Fredo also has a much larger role within the game than he ever had within the film, acting as a plot device throughout the story of the game and interacting with Michael and the rest of the Corleones thanks to saving him in Cuba. I wasn't too disturbed by much of the artistic license that was used in the title, but there were two elements that were used that just didn't work well. The first is one of the most memorable moments in the second film, when Michael informs Fredo that he knows Fredo betrayed him.
Instead of this happening in Cuba, this happens in the study at the Corleone compound in New York after a majority of the game has been completed, which diffuses the strength of that moment. The other issue, which is more significant, is the introduction of Tom Hagen as your consigliere, which happens around halfway through the game.
While I don't have a problem with Hagen advising Dominic at all, his arrival in the middle of the story makes no sense, especially since the game constantly uses an image of Tom to provide information and hints on events going on as you make your moves against your rivals.
This is compounded by the fact that Dominic acts as if he's only met Tom once or twice, even though the player has seen Tom's face dozens of times at this point. It would've made more sense to introduce Tom much earlier and have him provide this information as you start to build your empire and kill your rivals, because it just comes across as a weak and confusing plot device.
Speaking of your empire, The Godfather II takes an interesting twist to eliminating your rivals by working elements of strategy in with the guns blazing action that you expect from a crime tale. The strategy comes into play with a feature known as The Don's View, a 3D map that allows you to view your property and that of rival families so you can plan where you want to strike. See, to strengthen your family, you'll need to take over fronts that help launder money as well as the nine crime rings in the game, which provide bonuses to the family that owns it.
For example, owning the gun running ring allows you to carry more ammo, while the drug ring doubles your income. However, you can't simply take over a business or ring and not expect a certain amount of retribution. Rivals will send their own made men to bomb or try to wrest control from you, forcing you to use The Don's View to decide when you want to send reinforcements or set up extra defenders to fend off these attacks.
You'll also be able to use this map to track down corrupt officials that you can do tasks for in return for favors that can be called in at any time, which can result in throwing off the police when you're being chased or arresting Mafioso, making an opponent that much more vulnerable. Of course, this is a temporary measure, and if you're going to try to fully eliminate a family, you'll want to track down each individual mobster and put a hit out on them. You'll discover the info on their location by doing favors for people on the street, like demolishing businesses, beating or killing people, or cracking safes.
Once you've taken every business of a rival, their entire family minus any made men that you've "retired" will retreat to their compound which you need to raid and blow up to finally eliminate their existence once and for all. While you will be able to perform some of the tactical moves for your family, you'll inevitably find yourself deep in the midst of the action with up to three crew members, each with their own skills that will help you in battle. For instance, you can bring along a medic that can heal downed members of your crew, engineers that can cut the power so rivals can't call for reinforcements and demolitions guys that can bomb installations.
For the most part, these crewmembers will act autonomously, targeting and taking out enemies as soon as they see them, but you do have the ability to provide minor commands to them to send them to a location, make them follow you or use their skills on certain objects.
Of course, Dominic isn't a pushover either, and you'll be able to pummel whoever you want with his fists, choke the life out of them, or blast a kneecap or a shoulder with precise aim.
Of course, you can also use the weapons that you acquire to execute enemies like beating them senseless with a golf club or shoving a Tommy gun in their mouth and ventilating the back of their head. Now, if you're finding that you're having trouble with a particular location or fight, you can spend cash to increase the stats of both Dominic and your crewmembers, making them more capable in battle, like healing faster or being more accurate with weapons.
For the most part, the balance of action and strategy is fun — by using the Don's View, you get a sense of the overall battle raging across the three cities that you fight for, and you do have the ability to manipulate aspects of the world solely from this view like sending soldiers to attack rivals.
Similarly, you will definitely get your hands dirty with the action focus, whether that's by robbing banks or blowing away thugs as you personally ensure that your family's territory grows.
There is one significant problem with the gameplay, however — it is way too easy for anyone that's played an action or strategy game before. Rival families won't take that many actions against you as you start to take over their fronts and businesses, and if they do, they'll only try to perform one offensive action like bombing a building or attacking one place of interest that you own for every five to ten that you pull off.
Not only does this allow you to consolidate your empire with a significant amount of guards to repel any incursions, but it weakens them substantially. What's worse, they won't move like a fellow Don would by sending one made guy to detonate a location, perhaps as a distraction, while another group of capos head out to take a key business for you. At this point, the compounds become unlocked so that you can get into them and fight your way to wherever it is that you need to place a bomb.
In theory, you shouldn't attempt this kind of operation until you've weakened a family by assassinating a number of its made men, but in practice, the only real difference between those guys and the regular guards is that it takes more bullets to put them down. Interestingly, the only way to permanently kill a made man other than to bomb his family's compound is to do so in a way that sends a specific message to his family, and you can find out which message needs to be sent only by doing favors for people you meet on the street.
Remember how Vito Corleone was unable to turn down any request from a friend on his daughter's wedding day in the first Godfather movie? Well, this is nothing like that.
