Any movie making the jump from the silver screen to a gaming platform can sometimes leave you with the unnerving feeling that you've been presented with a photocopy of a photocopy.
Somehow, the content just seems lacking. It's almost as if during the translation the very fabric of what made the movie so enthralling has irrevocably been lost, and what remains is merely a light dusting of film quotes, voice acting and famous scenes perched on top of a mundane game engine completely lacking in innovation.
This is all well and good when the movie is fairly mundane itself - nobody really lost any sleep over the terrible adaptation of Beowulf: The Videogame for example, but when your source material regularly appears on almost everyone's list of top ten favourite films ever made, you can be sure that you'll need to tread carefully to avoid losing all credibility. In fact, about the only film-to-game conversion with more potential risk would be a Wii version of Citizen Kane.
Electronic Arts are only too aware of the fine line they're treading, and after an exhaustive intelligence gathering exercise to identify faults with the original Godfather game (of which there were many) they're now almost ready to reveal the sequel to an adoring public. After checking our press kit for any traces of equine remains, we eagerly fired up our test console to see how the story of the Corleone family has progressed..
Where the previous title suffered (namely the RPG drudgery associated with levelling up) Electronic Arts have been quick to promote you to the top of the rank within the Corleone clan. Being a Don not only provides you with the proverbial keys to the city, you also have access to "Don's View". This strategic command centre is such a crucial addition and forms such an integral part of The Godfather II that we've spent a considerable period of time messing around with it.
Basically, this God-flavoured overview will have you tracking and tracing your criminal brethren as they take to the streets of New York and commit various acts of thuggery on your behalf. It's presented as a birds-eye overlay, allowing you to control all aspects of the game through an intuitive series of menus. In addition, the ever-present pop-up instructions make coming to grips with the more complicated game concepts relatively painless.
As a member of the Corleone family, you're tasked with building your own team of Made Men to terrorise and intimidate the locals. As any keen criminal will attest, it's all about respect, so to take over a premise (such as a brothel, chop shop or something equally as illegal) you'll need to raid it and make the owner sufficiently scared enough to pay you for protection. This is achieved by simply walking through the front door, taking out some goons and waving your gun in the general direction of the owner - a meter will show you when they're ready to roll over, although don't push them too far or they might fight back.
Some owners won't be overly afraid of your arsenal, so you might have to persuade them by smashing up some of their stock, or finding a tall ledge to hold them over - you'll need to act like a real mobster and understand your victims own personal fears if you're going to make it in this racket.
Once you've captured the business, you can assign guards to prevent any rival families from taking it back. The guards cost money, so you need to balance out your desire to expand with the reality of your bank account. Each captured premise will not only generate cash for you, but also provide you with bonuses. Take over a series of chop shops, for example, and you'll get additional vehicular armour. Take over brothels, as you're tasked to do almost immediately as the game starts, and you'll get brass knuckles to assist with combat. These bonuses stack, so you really need to be proactive in gathering assets to reach your full potential.
Speaking of which, EA have taken the same Grand Theft Auto approach to combat this time around. As soon as you initiate combat, your best weapon is automatically chosen, and you can blast away to your hearts content without specifically targeting anything. Hold the left trigger however, and you'll lock on to the nearest enemy, which you can then despatch by firing with the right trigger. Hand-to-hand combat is significantly improved too - where the original always felt clumsy, the sequel has much more fluid grab-and-punch physics, which are incorporated as standover tactics as well. It's not always a good plan to go killing people when you can rough them up and syphon money from them instead.
Throughout this process, your family will be at your side, and you can recruit various new gang affiliates as your reputation and cash increases. Each member of your personal army will bring a new skill to the team, from arsonists to explosive expects, and even medics. The trick appears to be finding a balance so that you can cover any situation you find yourself in.
Your partners in crime act as backup by themselves, or you can direct them to move to a certain location, or even go off and bomb a building - although most missions will require you to keep as many men by your side as possible.
As you would expect, cinematic cut-scenes are frequent, which heightens the tension and provides great entertainment. The acting might not quite have the same depth as the movie, but there's only so far you can go with CGI. Besides which, there's plenty of cheesy Italian voices mixed with serious dialogue to keep you entertained long into the night.
The real beauty of what EA have developed lies with the integration of the Don's View with the sandbox city environment. Virtually every aspect of the game is controlled by above, including setting waypoints and planning missions, and it's great to be able to play a truly strategic game that still contains challenging combat.
Comparisons with Grand Theft Auto IV are inevitable, but where Rockstar's game allowed you to run down prostitutes, The Godfather II will have you carefully planning how best to exploit their talents for your own financial gain.
Some film-to-game titles can be terrible, but If EA manage to maintain the momentum we've seen with this early build then this isn't going to be one of them. The Godfather II has a good chance of doing the film proud, and we'll let you know all about it when the final game is released on February 27th.
---
We have a couple of trailers available, so if you haven't seen the developers diary or extortion clip, head over to GP Downloads and check them out.
