A movie based game, that is much better than it has any right to be. If you love mob games or the movie, then you'll enjoy this.

The only gripes I had was the open world felt like a drag, because the driving didn't feel very engaging. There's no fast travel in this version, as far as I'm aware.

Also playing on Xbox 360 on a modern display is painful. Playing at 480p runs at a solid 30fps, but it looks very rough. Play it at 720p/1080p, and the game will frequently drop in the 20s and the controller response becomes terrible.

I would recommend the PS3 version instead or maybe the Wii version, if you can tolerate motion controls.

Ahh a childhood favourite, I was pleased to see that this was NOT worse than what I had remembered. As you can tell, I might be, honestly I most likely am, biased towards this game. The Godfather is a movie that I watched after playing this game and still loved, my top 3 for sure, I just can't seem to find holes in that movie and that's important because this game basically follows that story. So a video game on one of my most favourite films, if not the most favourite, and one I've played when I was little? Of course I'm a little biased to say the least but I'll try to be a bit more objective.

Let's start with the visuals, it's serviceable. I don't know what it is but the faces look so terrifying for the main characters such as Vito Corleone, it's like so uncanny how it moves and stuff, it was revolutionary back then sure but looks sort of terrifying and odd to me, especially when talking. Faces feel less like faces and more like a flat face-shaped object with a flat texture on top, I mean that's what it is but it is very un-immersive. It's not bad but might be considered horrible by some, and I'd say rightfully so. Thankfully every other character is ok like the gangsters or your own characters. I had some buggy visuals like eyes popping out of the eye bags a little, weird mouth movements but that's it. I find it funny how the game handles interactions though, Don Vito has the same animation as Tom Hagen does when you talk to him and I find that funny. I think some Corleone gangsters talk with that animation as well, a bit hunched and then moving their arms. Anyways, this game has some pretty cool animations. I don't mean the quality but rather the variety. Truly well done job from those guys, they didn't give the best quality but they gave so much that it's immersive in that sense. For example, when interrogating someone your character can put his hands up in a fighting stance, grab the other guy, slap them or hold their throat and threaten them. All this variation just adds to the experience. The monotonous designs of the rival gangsters is contrasted wonderfully by the different shop owners and racket owners. I felt like most were different. They had different voices from time to time, different clothes and surprisingly different body and faces as well. I really appreciated that, felt like I was going to a new place instead of an old one. The dialogue is kind of funny sometimes and quite cool when talking with these shop keepers. It's not masterful, deep stuff. Just some cool gangsta shit kinda thing. I love it, fulfills my fantasy. Cars look okay but they don't have translucency, so you can't see who's inside. Original movie scenes are obviously not done justice with these graphics and subpar animations. The gangsters look so similar I think there's only two types, a thin one and a fat one. That's it, they wear different colored inner shirts and that's all the variety in visuals. Animations for execution and the variety are amazing I'd say. You'll have fun killing people in different ways and trying out different weapons for executions and stuff.

Now for the sound. The main issue I have is the music, surprisingly, it's just so much of the same thing. It takes the main Godfather theme and repeats it on and on and on and has some variations of it. If there's like 20 tracks, 12 are the Godfather theme and its variations and those are played most of the time. I'm not looking up how many tracks there are and finding out exactly, I'm just giving a rough idea. The dialogue delivery apart from Tom Hagen is above average. I had fun listening to stuff but it wasn't because the dialogue was great or the delivery was great, it was just a combination of everything. If I'm being objective, it's only above average but I liked it, I'd say the dialogue and delivery are 7/10. The sounds of the guns and bombs are bombastic (haha) to me, really liked the sound of shooting and throwing bombs. Cars sounded good too, don't expect Need For Speed level of sound design, it's good in terms of an open world game, especially one set in the 1940s.

Okay so story, some people might so and say "what story?" And I'd partially agree with them, it's an above average story interweaved with the original Godfather's story. Above average because it takes inspiration from the original films and Goodfellas, not because it's particularly impressive or good. 6/10. The ending scene is hilarious, it hits out of nowhere and makes no sense. I'm talking about beating the story and destroying all family compounds and stuff. The original story is not done justice at ALL, at first it was kinda fun, for the first 2 hours it feels like it KINDA fits but nah it's just messy after that. Feels kind of rushed and uses a lot of cliches but it's serviceable at least, not bad. If you think of it as a Godfather game then yeah it's bad. It's like the Godfather Part 3, where it's not a bad piece of media just that the Godfather movies are masterpieces so IN COMPARISON they seem bad. Part 3 was a 7/10, a good movie but this game is AT BEST a 6/10 in terms of story and only because the original Godfather's story is there, if it weren't there it'd be like a 4 or 5/10. There's just no impact when the original movie's plot points hit, at least for me.

