"I'm Not Going to Title This With 'I'll Make Him an Offer He Can't Refuse' I'd be a tool if I did."
by Drew Chrisman

I started playing The Godfather 2 after having spent a bout playing Saint's Row 2, which, if any of you watch Zero Punctuation, will know was a fantastic game. But The Godfather is to Saint's Row as filet mignon is to macaroni and cheese. Both are fucking delicious, but you can't wear a top hat at a mac & cheese dinner. That would be ridiculous.

The game starts with a number of the mob families gathered for a deal in Havana, Cuba. Hyman Roth, a well-known mob boss, is retiring and splitting his assets among the families. Unfortunately, Cuban rebels launch a coup and everyone is forced to escape. You play as Dominic, the underboss of Aldo Trapani, who was the protagonist from the first game. You are promoted to Don after Aldo is taken out like a bitch barely ten minutes into the game, and Michael Corleone entrusts you with running New York.

A lot of sandbox games, such as Mercenaries and the Grand Theft Auto series, have you running around doing various irritating bullshit for any number of irritating jackasses to build your standing with them and receive perks. Godfather 2 takes that and throws it in the East River. Everything you do you do in the name of the Corleone Family. There are still a few mindless errands you have to complete, but you are paid for these with either large sums of money, information on rival families, or in the form of favors from corrupt officials. For example, do a favor for the police chief and he'll make sure his men in blue lay off you. These favors can be called in at any time from the Don View menu.

The Don View brings up a map of the city and highlights all major points of interest, color-coded to depict which family runs them. You can see how well guarded rival family rackets are, find rival family members, and manage your skills and those of your family. Spending your deserved and hard-earned cash on skills, such as faster health regeneration and increased accuracy, allows you and yours to last longer in combat, while buying your men skills like “Make Bail” decreases the time you spend in prison by half.

Playing through the story allows you to bring more people into your family for a total of four soldiers, two capos, an underboss, and a consigliere. Prospective men can be found at your home compound, the various rackets you own, and occasionally on the streets, wandering about as a lone wolf. Their jobs range anywhere from arsonists and demolitions experts to medics and technicians, each with special skills to make your life easier. Planning on knocking over a bank? Have your technician kill the power to prevent anyone from calling the cops! Get gunned down in a fight? Your medic can get you back on your feet! By promoting these men to capos, they can specialize in a secondary skill, making for some pretty powerful combos.

One of the most fun aspects of the game is the various rackets you can claim, which range anywhere from adult entertainment to gun smuggling. Each racket you own gives you a daily cut of their profit. Owning the crime ring, the combination off all of one type of racket, brings in the big bucks and gets you special bonuses. These may include increased ammo capacity for the gun smuggling ring or an armored car if you take over all of the chop shops. But be careful - your enemies also gain these bonuses.

Is one of your missions too difficult because a rival family is getting too many bonuses from their crime rings, but you don't have the manpower to actually take over one of their rackets to break up the crime ring? Not a problem! Using the Don View, simply send one of your men to bomb or torch the place. This disables that racket for one day, disrupting their bonus, but still leaving the racket available for domination after the place is rebuilt.

The Godfather 2, while a bit repetitive at times, is still a blast to play and would be even more enjoyable, I imagine, if you'd seen the movies. (Yeah, I haven't seen the Godfather movies, what's it to you?) All in all, a good game to play...if you've already finished Saint's Row 2 and have nothing else to play.

Overall Rating: 7 out of 10