The Godfather II

By Lewis Denby

You always run a hefty risk with film-to-game conversions (or, in this case, book-to-film-to-game conversions), especially when you’re bouncing off a work as influential as The Godfather. Even disregarding its literary beginnings, it’s a franchise that totally epitomises a generation of filmmaking ideals, a release that paved the way for Hollywood’s previously crumbling studio system to climb back to global domination. So there’s a pretty high bar to vault over. You’re also always, without exception, going to piss off a lot of people. People who herald the original version as a universe-defining, soul-enlightening masterpiece that should never, ever be touched by anyone. When you’re making a direct sequel to something within the same medium, it’s already problematic. When you’re porting it over to a different form entirely, you’d better be ready for reactionary dynamite.

The cynic in me would say that for every stick of TNT you’ll get a big wad of cash, so it’s not exactly likely to be at the top of Electronic Arts’ list of worries. It’s also, in the scheme of things, not that important for any reason other than this one. A slow, creeping, character-led drama was never going to lend itself to a straight conversion. That’s not a big-budget, mass-audience videogame release, and I’d wager that the thousands of people who complain that they wanted something closer to the films would be lying to themselves a bit. People want explosions, fights, and the ability to drive really fast and charge down civilians. I remember someone, somewhere on the internet in the run-up to Far Cry 2’s release, asking if you could “run over zebras and chop its legs off.” That’s what we want in our games, surely. Bloodbaths of cathartic violence.

So the roots aren’t important. Suffice it to say, like the original game, The Godfather II’s similarities to the source material end with the name and a few snippets of script where relevant. That’s not a problem. This is a game, not a film, and I’d argue that trying to incessantly borrow from movie-making conventions is only going to hold this interactive medium back from potential innovation. What is a problem, though, is where EA have deemed necessary to take the fiction. In a way, I’d like to give The Godfather II the benefit of the doubt and say it’s a postmodern pastiche on ASBO culture. I don’t think that’ll stick. So we’d better look at it like this.

In The Godfather II, you’re often encouraged to beat up women.

Now, going back on everything I’ve just said and referencing the source material for a minute, wasn’t there a rather large thread in the first part of the Godfather saga involving a guy we were supposed to hate for doing just that? Yes, Carlo, his name was: a despicable character who takes joy in abusing his pregnant wife. So imagine my surprise when an early compulsory mission took me to a small bar run by an attractive young lady, and the game told me her main weakness was being punched in the face.

That’s the problem with The Godfather II. It’s not that it betrays the source material something rotten, or that there’s anything particularly broken about it. It’s just so horribly judged, through and through. In this case, the judgement seems to have been that taking Grand Theft Auto IV, adding a sprinkling of the ever-popular RPG and strategic elements, and penning a new, “mature” storyline would work. And, in a sense, it kind of does. The plot remains somewhat engrossing, even if it does occasionally take an extended cigarette break while you idly blast through a series of repetitive, loosely-connected missions. The action, though uninspired, is solid enough, and zooming around in period cars isn’t completely horrible. The strategic elements, mainly involving monitoring your finances and employing new henchmen, are perfectly functional and a pleasant enough idea. Everything works well enough in isolation – which makes it even more impressive that the experience as a whole feels like a clumsy and mildly offensive attempt to ride on the back of other people’s success. It just doesn’t quite work.

Nothing melds together to create a cohesive experience. Even the premise is maddening. You play as a mafia don… who regularly goes around behaving like an imbecilic little shit, smashing everything in his wake and generally presenting himself more like a troublesome youth than a calculated proprietor of organised crime. You’ll view myriad cut-scenes that suggest otherwise, but as far as the actual game part of the game goes, it’s all about mindless thuggery. It makes no sense.

It could have been fun. It might be, for you. Like its influences, there’s still the opportunity to ignore the main plot entirely and go on a rampage around town, stealing cars and ploughing into innocent bystanders like you’ve just graduated from some sort of vehicular crime indoctrination facility. Grand Theft Auto, even within the hard-hitting maturity of the fourth iteration, presents these segments as a respite from the rest, a chance to flex your muscles in high-powered sports cars and giggle along to the radio as citizens shout perplexingly hilarious remarks at each other before you turn them into a big blob of red gloop. In The Godfather II, when you kill an innocent bloke who just happened to amble out in front of you, people scream and cower in absolute, tangible terror. Doctors rush to their aid and attempt to resuscitate them. Onlookers cry, “what have you done?” Christ. There I was thinking mindless highway tomfoolery was a laugh.

If you get past the gut-wrenching guilt, you’ll find a series of sprawling city maps to explore. Which is a nice idea on paper, until you realise there’s no soul or character to any of the environments. I couldn’t tell you about a single location in the game, except the admittedly exciting opening sequence in Cuba. It’s all a blur. You’ll regularly find yourself driving round in circles or missing your destination completely, since everywhere looks the bloody same. It’s all brown, lifeless and disengaging. There’s not a single speck of enchantment in it.

On a more obvious gameplay note, the real issue is that, despite the added strategic “depth”, it’s not always that important to fully utilise it. You’ll have to keep one aye on your money, but the whole game is remarkably easy, meaning the tactical planning and “levelling up” seem largely irrelevant. You can send your henchmen in to do the dirty work for you, and they’ll usually come out unscathed. That’s no fun. You can go in with them, raiding every business in town, and rarely perish – and even if you do get “hospitalised” during these missions, all the game does is spring you back to the last checkpoint. Everything’s such a stroll, and it doesn’t really matter what you do in the run-up to each task. It’s completely pedestrian, and horribly monotonous.

Still, there’s an odd sense of satisfaction when you’re dangling a member of a rival family off the roof of a hotel, waiting for him to get scared enough to submit to your demands. There’s something strangely invigorating about methodically kicking in every television set in an electrical shop before the owner agrees to cough up for protection. There’s still a nagging sense of competition between the immature, comedic violence and grown-up family tragedy, one that leaves a sour and decidedly uncomfortable taste in the mouth – but hey. Not bothered about that? Sure, buy the game. You might quite like it.

But don’t say I didn’t warn you.

5/10