Tools of the trade

As your empire grows, it will be harder to maintain. As soon as you venture outside of New York, managing your businesses and responding to takeover attempts from rival gangs would mean taking a flight to the other map. While the game is rather forgiving when it comes to time required to fly, it would be a real pain having to move back and forth all the time. EA realized this and implemented a system called the "Don's View". While it has many other uses, I found it most helpful when managing my business. Once opened, the Don's View lets you select a city and manage it as if you were there. Adding guards to your businesses, view what other gangs are doing… it is all done through quickly accessible screens that are easy to use. You can even send your Made Men to another map to help defend against a hostile action, arriving in time to make a difference.

The Don's View also allows you to manage your crew of Made Men. Starting out with only a single person, up to seven will be unlocked as you complete missions related to the overall storyline. Made Men have special skills, most of which required at one point or another to complete the game. For example, to completely obliterate a rival gang you will need someone with the demolition skill. He will be responsible for giving the enemy the final blow by bombing their headquarters. A medic is good to bring along in a fight too. More than once was I revived after having busted into a room full of shotgun wielding baddies, a stupid thing to do as you will learn soon enough playing the game.

Made Men can be upgraded, and thus made more valuable. You can increase their abilities by purchasing skills such as 'Marksman' which gives them better aim and 'Survival' which buys you more time to revive a fallen man during combat. Weapons can also be purchased and come in different levels. It depends on your Made Man's weapon skills whether he can use a particular weapon or not. Lastly, Made Men can be promoted, increasing their effectiveness and staying power in battle, as well as awarding them an additional specialty.

Dated

The Godfather II is only being let down by its graphics. Compared to GTA IV, undoubtedly its main competitor, the game looks positively bland. In fact, judging from screenshots that others have made, the graphics are hardly any better than the original Godfather. No matter whether you are roaming the streets of New York or gunning down dissidents in Cuba, you are looking at the world through a strange haze. I also experienced some weird clipping issues, the most severe of which was a business owner disappearing in the concrete column behind him while I was extorting him. He never stepped out of the wall which meant I couldn't finalize the 'deal' with him. On the plus side, the game isn't too taxing on your PC. There were no slowdowns in frame-rate or any other hiccups at all. Still, I don't think that this makes up for the lack of quality. Perhaps EA thought they could get away with 'barely adequate' as the GTA series has done for so long but The Godfather lacks the popularity required for such a gamble.

Not so bad then…

I played and finished The Godfather II in three days and found myself wanting more when I saw the credits roll by. That to me is the hallmark of a good game. Is it a perfect game? Definitely not, it has its flaws. The graphics are way below par and I wouldn't have minded if it had provided me with a bit more challenge. Yet the overall storyline keeps driving the player forward and the storyline missions are varied and never grow old. The Don's View is a great find to keep your empire manageable and the strategic and RPG elements have been well implemented.

In the end, I think that not having played the original Godfather has helped me to look at this game with little to no bias. I am a strong believer in gameplay over graphics and of the former is plenty to go around here. Recommended.