The Godfather II

The Godfather 2 takes the same general open world concepts found in Grand Theft Auto games, but does little to innovate or provide exciting gameplay.

The story is loosely based on that of the second Godfather film, yet obviously takes liberties in order to make it gel into objectives fit for the game. They’ll rob some lines and scenes from the film, but the alterations in the game eliminate any of the emotional impact found from the classic film. It doesn’t matter too much though; the game hardly spends much time with the story element. However, if you have seen the film you may see some of it as laughable.

The core game mechanic is to build your crime empire. You will be tasked with taking over businesses, and taking out rival crime bosses. Starting this game I thought this was more of a side task in order to give you bonuses, but it is actually a requirement in the game to control every crime ring and kill every other boss in order to finish. At first it was fun to break into a business, kill all the guards then intimidate the owner till he gives you the racket. However, once I unlocked the second city I already was tired of doing the same thing over and over again.

You can eliminate some of the tedium by sending your family members that you recruit to take over a business on their own. Most of the time they succeed, but if you send too few, they’ll all get sent to the hospital. The rival families can also take the businesses you have back, so you’ll be constantly sending your crew to defend a location, or going yourself to take it back. Once you eliminate the family you won’t have to worry about them anymore.

There are three different locations you can visit, each of which are on the small side and easy to traverse its entirety on foot. During the last stretch of the game I didn’t even bother hijacking cars since it was more hassle than just running to the next destination. I personally liked that the cities were smaller, as it significantly cut down on travel times that I find occasionally annoying in open world games. I definitely spent more time in combat than I did running around.

The graphics are definitely a let-down. Characters look reasonably detailed, but everything else looks stale. The clothing and environments are relatively plain. There are numerous graphical glitches including some insanely sudden pop-in of vehicles or pedestrians. Don’t be surprised when you are speeding away from the cops to find yourself smash into another car that suddenly appeared before you.

For some this may be an issue, while others may welcome it, but the game is really easy. The gunplay comes with an auto targeting system, which you can use to find targets easily and dispatch them. Also if you die, a medic (if it’s in your current crew) can revive you back to full health within seconds. You can lose the cops simply by returning to your safe house, or just saving and quitting from the main menu. Also the AI can be shockingly stupid. Your crew will stand in the open and killed, the cops will see you leave a bank you robbed and ignore you, and the enemy will blindly charge you. You can also take a lot of punishment since your health regenerates only a couple seconds after taking damage.

Despite the simplicity of the game, the combat can be particularly satisfying thanks to the execution kills. Simply by hitting the right stick on a stunned enemy you can perform a brutal attack that will kill your enemy instantly. Or if you are trying to be stealthy, I really enjoyed grabbing an enemy and choking the life out of him.

There is also a multiplayer option that will allow you to control one of your crew members and play online to unlock improvements. The online was fairly polished as I encountered no lag and it was really easy to get into. Since the single player story can be completed in about 10 hours, having a good online option definitely helps this game.

The Godfather 2 is certainly an improvement over the original with brutal combat and the additional strategy element when defending your business empire. However, graphical issues and incredibly tedious gameplay prevents this one from being on the same level as the phenomenal Grand Theft Auto 4 from which it is so heavily based on.