05-04-2007, 01:45 PM
“One day, and that day may never come, I’m going to call upon you to do me a service, until that day consider this a gift.” Yes, consider this review a gift, but you must do me a service, comment on my review.
Or so would be something you would here in The Godfather: Blackhand Edition. This game is filled with gangsters, guns, and Mafioso’s. So get ready for a review that’ll blow you a way. As trust me, I’m going to make you an offer you can’t refuse.
In the Godfather: Blackhand Edition the story is pretty straight forward, yet good. You start out as a soldier in the Don’s army and move your way up through the ranks by advancing the story line and extort businesses. All that good stuff, as you eventually want to become the Don of New York city. But alas the path to becoming the Don of NYC is a long and difficult journey; but very rewarding.
The game’s ‘storyline’ follows the first movie; you’ll find yourself killing Paulie Gatto, chasing Sonny’s assassins and many more movie related events. EA has seamlessly put these aspects of the story into the game and it all seems like having your character in the movie would seem like common sense. Not to mention the missions are fun, and for a diehard Godfather fan (Oh! OH! That’s me! *Waves hands frantically*:3) you will definitely not be disappointed by the way this game presents it’s story; for the most part at least.
But here’s the one problem with this incredible story, the ending. Frankly it builds up and builds up and it keeps getting better and better. But in the end it simply tells you to conquer NYC. Yeah, it leaves your mouth dry and you really want some water.
But really, the story is great and it would take a retard to screw it up (Ubisoft >.>
. All crappy jokes aside though, the story presents itself tremendously and you’re going to love advancing in the story by doing those awesome missions.
Now in terms of the game’s visuals it’s so and so. There’s some incredibly well done features like, for example, explosions, characters (best human structures yet), and cars among other things. Although, the only real problem with the visuals is that when driving sometimes buildings would pop up out of no where.
But when it comes to the good aspects of the visuals is the characters. If you really take a good look at your character then you’ll realize how well they did the bodies. The movements look great and look exactly like how someone would move (well almost, it’s still a video game of course). There are also explosions; you can cause a lot of these babies by shooting cars until fire starts to come out of the hood, which results in some visually tasty explosions. Also like I said earlier there are cars. The cars in the game are very good looking and look like they really polished them, plus the damage looks nice as well.
But alas, the random popping up of buildings hurts the experience some what. Although, personally I don’t notice it that much, as I’m probably looking at my map to make sure that I’m not going to make the wrong turn in the massive city. Your probably thinking that this would ruin the experience (starring at a map) but don’t worry, it doesn’t.
What can I say though; there are some great things, and some not so great things. So it really evens out; it’s not incredible but it’s not disgusting. Sounds good to me!
The gameplay in the godfather is staggering. There are tons of hours of gameplay that rivals the amount in Twilight Princess. You have tons of businesses to extort, many hit missions, tons of favors and the story to boot.
I’ve decided that I should give some brief explanations and my take on those different things. So first off, extorting businesses; extorting businesses is incredibly fun. You basically enter the shop and talk to the owner, threatened them on how this neighborhood isn’t too safe and you need the Corleone’s protection. If they refuse, hit them around a bit or break there stuff. Eventually they’ll understand that they want your protection, well that is if you don’t push them over the edge. If the persuasion meter goes to high they’ll fight back and won’t stop until your dead. Of course, these businesses are owned by the other families so you’ll have some fighting to do. There’s also rackets in some of the businesses who you simply have to buy out.
Now, there are tons of missions so I’m going to start with the most important. Story missions; story missions are basically what they state, missions that advance the story. There some of the most fun and long missions that impact the story. There’s things like killing Paulie Gatto and chasing after Sonny’ assassins. There very varied and you won’t likely see the same sort of mission twice. Very fun missions and the story is awesome.
Secondly there’s hit’s; hits are when you basically are assigned a member of an opposing family to take out. There always clever and have very interesting bonus conditions. This is the only way you’ll be able to take out the family heads (Capo’s and such).
