Like a lot of gamers, I’ve been looking forward to the release of The Godfather II so I was pleased to see it’s at least as good as the original (not a universal view based as a glance at other online reviews shows).
As a more causal gamer it tends to take me longer than any to review games but I know many of our readers are also casual gamers who tend not to queue for titles on the day of release.
As before, The Godfather II is a first-person shooter which sees the player in a world directed by story-based missions. This time around the player controls the character of Dominic, the underboss of the player-character from the first game, who has to lead his ‘family’ against others and take control of businesses in a quest to become a powerful Don.
Guns, criminal activity and murder are, as you’d expect, constant features of the game as Dominic steady progresses through the missions and increases in status.
My casual gamer status might be why I don’t have the same issues as many with the claimed ‘easy’ nature of the game – I want to spend an hour or so playing, relaxing and having fun rather than becoming frustrated at the lack of progress.
That said, the Artificial Intelligence throughout the game is pretty suspect, character’s don’t always do as expected and this can be annoyingly frustrating.
The game world doesn’t feel quite as big or as ‘open’ and free as it purports to be but the graphics are decently rendered without quite being amazing and the world ranks on par with those of recent Grand Theft Auto installments in the realism stakes.
All round an enjoyable game and and a worthy successor to the original.