Okay so serviceable visuals, good enough to good sound and mediocre story. Gameplay must be average too right? Well holy guacamole this is where the game truly shines. This is no Sekiro but this is what I always wanted in open world games. To be able to go into shops, stores, warehouses and stuff. It feels, open... alive. Okay so let's start from the bottom. Movement is, fine. Running and walking feels a little janky because the aiming is pretty weird unless locked on, otherwise it's fine. Running actually feels like running though idk what it is but the guy looks like he's running like his life depends on it when he runs and that's important cus you HAVE TO run sometimes. Driving is also fine, sliding is fuckin awesome and makes for some cool moments in game and driving fast is fun in coupe cars but those aren't too common and you'll have to look around a bit. Thankfully this game doesn't have the GTA problem of spawning more of the same car you're driving and continues feeling like the world goes on without you, with the same influx of different cars. Chases range from good to bad to fucking awful. Enemy cars don't follow you at a steady pace, they match your pace or become faster so if you drive the fastest coupe they'll drive at mach 1 and destroy themselves if they hit the wall or something. Chases feel so shit because instead of spawning cars in a good way like from around the corner or something, they just spawn 10 meters behind you randomly. They then drive faster than you at your fastest speed and ram you like bruh what am I to do, especially when the main missions ask of chases sometimes it's horrible. Driving normally is okay though and can be used to cheese locations by clearing out guards. This game having limited health with only health pickups saved it. It's an absolutely fantastic feature. I love it. It created so many tense moments and I've died like 15-20 times. You thank the Lord whenever an enemy randomly drops a health drink or you find one in a warehouse during dire situations. Now time for the juicy bits, the shooting and the rackets. So, shooting is fun, very fun for me. In this game you solo like 40-60 people and that makes you feel like a bad ass especially when everyone seems to have different health bars, some need more shots and some need less depending on rank, they have the same weapons as you just that they can't switch and the weak point thing, oh Lord it's AWESOME. Shooting someone in the knees and crippling them for a few seconds, shooting someone's hands and disarming them THAT's bloody AMAZING. Makes some intense fights easier because you were able to do some quick thinking. Cover system is fine, I barely used it cus you have to peek out to shoot and I'd usually get blasted. I stuck to crouch behind stuff and locking on to someone and then walking sideways from a wall I was hugging. Gunplay is fun with the lock on, you wait for the reticle to get smaller and if you're careless and get shot you are unable to get accurate shots, great balancing act. Shotguns are tough to use but deadly and Tommy guns are a BLAST to use. Just mowing down people randomly is so gangsta and cool. And the fact that after someone dies they stay in that animation as you continue shoot is masterful, it's so awesome like you feel like you're mowing someone down, not kinda shot him a little and he's dead. The snub nose is pretty wack and is decent for the first few hours but you'll use everything except for that. The pistol and magnum were my favs to use most of the time for their usability but the Tommy Gun was perfection in terms of fun. No need to wait for accuracy just go and mow some people down, AWESOME! Magnum hits hard in this game, really liked it. The upgrade system for guns is so cool, it gives you a really good reason to hold onto your money and buy stuff and creates really difficult opportunity cost situations. Should you get this gun or that gun or wait to get the level 3 of another gun? Money and money management is AWESOME. The way you can customise your character's face is quite awesome for me but I didn't change too much but I loved outfitting him up a little and you've got a few cool ones so you can save money for that as well. Then there's the most important one in a way, the safehouses. These places are so vital for running from cops and just to save your game and restock on stuff. Lovely. Feels like you're setting up operations in a different place and buying new hotel rooms and rooms that were rooms to let is so awesome and adds to the immersion.