Rather, you approach complete strangers and tell them they look like they need help, at which point they tell you who or which building they want attacked. Do them the favor, and they'll tell you where one of your enemies can be found and that he can only be killed with a Molotov, with a shot between the eyes, with a fall from a great height, by being run over with a car, or something similar. Not only is soliciting murder advice from random pedestrians totally absurd, carrying out these contrived actions is more trouble than it's worth, so you'll probably end up just bombing the compound every time.
The front door was locked. Once you take down all five families, you're about done with the single-player portion of The Godfather II. You play as one of the members of your crew from the single-player game, and as you earn honor points online, you can use them to upgrade your guys' weapon licenses so that they're able to use more-powerful guns both online and off.
Your choice of crew member will likely be dictated by the game type that you're playing because, in case you hadn't guessed, those last three modes favor players with demolition, arson, and safecracker skills, respectively.
Unfortunately, The Godfather II's multiplayer isn't much fun. Targeting enemies without the lock-on feature feels too imprecise on consoles, completing objectives on the non-deathmatch modes doesn't earn you as many points as just killing people, and most of the maps are too big for just 16 players. One of the more interesting multiplayer features, regardless of the fact that it's functional rather than fun, is the option for one player on each team to play as the don. As the don, you don't play as a guy on the ground at all, but as a disembodied camera flying high above the map and able to relay information to teammates about enemy locations and the like both with voice chat and by dropping waypoint beacons.
When your team captures strategic locations on the map, you can also reward them with bulletproof vests and other perks, which is great for them but as boring as it sounds for you.
Worse still, you can only fly around freely at a fixed altitude, so although you have the option to jump between players and key locations with a couple of button presses, your movement still feels oddly restricted. It's possible to make money as the don by betting on the outcome of games, but money's unlikely to be an issue once you near the end of the single-player game, so it's hardly compelling.
Two soldiers demonstrate their very different interpretations of Dominic's order to follow him. Questionable design choices aside, the problem with almost every aspect of The Godfather II is simply that it feels unfinished.
Dated visuals, voiced lines of dialogue that seemingly play at random and often inappropriate times, dead bodies falling through scenery, a car hovering in the air about half a mile off the Cuban coast, being able to snipe enemies through walls and doors that haven't popped into view yet, guards who fail to recognize you as a threat when you walk into a federal building and crack a safe, cars and pedestrians that appear and disappear long before they leave your range of vision, getting stuck in an animation somewhere between a regular walk and a crouch after vaulting through a window--these are just some of the problems we encountered in the 13 hours or so that it took to play from start to finish.
Even looking past these anomalies, all you're going to find is repetitive, unsatisfying gameplay in an illogical, inconsistent world. The Godfather II should have been an offer impossible to refuse, but like Michael's brother Fredo, this one will break your heart. Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media.
That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update. Players use weapons including pistols, machine guns, shotguns, and bombs to kill foes. Special execution kills allow players to perform particularly brutal attacks such as headshots or punishing knees to the face.
Blood splatters on the screen and ground after attacks. Players can run both strip clubs and prostitution rings. The strippers are topless, wearing only underwear or even thongs.
However, players cannot engage in any explicit activity. One of the illegal businesses involves selling drugs, although players don't directly perform the task. Parents need to know that this is a violent game meant for adults only.
Players work as a member of the mob, managing a series of illegal rackets and a crew of henchman in an effort to dominate the city. Players use a bevy of weapons to kill enemies, including pistols, machine guns, bombs, shotguns, and their bare hands. Players can also deliver executions which involve especially brutal kills and lots of blood, such as gunshots to the head and powerful kicks to the face.
Part of the gameplay involves control businesses that cover for illegal activities ranging from drug selling to arms smuggling to prostitution. The game is also playable online, a feature Common Sense Media does not recommend to anyone under the age of Add your rating See all 5 parent reviews.
Add your rating See all 12 kid reviews. The game borrows heavily from the movie, incorporating characters such as Michael Corleone. The main character works for the Corleone family, and is preparing to celebrate their endeavours in Cuba.
The government is overthrown, and the family must flee, but not before your direct boss is killed. Michael gives you the job of an underboss, and tasks you with reclaiming all the illegal rackets in New York.
Players freely roam the city, engaging in the main missions of the story, shaking down businesses for profit, or going off on contract kills to earn cash. Players can view the city in a map that breaks down all the businesses and the mob family in charge. Players can also recruit and manage crews based on specific skills, ranging from Medic to Safecracker and Demolitions expert.
If a player's owned business is under attack, they can send a henchman to defend the property and clear out enemies. The game also includes an online multiplayer component, with events such as Team Deathmatch and Demolition Assault, a challenge in which players must blow up three enemy targets. Perhaps the most interesting parts of Godfather II are the strategy elements.
The Don's View is laid out nicely, allowing players to easily navigate and pinpoint businesses to target. Players must also determine how many bodyguards to hire for each acquired establishment, forcing you to balance expenses. This strategic thinking applies to selecting crewmembers as well, as players try to achieve the ideal combination of strength and support. Everything else about the game doesn't seem at all different from the first Godfather game.
In fact, like the first game, Godfather II just feels like another Grand Theft Auto knockoff when you strip out the strategy. Visually, it looks like a slightly polished version of its PlayStation 2 predecessor. The story isn't very interesting, which is surprising when you consider it borrows from a well-respected film.
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