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If you try to whack a guy and you fail to take him out, it’s a good idea to take another shot before he recovers. In other words, we hadn’t had much time with EA’s Godfather II before we had to write our last preview, so we thought we’d do another with our expanded impressions of the game. Rather than going over all the stuff you’ve already read about, I decided it might be more interesting to just give you a run-down of what I’ve been up lately.
Tom and I have been playing around with our Godfather II preview code for about a week now, sharing the same game in a bid to open up some of the more advanced content and features. At the start of my last session, our nefarious Don Dominic was getting ready to take over New York. Dom is an important guy in the world of organised crime, but thanks to Tom’s skills with the character editor, he looks a bit weird: his nose is enormous, his cheeks are hairy, and his eyes are extremely close together. Still, despite the fact that he looks like an inbred lounge singer, Dominic had almost succeeded in capturing the criminal empire of his arch-rival, Carmine Rosato.
At this point, all that remained was to capture Carmine’s last remaining asset – a chemical plant on the edge of town. Once Don and his crew had grabbed this, they’d be free to take down the Rosato family once and for all. Capturing assets is normally a matter of killing all the guards and then intimidating the bloke in charge – I usually choke them for a bit and then smack them against a wall. However, in his last game Tom had ordered his men to bomb the chemical plant. This temporarily took it out of action – a move which cut off Rosato’s cash supply, but which now prevented me from taking it over. To bide time while the plant was fixed, I headed over to meet a contact on the other side of town.
The guy I was meeting needed a favour. If I helped him out, he would give me key information on how to kill Clyde Lando, one of Rosato’s Made Men. If you just whack a guy any which way, he’ll eventually recover and return to active duty; he’ll only die permanently if you rub him out in a specific way. My contact was prepared to give me this info, but only if I cracked a safe in the offices of a nearby incineration plant. As it turns out this wasn’t much of a challenge, since I already owned the place in question. There didn’t appear to be an option to open the safe myself, so I asked Bobby to blow it open. Bobby Carresi is one of my three Made Men. He’s good at cracking safes, and he likes to shoot people with a sniper rifle from close range; it’s not a hugely sensible choice of weapon, but it works.
Once Bobby had opened the safe, my contact revealed that had Clyde’s weakness is being run over (hey, whose isn’t?). Armed with this info, I collected my guys and jumped into a stolen car. In addition to Bobby, I was accompanied by Joe Primanti and Bobby Carrresi. Joe is a wimpy looking guy who’s good with a medikit (a surprisingly useful skill), while Bill is a real piece of work who likes blowing things up. He’s also a bit of a womaniser, judging by the lewd comments he makes every time we go for a drive. The three of them wear tight-fitting pants and look like the n band members that Hot Chip rejected for being too ugly, but they’re loyal as hell: when I whistle, they come running, and if I tell them to run to a particular spot, they’ll do that too. Good boys.
As it turned out, our hit on Mr Lando didn’t go as planned. When we turned up at Clyde’s hangout everyone started shooting, and the police soon showed up. We unwisely decided to fight back, and soon we had dozens of cops trying to mow us down. I tried to drive us away, but our vehicle caught fire and we had to bail. I ran away, frantically whistling so that the boys would follow; Bobby was a bit too close to the car when it exploded, but Joe had him back on his feet in no time.
Still, it was all proving a bit too hairy, so we ended up retreating to the nearby Corleone compound. The cops followed us in and a massive firefight ensued; eventually I went inside the house to hide, and the police got bored and left. Once we were sure they were gone, my gang of four hopped back into a family car. The burnt-out wrecks of a van and several police cars were littering the Corleone driveway. “By the way, nice work back there!” said Dom.
By now Carmine had succeeded in repairing his chemical plant, so we set out to take it over. This proved to be more successful than the hit on Clyde: we pulled up in a car outside the plant, and my boys lent out the window for a bit of drive-by action. Once we’d nailed the guards by the gate, we headed in on foot to take out the rest. Halfway through the fight I got word that Carmine’s boys were attacking the incinerator we visited earlier, so I despatched Bill to help out my guards there. Joe and Bobby helped to clean out the plant, and the owner surrendered without a fight – I think all the gunshots scared him.
All that remained was to take out Carmine Rosato himself. As we set off, Joe started complaining: “Shit, I forgot my smokes! That’s bad luck!” he whined, but there was no time to go back. We had to seize New York, once and for all. On the way to the Rosato Compound, we stopped off to run over Lando, shouting “Right turn, Clyde!” as we did. We were on a roll, and the compound itself proved to be little challenge – my boys proving to be plenty of help as we gunned down the goons outside. Inside was also quite easy – although I was perplexed by Dom’s inability to jump over a small row of chairs that apparently barred our progress.
Within minutes, we were upstairs and face-to-face with Carmine himself. He had a few harsh words to say, but with a swift click of the analogue sticks Dom had throttled him and broken his neck. Bill set up the bomb, and we sprinted down the stairs on a 20 second timer. There was a brief moment of panic when we couldn’t find the exit to the house, but we finally made it outside in time to admire the view. As the mansion exploded, Tom Hagen (my lawyer) got in touch to inform me that the compound now belonged to me; I felt a bit regretful about having blown it up, but hey – that’s business.
So, that was how I spent my morning. Godfather II isn’t the world’s best-looking game, but it certainly offers a lot to do. Running amok with a trio of lackeys is great laugh, the kind of fun that easily makes up for the occasional spat of pop-up, and for the occasional holes in logic. My only two concerns at present are that the play-areas seem a bit small compared to the last game, and that so far Dom has only been fighting one rival family at a time – surely he should be fighting several factions at once? Still, it’s early days in my Godfather’s career, so there’s plenty of room for the action to expand.
After blowing up the Rosato place, we got word that Hyman Roth wanted to see me in Florida. I packed the boys into a car and headed for the airport. Bill could hardly contain himself: “I’ve never been to Florida before! This is going to be bitchin’!” And you know what? I have a feeling he’s right.
‘This thing of ours’ will be released on PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 on Feb 27, capiche?
