The Godfather 2

Posted June 8, 2012 by Speed - 0 comments

The Godfather 2 brings us back to the 60s where organised crime is ruling Cuba, Florida and New York as biggest crime centres in the world. You as Dominic and recently promoted Don within the house Corleone need to get the family back at the top and reclaim ruling of the cities. Contrary to what you would expect from a game like this, there are little resemblences with the movies. More importantly, however, is the question how original this sequel is compared to its predecessor and if open world possibilities are still a large part of the game.

In The Godfather 2 it’s still all about working your way to the top by becoming powerful in several cities and exterminating other mob families, starting with taking over their buildings to killing the most important pawns of the rival gangs. This all is done with the help of your own gang who you can pick up everywhere from the streets. They all have their own speciality like guys that focus on cracking vaults or placing bombs to invade or smash down a rival house in a less orthodox way.

You don’t have to do the dirty work yourself all the time. Thanks to the new “Don’s View” you can send men to a hostile building through a 3D map so that they can do the dirty work and leave you some time for other things like doing missions that are part of the story. The further you get in that, the stronger you cna make your character. Dominic has the possibility to improve his weapons capabilities or get stronger in fist fights. Next to sending troops out you can also hire people to defend trade buildings against attempts of hostile gangs to take them over.

The brutal fighting is still a large part of the game. You can grab people and give them a solid headbang, hit them against objects in the surroundings, execute them with your bare fists or unleash a powerful combo onto them. A bit less well worked out are the gunfights. Total chaos roams the battlefield and even with the best will you won’t be able to keep the overview and on top of that your companions are dumb as hell. Running in your line of fire, hardly taking any cover, attack cops when it’s completely unnecessary – you can’t imagine the stupidities and still encounter them in Godfather 2.

The graphics also aren’t what we would expect from a PS3 game. You’ve seen all pedestrians already before and also the surroundings offer little variation. Add to that a lack of detail in a large quantity of objects and you would almost think you’re checking out a souped up version of a PS2 game. The sound on the other hand is good largely thanks to the good sountrack and decent effects.

The Godfather 2 isn’t exactly the best Mafia game. For that it’s too much in the shadow of the movies and the promising Mafia 2. Except for some nice features like Don’s View, the mano-a-mano combat system, decent sound and relatively good recreation of the 60s crime scene this game has little to offer.

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