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Video Game Vintage Title: The Godfather: The Game

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The Godfather: The Game

The Godfather: The Game

The Godfather: The Game is an action-adventure video game developed and published by Electronic Arts. It is the first video game in the Godfather series and based upon the 1972 film of the same name. Originally released in March 2006 for the PlayStation 2, Xbox and Microsoft Windows, The Godfather has since been released for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii. A smaller variant of the game has also been published for the PlayStation Portable.

The game is notable in that it features the return of several actors from the original film to lend their voice. The participating actors are James Caan as Sonny Corleone, Robert Duvall as Tom Hagen and Abe Vigoda as Salvatore Tessio, with the most notable absences being Marlon Brando , John Cazale , Richard Castellano and Al Pacino . Another notable absence is Gianni Russo, who played Carlo Rizzi in the film, and who was still alive while the game was being developed.

The Godfather: The Game Plot

The game starts in 1936 in Little Italy with a cutscene that shows the death of Johnny Trapani (Adam Harrington), the father of the main character Aldo Trapani (Andrew Pifko) and the destruction of his bakery by the Barzini crime family, one of the Corleones' rivals in New York. In the aftermath, Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando/Doug Abrahams) comforts the child, telling him that when he is old enough and the time is right he will have his revenge. The story then moves to 1945, with the wedding that begins the film. Aldo's mother, Sarafina (Sirenetta Leoni), asks Don Corleone to look after him, as he has been hanging with the wrong crowd, so the Don sends Luca Brasi (Gary Chalk) to recruit Aldo into the Mafia. From this point forward, Aldo is taken under the Corleone family's wing and begins to work his way up the organization.

The game then features two basic storylines; the first involves the major events from the film (with Aldo making major contributions) and the second sees a personal story arc develop. In the former, Aldo witnesses Luca Brasi's murder, kills Luca's assassin (Joe Bellan), plants the gun for Michael Corleone (Joseph May) to kill Sollozzo (Richard Newman) and Captain McCluskey (Doug Abrahams), helps Rocco Lampone (Michael Dobson) put the horse's head in Jack Woltz's (Doug Abrahams) bed, guards Don Corleone at the hospital, witnesses the death of Sonny Corleone (James Caan), kills Sonny's assassins, appears at the meeting of the Five Families and kills the Dons of the four other families during the baptism scene. He also kills Sal Tessio (Abe Vigoda) and Bruno Tattaglia (Joe Paulino), although these deaths were not seen in the film. In the personal storyline, Aldo befriends and later kills Corleone underman Paulie Gatto (Jason Schombing), when he is revealed to be a traitor. Aldo also romances Monk's sister Frances "Frankie" Malone (Jennifer Copping), takes revenge for her death and kills Don Emilio Barzini (Michael Kopsa) as revenge for his father's murder.

After the story missions have been completed, Aldo becomes an underboss, and after he takes out the rival families' compounds, he becomes Don of the Corleone family's operations in New York. Alongside the story missions, Aldo participates in taking over control of New York from the rival families by extorting businesses and buying out rackets, seizing control of warehouses, performing contract hits, and fighting mob wars when the vendetta level between the Corleones and a rival family gets high enough.

Reception
Reviews of the game were mixed to positive, praising how faithful the game was to the movie. However, the director of the film trilogy, Francis Ford Coppola, did not approve of the game's release. Coppola denounced the game, saying that he felt that the makers were profiteering from his original work. The average results on GameRankings and Metacritic are on the Reception chart to the right.

On GameSpot, the game was ranked separately in each of four categories. The PS2, Xbox, and PC versions were rated positively with an 8.1, however, the game was criticized for the recycling of shops and buildings, making it difficult to pinpoint the player's location within the game. Mob Wars received a 6 for poor gameplay. On the Xbox 360, the game received 7.9 for its minor improvements, including better explosions and textures. The PS3 and Wii versions were rated 7.6. IGN gave every iteration of the game a 7.9, except the PSP version (6.2), the PS3 version (7.5) and the Wii version (8).

Where the Xbox version received the highest number of scores due to positive reaction, the PSP version received the lowest number due to mixed or negative reviews. PALGN stated that "The Godfather on the PSP is too scaled down to be an enjoyable game, and simply has too many flaws which stops the game from being a worthwhile recommendation." Game Informer also gave it a negative review, stating, "This sad excuse for a port doesn't even deserve a body bag. Just toss it in the river." 1UP.com agreed that the game has "a series of random mini-missions pushing you further away from feeling like you're a Corleone." GameSpy stated that "The action portions of the game can be fairly called a stripped-down version of the console game, and the strategic Mob Wars mode feels poorly balanced and hinges more on its problematic action sequences than on real strategy." GamePro was a bit more positive in stating, "The best thing you can say about The Godfather is at least the developers didn't just slap the console version into a handheld and call it day."


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