The game puts you in this sandbox setting to approach your goals in your own preferable manner, so there’s plenty of options presented to you as you make your steps towards helping Michael Corleone. While there will be blood splattered at almost every turn, at least Michael will be able to sleep well at night knowing you are doing it in his honor. Similar to how THQ’s The Punisher allowed players to torture their enemies, The Godfather II allows players to beat them to a bloody pulp to “persuade” them to join the family and become a business that acts as a front so you can go about your shady business behind the scenes. Once you find the person in charge, you’ll have the chance to find their weak spot and influence their decision to join the cause for Michael Corleone and ditch the other families. When they join the Corleone Empire, you’ll be racking in the money from that business.
Before you know it, you’ll have enough money to promote your crew members to a higher ranking with more abilities such as equipping better guns, having more life, better aim and much more. Overall, there are three territories/cities that you’ll take over that eventually begin to run their course after you finish up New York City. You begin doing the same things over and over again, so repetition is the biggest downfall of The Godfather II. Currently, the system they have in place isn’t too in-depth, but it at least gives you a lot of entertaining moments where you are able to throw enemies off a roof or choke them to death. There are a few side-quests where you can perform favors for random people on the street, but it’s a weak aspect of the game that needs to be redone. Maybe next time they can have them coming to you at family’s house to ask for the favor instead? Maybe they can shower you with gifts and compliments before you go around whacking their neighbor to get their money.
On the graphics end of the game, it’s not going to wow you, but at least a majority of the characters from the movie are recognizable. Along with their voices, a few celebrities have returned to help give the world of The Godfather II a much more authentic feel. It’s still unfortunate that Al Pacino hasn’t provided his likeness to the games as his inclusion and participation would help ante up the realism of the title. Players who enjoyed the first should find the sequel to be much more unique than the original. It’s a soft-edged real-time strategy game that boasts the ability to go into missions with a handful of crew members, the ability to hire guards and a tremendous amount of bliss when it comes to violence. There’s even an online mode for up to 16 players that allows for money and weapons to be carried over to the single-player, so there’s a little incentive to stick around long after you complete the story.
