weapon licenses, you'll be able to clean up in a multiplayer match. Or if you feel like jumping online and busting some heads, you could use one of your lesser characters to beef him up a bit before getting back to the campaign. Call of Duty 4 proved that persistent character progression is the new holy grail of online multiplayer, so I think it's smart how EA has extended that concept here so your progress goes both ways, on- and offline.

One final point about using your characters in multiplayer that I thought was pretty neat was the way your characters' professions work. The multiplayer isn't class-based, per se, since any one character can embody all of the professions, but having certain skills in certain scenarios can range from beneficial to actually required. In some cases, having the right skill will make your life a little easier; you could use the demolition ability to break through a fence in a team deathmatch and create a shortcut to a more defensible area, for instance.

In other game types, though, you'll need certain skills to be the most effective. There was one mode that focused on holding control points, Battlefield-style, except that the control points were safes that had to be busted open. So in that case, only characters with the safecracker ability could actually capture the control nodes and score points for the team. Sounds like a good extra incentive to buff up your crew's abilities, beyond what it will get you in the offline.

The Godfather II is slated to release in late February, so I'll be interested to see if all the back-and-forth between the online mode and the fairly involved single-player campaign can live up to what looks like a decent amount of potential.