Hits are pretty damn cool and it can be nice to fight through people and kill someone in a specific way and the stories attached are kinda nice i guess. At least the hit targets feel different. Good idea, not bad. The story missions are quite eh sometimes, kinda good sometimes and shit sometimes. overall a 5.5/10. Anyways, the coolest part, taking over rackets and shops. Yes, it's addictive, you just go to a shop, try to muscle the owners into running the shop under your protection and try to find out their weak spots. I love it. Got all the shops before I finished all the story missions and got all the warehouses and compounds before that as well. Warehouses are brutal and pretty shitty sometimes because this game has a pop in problem. Enemies don't have pre set positions they stay at, they just pop in there sometimes and sometimes pop in behind you. It's especially tough at warehouses where you had to fight through 40 people and someone with a shotgun could come up behind you and finish your hard work in seconds. Taking over compounds surprisingly felt a bit easier for me, you gotta destroy 2 buildings but I guess less pop ins made it less difficult. This game is kinda difficult by itself but the pop ins made it Dark Souls tier to me, janky and tough lol. Bribing cops and G-men was so cool, it was like having to balance your pay check with having enough to fend off opposition family and police so that you don't get fucked. I like a challenge so you bet I had fun trying to play the system and winning fights and bribing officials. a 9/10 in terms of gameplay, if jank and pop ins were fixed it'd have been a 10/10 in terms of gameplay. Oh yeah I forgot, you can box too, there's that. And upgrading your character is very satisfying! I loved having to choose between the different options.

So, a game that basically tarnishes The Godfather's name basically but still isn't bad? Well, that's what good gameplay does. EA should've not released this, they should've released this game under a different name. It would've gotten more favourable reviews and looked upon more favourably because everyone will inevitably compare this to the Godfather which is unfair, this game tries to be something by itself which is evident by the insertion of your character into the plot of the original movie with his own side plots and some arcs. The gameplay and variety of stuff you have is so fun though, buying hotel rooms, safehouses, bribing officials is a realistically corrupt thing that mafiosos would've done, fighting to take over rackets, shops and warehouses is bloody fun and makes you feel like superman. After you rise up ranks in the story people in the street and maybe even your own Corleone members react differently to you. Phone calls are a cool way to get some missions. Blowing up compounds really does feel like destroying a family from its roots. Just an overall bad ass gangster game.

So, this is a must play for fans of the gangster/mafia genre, makes you feel badass and lets you do gangster stuff. Don't think too much about it, play it and have fun kind of game. Just a blast to play. If it didn't tarnish the Godfather name it'd have been a 4.5/5 and if the jank were fixed with a new remake/remaster it'd have been 10/10 for sure but as it is, it's just a very good game with a number of flaws that can be forgiven for a truly unique and sort of immersive city with nice activities. I loved the shit out of GTA San Andreas and its gang wars were one of my most favourite features in a game along with its "RPG" stats, this game brings both and improves/changes stuff up with them so of course I'd love this. I think objectively this game can be classified as a 7/10, a good game, but the subjective experience was fun and considering it's nearly 2 decades old? Job well done devs.

Not a timeless classic but a fun game. I have a soft spot for games that are fun, I care about story but if the gameplay is too fun then it can negate a bad/mediocre story and if the story is too good it can negate the mediocre story. This game's gameplay lifts it up to very good status with its gameplay. Hope you have as much fun as I had with this game, a blast to play. If it weren't for my big backlog and my short attention span, I'd have finished the game further. Had some hits, safes and safehouses left and also didn't buy the level 3 shotgun. I just ignored the film reels in general cus idc about that but yeah, an absolute romp!

Un jeu de mon enfance que j'ai terminé au moins trois fois sur PS2 quand j'avais 7-8 ans. Le monde ouvert était assez grand et l'univers du parrain est très bien retranscrit. Les armes et améliorations sont supers bien pensée de souvenir et les voitures agréables pour l'époque. Le système d'extorsion, bien que répétitif, était agréable et équilibré entre la partie négociation et combat. Enfin le système de vendetta contre les autres familles est l'un de mes souvenirs préférés du jeu.
Du côté négatif, outre la répétitivité, l'histoire si vous n'avez pas vu les films vous passera au dessus.
(le fusil de fin de game mode gaming extra fun)

Recuerdo ver la publicidad de este juego en la ya extinta Playmanía (joder que viejo me hago) e insistirle a mis viejos para que me regalasen este juego por navidades o un cumpleaños. No surtió efecto la verdad, pero cierto es que a la semana de decirme que no tras las inconmensurables insistencias, apareció un pack de DVD's de la trilogía cinematográfica. Este suceso marcó sin duda el aprecio que tengo por esta saga e hizo que mi interés por el juego fuera todavía mayor.

Cuando al fin cayó en mis manos unos meses mas tarde, vi un montonazo de detalles jugando una historia paralela dentro del mismo universo y hay momentos que solo entiendes por contexto si has visto antes la primera película por lo que ahí va mi consejo: Si quieres jugar esto, mírate antes la primera peli, lo entenderás todo mucho mejor.

