[13/3/08] The Godfather : Blackhand Edition [Wii]

[emwearz]

I don't think a movie, in the history of film has ever made quite the impact that The Godfather did. It is not only the perfect gangster movie of all time, it is a perfect movie in itself. Countless Top 100's have it as its number one, and I have to agree. From my first sitting of this movie I have always had a weird since of pride about my Sicilian heritage. So the movie is perfect, but is the game, that follows a original story line set in the Godfather world perfect? Lets find out.

 

System Tested On

PAL Wii displaying at 480p over component cables on a EDTV (100hz Progressive CRT)

 

Gameplay (7 out of 10)

The first thing that hit my mind, the hand to hand fighting system in this, I really think was pulled off well, its responsive and at times pretty fun, Its actually more in depth that Wii sports' boxing. Now the use of guns works great with the Wii-Mote, however its not as polished off as with some later games that have been released, but it does the job none the less.

 

The game sports some original ways to use the controller, example to open a door you tilt the wii-mote like opening a door, but for the most part these actions feel fairly forced and they are not really needed.

 

The way the story is told is fairly good, the cutscenes look pretty good as there main focus is the character models, which as I mention in the graphics section, are fairly nice. The game really does feel like a enhanced version of Mafia (Enhanced in terms of the wii). It doesn't really pull you into the time as much as you would like, but the music aids in that.

 

The game kind of reminds me of the Scarface game, the game had the potential to be awesome but it fell short, the missions just drag on and many feel like 'Point A to B for no reason then kill person, drive back to point A' and after awhile it becomes fairly boring. The missions that do revolve around the story though are fairly nice and makes doing the boring ones worth while just to know what happens next.

 

Sound (8 out of 10)

The sound is really well done in The Godfather, beautiful background music that really makes the atmosphere of the game pull you into the time frame. The voice acting is some of the best I have seen in a sandbox style game, though sometimes the cliche italian voice is a little over used but other than that the voice acting is right on the money.

 

Graphics (6.5 of 10)

I was expecting some horrible graphics to be honest, and what I was greeted with was not that bad at all. The character models displayed are fairly detailed, there faces are unique and hold quite a bit of detail. The textures are not the greatest and they do looked washed out at times but for the dark moo of the game they fit fairly well. The only real downside to the graphics are there are quite a few jaggies in the game, but if your a Wii owner you are more than use to this by now. The textures used on buildings could also be a bit cleaner but overall this is one of the better looking Wii games, despite it being released as a launch title, though we all know the Wii can pump out much better graphics than this. Another problem I noticed as time went on is every now and again the FPS drops by quite a lot, if this happens in a gun fight, its makes the controls jump around a fair bit, this has only happened twice in about 2 hours, but none the less it does leave an annoying impression.

 

Replay Value (6 out of 10)

No multiplayer, as its a sandbox game and once you finish it I highly doubt you will be screaming for more.

 

Overall (6.875 out of 10)

The Godfather movie, was perfect. The game falls several feet short, to its many graphical downsides and lackluster excitement factor it does get a bit dull at times. If your a Godfather fan, I would suggest you pick it up just to enjoy some more of the Corleone family goodness. If you own a Wii and are a fan of the GTA series I would pick it up as there are not many mature games on the Wii and as a GTA clone, it goes all right.

 

But as for the rest of you, I wouldn't suggest picking it up. Other than the hand to hand combat system, this game really doesnt have anything memorable about it. If you have played Mafia, you may feel your in a rerun at times.

 

As a fan of the movies (and I mean they are up there in my top 3 movies with Scarface and Donnie Darko) I have to say this game was a bit of a lit down, it would of been better IMO if you controlled one of the Corleone's.