The Godfather II (PS3, Xbox 360) Preview

Posted by Ramon Aranda on 01.08.2009

We get a first look at the single player mode before we go hands-on with online multiplayer. Let’s see how the Family is holding up.


Welcome back to the family

Just when you thought you were out, EA pulls you back in with The Godfather II. It wasn't long ago that we stepped into a GF-themed room at EA Redwood Shores as the developers were eager to show us a pre-alpha build of the latest Godfather game. After going through a few vodka/cranberry glasses, we were whisked away into the mid ‘60s; where the game takes place.

We jumped right in after what we were told was about 5-6 hours into the story. Now in the first the original Godfather, you were a street level thug who rose up through the ranks to become the Don, but never actually got to play as the Don. Well in GFII you do, as you build your own family that consists of 7 made men and as many associates as you can afford. The game will closely follow the story of the second film though in the game, you'll be the acting boss of the family while Michael Corleone is under investigation by the Senate Committee for Organized Crime. As the Don, you'll have to make strategic decisions on which rackets do take over, while defending ones you own. You'll be able to have people such as the D.A. in your back pocket; doing them a favor for one in return. As for the family itself, you'll be personally in charge of ranking them up accordingly and of course it's up to you to recruit them along the way. Sadly, Al Pacino is still not in the game but likeness are still there including voice overs by Robert Duvall.



The map of the game has received quite the overhaul as we were shown the new "Don's View" which is a 3D view giving you quick access to information on venues and such but more importantly, you now get easy access to sending your mob to a particular racket, or you can set up how many guys you want defending your territory (more on that later). There will be three areas in the game: New York, Cuba and Florida. These areas won't be exact replicas but will be themed, or rather representative of their real life counterparts.

As the demo was shown off, we headed over to a warehouse where porn is being filmed. NO, there wasn't any actual porn shown of course but there were topless ladies walking around; uncensored. As the game will be M-rated, EA is looking to ship the game with the topless chicks. Now that we were walking around, we found a slimy D.A. who I suppose is into porn. He asked us for a favor, to smash up someone's business and frame someone else. Naturally we accepted but informed him that we'd ask for a favor in return; to put out a sting on another family.

We were then warped to another part of the city and there, where we looked to take over a business. We were then explained about the new Blackhand 2.0 control. In the previous game, you used the analog sticks to put a beatdown on your foes. Now with the 2.0 revision, you'll use the two trigger buttons which will allow you to pull off combinations. You can do things like break legs and arms now which makes fisticuffs more enjoyable. After the owner was put in his place, the racket was taken over. Again, your goal is to try and take over all the major rackets. Now that we owned the business, we used the Don's View to assign three family members to defend it. This is where the new map really shines. Not only can we assign people to defend the business, but you can also send some out to attack others without you having to literally go yourself. You can also use the Don's View to see other family's at war with each other so the world is alive with or without your involvement. We were explained that if you see two families battling over a business, you can sit there and watch and when they looked depleted, you could then send over your cronies to clean up the mess and take it over – cool stuff. There's something to keep in mind with the rackets; they each belong to a specific type. For instance there are gun running rackets and if you take them all over you'll own that crime ring giving you perks such as armored belts which let you carry more ammunition. If you take over a diamond running ring, then you'll earn more money, so taking over these rings are important.

To help you in taking over rackets, you have different abilities available for your crew. Members can have abilities such as engineer, medic, bruiser, bomber, arsonist, demolitionist or safe cracker. We were shown a demonstration of a way to approach a particular warehouse. This warehouse was pretty heavily guarded, so coming straight through the front would have been pretty foolish. Instead, we went through the rear, though there was a fence blocking the way. We then called on our engineer who cut through the fence to let us in. As we walked in, there was a worker in the back that we had to be careful not to startle. See, he was standing near a phone so he could have called for help (again, strategy people!). Once he left the area, we cut off the phone line so the communications would be broken down. Then nearing a locked door, our bruiser broke the damn thing over and in we were. Our arsonist was then dispatched to light up a nearby tanker and BAM, we had just created a problem for the rival family. Each racket will have a different way to approach it so it's up to you on how you want to handle things. All in all, the single player mode is shaping up to be a huge improvement over the first game and we can only hope to get some hands-on time with it soon enough.

Speaking of hands-on, that brings us to…

Multiplayer

Though we have yet to get down as the Don, we did get some recent hands-on time with the multiplayer portion of the game. Before we got to business, we were explained an important aspect of the new multiplayer games. See, during the course of the game, you're recruiting members and building up your family. While doing so, you customize their look and their RPG attributes but what EA wanted to do is allow you to actually play as those guys and use their specialties (engineer, medic, etc.). When you jump into a multiplayer game, you take one of your family members and throw them into one of four game types (Firestarter, Safe Cracker, Deathmatch or Team Assault). The cool thing about multiplayer is that anything you accomplish and gain with your family member will transfer over to the single player mode. So if you improved his attributes and make $10,000, that crew member will have those stats when you get into the story mode. As an example, if you choose a family member who's specialty is being a medic, and you play any of the multiplayer games and revive fallen teammates, you'll eventually earn ‘Honors'. After you get a certain amount of Honors, you'll be able to upgrade your player's stats and gain things like a new weapon's license which allows you to upgrade your guns in single and multiplayer.



I had a chance to check out the Firestarter mode where you and 7 other teammates look to light tankers on fire. Every time you do so you'll get points which go towards the team point total. The team with the most points after the allotted time wins. Of course it's not all lighting up tankers and you try to cover for your teammates by shooting up your opponents. At times it did feel like a deathmatch but you do have to try and find the tankers that are scattered throughout the map. It was actually a pretty fun game mode but one that was too similar to the Safe Cracker game. Basically the two are identical save for the fact that you crack safes inside buildings rather than light up tankers. I feel this was a throwaway game mode and one that could've have been used for something else, or at least have Safe Cracker mode work a little differently. I won't get into Deathmatch as it should be pretty self explanatory to anyone who's played any FPS game. As for Team Assault, I liked this mode the best. Essentially you're working as a family trying to blow up the other family's compound/buildings. You really do have to work as a team and use some strategy rather than just shooting away like in the other modes. This mode seems to tie into the game much closer as you have to do this type of thing in the story mode anyway except now you have live rivals to get in your way.

Another cool option, besides obviously talking to your teammates online is the ability to talk trash to your rivals. If you get close enough (you just have to gauge a believable distance), you can whisper some sweet "Your ass is mine!" taunts (or whatever else you feel like saying). That will be fun!

Overall, the multiplayer games themselves don't add a whole lot to the package so far, but the ability to upgrade your family members makes it a unique way to tie it all together.

The game is scheduled for a February release on the PS3, Xbox 360 and the PC. No Wii version has been announced yet but we expect something in the future.

We've updated our screenshot gallery below with some multiplayer screens so check those out.