Dado que el protagonista de este juego (tu avatar) tiene una breve aparición en el segundo juego, y que en este se llama Aldo, pues decidí que mi avatar sería en efecto el mismo Aldo Trapani en el editor de personajes.
Este juego... es sin duda una cosa. No entiendo la época en la que era obligatorio hacer juegos de cine de los 70/80 como fueron este, Scarface o The Warriors pero ahí están. Envejecer digamos que no lo ha hecho tan bien como me gustaría y las animaciones faciales son desde luego como poner Fallout 4 con las animaciones faciales al 200%.
El sistema de conducción es horrible de lo tosco que es y los enfrentamientos son básicamente pilla tu mejor arma y cúbrete todo el rato, por que en pleno 2006 no existían ya juegos como CoD 2 y si quieres regenerar la vida, o tienes suerte de que un malo te dropee un botiquín o vas al matasanos a comprarle uno por unos cómodos 100$.
El loop jugable en si es repetitivo af. En serio, si quieres hacer dinero en este juego para permitirte las armas tochas mas te vale ir extorsionando todos los condenados negocios de la ciudad y ya de paso a los tinglados de dudosa legalidad como los almacenes o burdeles que hay dentro de estos por que hostia, mas de la mitad de negocios "honrados" tienen un tinglado oculto. Se vuelve muy cansino, pero eh, la Street Sweeper soluciona muchos problemas una vez la compras.

Pero a pesar de todo, me gusta. No se, me trae recuerdos de una época en la que creo que era mas feliz. Tardé meses en pasármelo la primera vez por que mi copia física es de PC y el único ordenador que teníamos en casa que corría el juego bien era un portátil que estaba 5 días a la semana en Andorra y tenía dos días a la semana para jugarlo con suerte un par de horas (siempre y cuando me despertase mas pronto que mi hermano por que si no, adiós al vicio, por que se lo viciaba el).
Mi mayor logro en este juego fue petarme de munición e ir de una a TODOS los bancos de la ciudad, son seis en total, resistir a la policía y volverme al piso franco con el botín sin que me tumbaran. No recuerdo cuanto saqué en total con ese golpe pero aunque no fuera mucho, por la experiencia vivida mereció la pena.

Faithful to the source

One thing that surprised me about this game was the faithfulness to the movies. It has been awhile since I have seen the first 2 films but I pretty much remembered everything as the game played out it was honestly a trip down memory lane. Sadly I wanted to give this a 3 and a half stars but I do have some issues that held it back for me. In addition , this is specifically for the xbox 360 version idk how the other versions fare.


What I enjoyed?

The map is honestly big for its time and was fun to drive around in. For its time I honestly could have imagined that people were pretty impressed with the size of the map. Furthermore, the cars felt good to drive, drifting around the streets was consistently fun. There was a fair amount of guns to choose from but I will leave that for the dislike section. In addition, the gunplay was fun when it wanted to work but as well will get into this more in the dislike section. Everyone you loved and remembered from the movies is here and seeing the scenes playout again was a blast , they genuinely did a good job with the cutscenes with the game.


Sadly there are issues

First and foremost the FPS in this game can go to abysmal levels. I know this was the era of 30FPS but I couldn’t even tell you the amount of times the game would freeze for full seconds while driving. This can be annoying during chase sequences since the enemy AI will literally glue onto you ALL the time even during the frame drops. This will translate into gun fights as things like explosives will make the FPS scatter around. On the topic the AI is extremely annoying with classic pinpoint accuracy, perfection detection and as mentioned will stick to you like glue while being chased in cars. It did hinder the immersion of a lot of sections since you are battling enemies and FPS at the same time on top of the annoying AI. Furthermore , while the map was big there really is not much to do around it. To explain, the content is repeated a lot so once you try most of what the map has to offer you have pretty much done it all. This becomes an issue if you want to 100% the map because to put it simply it's pretty boring to the point where I had to stop because I wasn’t having fun at all anymore. Speaking of not fun , while there are a good amount of guns to choose from the moment you realize the Tommy gun is OP and becomes insanely OP once you level up you literally will never use another weapon again.


In the end

I won’t lie, this game deserves a remake because if they could iron out the issues already present , add more onto the map and have the game run at a crispy 60FPS this game would be amazing. It's a bummer because I did enjoy this game a good amount but I cannot lie to myself that the issues did really hinder my time with it.