'Some day, and that day may never come, I'll call upon you to do a service for me. Until that day, accept this as a gift.' These are the famous lines spoken by Don Corleone that start off The Godfather by Electronic Arts.
This is a game in which you beat people up, racketeer and steal cars to escape the cops. The game borrows heavily from the Grand Theft Auto series, but that does not matter because the content is excellent.
EA has done a good job of creating a game with a storyline that runs parallel to the movie. You play a character that never appears in the film but is pivotal behind the scenes. Missions include beating up the guys who brutalised the undertaker's daughter, driving the Don to hospital after he is gunned down while buying oranges, and leaving the head of a decapitated horse in a movie producer's bed.
The game starts off with you, the main character, witnessing the death of your father when you were a child. Flash forward several years and you are a student of the sinister Luca Brasi, who shows you the ways of intimidation, brawling and shooting. Next is a crash course on how to be a wise guy. Brasi teaches you the mechanics of beating up and killing thugs with the press of a button.
Your next lesson is on shaking down a store owner. This is easy: you threaten him, slap him around, threaten him some more and he pays up. Things can get dicey, however, if the store is protected by a rival family. Thugs could come charging in with bats and guns.
To rise up the ranks of organised crime, you have to earn respect. With respect comes more money and power in the form of skill points that upgrade your character. You earn respect by bumping off rival family thugs, squeezing money out of shop owners and taking over rackets. You can also gain respect through clothes and accessories, but this can be quite costly, even by 1950s standards.
Graphics-wise, the game environment is amazing, with New York accurately recreated. There are no loading waits as you move from one area to another. The one downside, however, is the repetitive use of similar characters and places: all the bakeries, barbers and smoke shops look exactly alike, including the owners.
