The Godfather (PS2)

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Has The Godfather surprised everyone and turned out great?

The Godfather is quite clearly EA's attempt at breaking into the free-roaming third-person action genre that GTA currently dominates. Everything that makes GTA recognisable as a GTA game is here, but it's got a distinctly 1940's style. With the hugely popular Godfather license to work with for both story and characters, can EA really fail? Well, as others have proven, taking a piece of the GTA pie isn't as easy as it seems.

In typical EA fashion you're thrown straight into the action and get a good idea of one of the main differences between this and Rockstar's efforts. Hand to hand combat requires the use of the right analogue stick in combination with a few others. The moves available to you far exceed those in the GTA games, with basic punches being accompanied by grabs, knees, strangulation, kicks and more. The system is by no means perfect, and is definitely a little confusing when you're thrown in at the deep end, but over the first hour or so of the game you'll become accustomed to it.

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Soon after, you're introduced to using weapons and EA has catered for everyone. The simplest way to shoot people is by using the lock-on, which targets your enemy and lets you move the aiming reticule where you like on his body. Jumping out from behind walls is also possible, in a similar way to what you can do in From Russia With Love and Rare's Perfect Dark Zero. For newcomers to the action genre this rather simple targeting system works great, but if you want more control you can switch to a more traditional third-person control scheme, making use of both analogue sticks to give you full aiming control.

With the basics down you begin to work through numerous missions and side missions in order to earn respect and rise through the ranks within the family. It's worth noting that while the key characters from the movie are all here, with some great likenesses and voice work, you don't play as one of them. You play a new guy and this has allowed EA to play with the story somewhat, incorporating elements from the movie and the original novel. If you're familiar with The Godfather's story there will certainly be moments that you'll recognise, but don't expect this to be a 100 per cent faithful recreation.

The main characters from the movie are all here

In another nod to GTA, you have a safe house that can be used to save your progress and replenish your health, and it has a rather convenient phone that you use to receive new mission information. Apart from the obvious problem of needing to travel back to the safe house after a mission if you want to save, it works well, and as more safe houses become available excessive travelling becomes less and less of an issue. The map is incredibly GTA-like as well, with mission markers and key locations clearly visible and a larger map is available if you get really lost.

Unlike the GTA games, missions in The Godfather feature checkpoints. With missions often made up of numerous stages this is somewhat of a godsend. Take a mission where you're required to drive to a location, leave the car and take out some enemies in a building, get back in your car and return to your safe house. Failure in the last stage will restart you from the beginning of the drive back to your safe house. This does make the game fairly simple (at least early on) but it's a fair trade-off in favour of a less frustrating experience.

The weapon selection is as you'd expect for a game based in 1940's New York. Hand to hand combat weapons include the obligatory baseball bat and lead pipe, while the guns include pistils, magnums, shotguns, Tommy guns and more. You'll get hold of plenty of weapons early on, but later on weapons become far more impressive. Mobster favourite, the Molotov Cocktail, also makes an explosive appearance, killing anyone within its blast zone.

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