“You got sent this great game,” said my bleary eyed boss as I called around to pay my respects (he has a habit of opening my post). “I’ve been playing it for three days!” The game was Godfather 2 and as I sat down to watch him rampaging through a city, taking over businesses at gunpoint and running rivals, into the ground I wondered why he’d fallen so hard for a game in which the object is to do exactly the same thing he does in the office during the day. Escapism is a funny thing, readers.

Godfather 2 takes the open world environments and mixture of driving and shooting of GTA and splices onto it a Real Time Strategy component that successfully crosses elements of Command and Conquer with Monopoly. As Dominic, a custom generated character, the player must assemble a family and dominate a number of cities (New York, Miami and eventually Havana) by taking over their businesses and wiping out opposing mobs (as well as a few innocent bystanders) who are foolish enough to stand in the way. You even get to go to Cuba and aid the CIA in overthrowing Castro (after all, as Coppola’s films aptly demonstrated, mobsters are merely model capitalists who share many ambitions in common with the state).

These two different elements that make up the game hang together quite well, but the RTS is by far the most successful of the two. A tap of the start button brings up the ‘Don’s eye view’; a 3D map through which resources can be managed and troops deployed (something that constantly requires your attention as the AI gangs will not be

slow at trying to take back what is wrongfully there’s). Indeed its possible to play the entire game this way, like the Godfather himself pulling the strings from the safety of his safe house mansion, but equally you can assemble a squad of goons and made men (each of which will have different abilities like safecracking and explosives) and engage in these very hostile take-overs in person.

It’s in these moments, bombing around the streets in stolen cars pursued by coppers and raiding buildings both barrels blazing, that the game seems most derivative of GTA but lacking its polish and wit. Sure it’s playable, enjoyable even, but it doesn’t quite feel complete. On the other hand the RTS elements demonstrate how GTA have clearly missed a trick, even though the series did at one point dip into property management in a rather half-arsed way.

Godfather 2 may not be as original or as polished as GTA or Yakuza, but it is an enjoyable and untaxing romp that will have every aspiring megalomaniac stuffing cotton wool into his jowls with glee. I give it three broken bottles and a splintered pool cue, whatever that means.

Words > Andrew Wensum