Then of course, there are favors. You won’t get paid to do favors but you’ll receive respect and you’ll have some fun. It’s always smart to do favors for people as the more respect, the better. The missions are generally fun and usually vary, you may find yourself doing some missions that may feel the same but you won’t care since there fun!
One other big aspect is taking over the other family compounds. You do this by bombing there compounds which are giant houses. Once you do that you’ll own the compound. Now these compounds are very hard to capture as they are heavily guarded, so before you go get yourself a partner and whistle in your hit crew!
Really all in all, the gameplay is incredibly fun; you have tons of other things to do as well. Like upgrading your guns and the like; you will not be bored for a second!
The Godfather game has obviously had all the controls changed when it comes to the Wii. And let me tell you, it’s for the better. I could never imagine playing this with a normal controller! It simply feels right!
A lot of things like fist fighting and executions are controlled via hand motions like fighting is jabbing with the Wii-Remote although there are different movements you can do for different punches and the like. You can also strangle people, which is incredibly satisfying. It all feels very fluid and well right!
There’s also shooting, you can do this one of two ways. First off you can simply have it were you click and hold the Z button to auto-lock on a target, but when you do this you can still point at the screen and point at wherever you want to shoot your enemy, which is great if you want to make him fall to his knees by blowing out his knee cap. This is probably the better of the two, but the other way works as well if you don’t have anyone to target.
Now the second one is naturally free aim, basically you can aim freely; you just point and shoot, although the game’s in third person. It works well but it’s definitely not as good as the first option, unless of course you want to plow down the opposition with a large blast from your Tommy gun. Now that’s awesome.
The controls in the Godfather are pretty solid and make you wonder why someone or how someone plays this game without the Wii-Remote! Even if this game may be a port the controls were very well done.
Ahhhh, music, music, music. This game has some of the greatest music to ever grace my ears. Of course, this may only be because it’s from the Godfather movie, but hey, that’s what makes it great! If you’ve checked out my video review then you’ve listened to some of the music, I’ve got to say, it’s very nice, and has a nice Italian feel.
Not to mention the theme music, but all of the other music in the game sounds great, it’ll get really tense at certain times and will really draw you into the game. You’ll also hear some nice melodies as your calmly walking the streets; truly beautiful music.
Not only the music sounds good too, the sound effects and all those other complimentary noises sound great as well. Like for instance the cars, they all sound good and sound pretty real (from what I know, I’m not incredibly car smart, savvy?). But the guns also sound good (how do you mess that up ‘eh?).
The sound in this game is great; frankly it’s the Godfather so to mess that up would be a travesty. Luckily EA knew what they were doing and pulled it all off leaving you with an experience that was very pleasing to the ear. Very good music that makes you want to download it, I sure did!
And so we come almost to a close, all that’s left for me to do is tell you whether or not this is actually worth your money. Well frankly, it’s very worth it, the game packs many, many hours of gameplay and you’ll even be tempted to play it through a second time because it’s just that fun. It’s definitely worth your money and I highly recommend it, especially if you’re looking to find a real serious game if you want a break from Mario games.
Story-8.5/10
-The story was very well done but left you hanging in the end.
Visuals-8/10
-Some very good character models, but buildings pop out of nowhere.
Gameplay-9.2/10
-Tons of gameplay that’ll keep you going for A LONG time.
Controls-8.8/10
-The controls feel great and are perfect for the Wii.
Audio-9.3/10
-Great music that stays true to the movies.
Value/Replay Value-9.5/10
-Definitely worth your money and has tons of hours of gameplay!
OVERALL-8.8/10
(Not an Average)
In conclusion this game is a must buy, and if your wondering, “Well if you say it’s so awesome why didn’t you give it like a 9?”. Well remember, it’s not perfect, but the game is really fun, so don’t judge the game by the score, read the review or watch my video review!
VIDEO REVIEW!!!!
Happy Gaming!
-Alex51011
lol, you'll enjoy it. :3