03-22-2007, 02:58 PM

You begin as your avatar's father who is brutally killed in an alley in 1930's New York. Don Corleone promises your day will come to avenge the death of your father once you are grown. 9 years come to pass and your mother asks The Don that he takes you under his wing. Luca Brasi seeks you out and you begin in the world of the Mafia as an underling taking over rackets and working your way through the ranks of 1946 Little Italy.
I haven't made it very far yet being that I underwent surgery yesterday so have gone a few missions deep. The story so far has been escalating to wicked bar fights and high speed car chases fighting of rival families. I can only see this game getting better with each passing mission.
In my opinion this game tops the GTA titles.
Gameplay:
After the prologue sequence is complete, you create your avatar to fit your likeness. Maybe because I am an American-Italian, the resemblance between myself and the avatar is uncanny.
The first couple of missions are simply training lessons to become familiar with the games controls, which are very easily learned and all the motions of gameplay are extremely natural and fluid. To lock onto a target you simply hold down the Z button and swing either the nunchuk or the Wii remote to throw punches, to focus power and throw heavy hits, you simply press the Down button before swinging. The C button accesses your weapon screen, your weapon is chosen in the same fashion that you pick your tools in Trauma Center. Tapping the C button quickdraws and conceals your chosen weapon, if any are in inventory. Before I forget, when you have an enemy targeted with Z, if you hold down B simultaneously you grab the enemy, depending on the how you swing the nunchuk and remote determines whether you are head butting, strangling, wall smashing, or bashing their faces into tables. This function is also used to pull someone up from their knees to their feet by raising the controls upward.
Vehicle controls take just a little bit getting used to. Being so accustomed to GTA on PS2, using my thumbs to haul ass in a car has conditioned me to want to always press A to reverse, when it actually causes you to Enter/Exit a car. The way EA has setup vehicle operations is that you use the B button to accelerate, and Z to reverse, giving A a quick push when moving at a good speed simply activates the brakes. As stated before when stopped or at a slow rolling speed, A causes you to exit the car.
So aside from this awesome control system, which I could spend weeks upon weeks swooning over, you are left in a New York to extort, intimidate, and kill your way to the top of The Corleone Family business.
Graphics:
For this being a title ported from last gen over, the graphics are great. They are better than the visuals on the PS2 without a doubt, but obviously nowhere near the high poly count of the PS3's version. However, gameplay makes up for this one hundred fold. With the understanding that the Wii is still in its first six months of infancy the graphics are pretty are appeasing to the eye. There have been a couple times while playing I had to would make a double take because my avatar looks too much like me that it's scary.
Sound:
The soundscape built for this game is also extremely authentic to its environment. The music brings that morose nostalgic feeling that The Godfather has always brought its fans. And now that we have the ability to strangle and physically beat our rivals to these tunes, it makes the whole experience even better. Aside from music, the ambient noise is great to. You can talk to everyone on the street as though you were in any RPG, and everyone who you pass by on the street is always making some sort of comment which is either praising your actions, threatening you, or just saying something that's somewhat humorous. There are a lot of other intricacies in the sound design of the environment which really make this world seem authentically convincing.
Story: 10 Very great story which immerses you in the world of The Godfather.
Gameplay: 9.5 (loses .5 for the vehicle control adjustment) Very smooth and the actions don't get mixed up when fighting.
Graphics: 8.0 Could be a little better, but are a great utilization of how far the Wii's capabilities have been developed thus far.
Sound: 10.0 Very convincing sound design.
Overall: 9.3 GREAT GAME. For any Wii owner this is a must have title, the controls alone make it worth the investment.

), simply complete most of the game. But for not completing the game you've done a good job.