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Sports & Gaming -
Gaming
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God Father Game.
Mario Puzo's veritable story truly took Hollywood by storm when it redefined its. genre by weaving a story with manic-yetcultured-mass-murders with a rich family heritage. Similarly the game, although not ground breaking, is definitely a breath of fresh air in today's cookie cutter world of strategy games. The game's story is complementary to the movie/book's original premise. Players get to create their own mob character and to relive classic moments from the film as well as experience original missions alongside other memorable characters from the film. The game starts off with the protagonist's mother begging the Don to bring her son in to the business. As the Don can not refuse anybody on the day of his daughter's wedding, he puts the player under the watchful eye of Luca Brasi, one of the Don's various henchmen. The main premise of the game is for the player to take part in a synergistic role with the first Godfather movie's story line. For example one of the missions is to drive the Don to the hospital after he gets shot, a situation which is taken directly from the movie.
Another interesting mission is to plant the hand gun that AI Pacino's character uses to shoot the crooked cops in the movie. These little tieins add a lot of nostalgia as well as the patented Godfather aura to the experience. There are plenty of original missions in the game which provide a road for player's character to develop his own career in the mafia family. Other than these main missions, regular activities include running mafia rackets, money extortions etc.
At times the game appears to be a heavily "Cappolated" version of Grand Theft Auto (GTA). Just like GTA the player can pick up any car in the street and freely roam around the twisted back-alleys of New York. The cars are excellent to control, supplementing the entertainment value of the game. What is even more satisfying is the way the guns are handled by the player.. There'are two forms of control, the first being the 'lock-on' method which does not require mouse movements and the other being the free-look method. For a game that combines multiple genres the two control options offered to the player work well for different parts of the game. For instance the driving bits of the game are much better off with a dual analogue joy pad, while the character control works brilliantly with the mouse and keyboard. Precise shooting is exceptionally difficult on a dual analogue controller and the mouse and keyboard controls are the saving grace of the game.
The original Godfather characters from the movie originals are faithfully reproduced, with excellent voiceovers for all the main characters including the Don and Michael Corleone. The Godfather theme sounds absolutely wonderful thanks .to full support for EAX HD, and warrants a purchase for surround sound speakers for full enjoyment of its aural cues. Although the Godfather tune is a bit over done in the game, it still manages to rekindle the old school love for the movie.
Godfather, rarely becomes boring as it features hundreds of things to do. However the monotonous and repetitive graphics deprive it of a perfect score. Unfortunately, most of the interiors are heavily recycled, so you'll see the exact same bakery, hotel, flower shop, and mob-family compound several times throughout the game. Interestingly the entire city of New York has been carefully rendered in detail and is highly reminiscent of the locations and sets employed in the original film. Technically the graphics are relatively better for the PC version as compared to the XBOX and PS2 versions. The textures are scalable to very high resolutions, and hence allow intricate details to be displayed on the characters and the simulated world itself - a feature that was sadly amiss in the console versions of the game. The frame rate is slightly dodgy, with some sloppy optimisation leading to unusual albeit rare choppiness in the PC version. A patch is supposedly in the process of being released to fix this problem, and hence it is recommended that the gamers should wait for the fix or they could end up with a half baked experience.
During its development, critics expected that the Godfather would somehow revolutionize the gaming industry in the same way its predecessor did for Hollywood. Although it does some how fall short in that aspect, it more than makes it up by being a solid and highly playable game. In all fairness it does a lot of things right, and will surely be a game one would want in their collection for a long time. source Spider Mag.
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