Perhaps the most unfortunate part of the Godfather the Game is just how dated the visuals can be. Though vehicles and characters look flat out amazing, the environments they populate are just plain bland. Flat texturing adorns overly simple models, leaving us with a general feeling of being digital characters stuck in an 8 bit world. Along with this, you’re forced to dispatch throngs upon throngs of generic enemies. We label them as generic for a damn good reason – there are two basic types of foe in The Godfather – mobsters with short coats, and mobsters with long coats. We kid you not. Apart from the colour of the overcoats which they don, every single enemy within the game will look the exact same, with similar sounding Italian names between them too. Now, I wasn’t around back in the fifties, but I’m fairly sure that cloning didn’t reach a peak in that era, and slide off since then. Perhaps the only difference that this visual element indicates is just how tough said mobsters are – after all, the ones with longer coats can always take a beating, for some reason or another.

On the plus side though, to the characters that matter, the faces are eternally distinct and recognizable, even from a distance, so rather than forcing you to squint at what might be Don Vito, you can tell it’s him from afar, bullet holes and all. Yet, with these recognizable characters there comes one major issue – the models do not change, under any circumstances, making a situation such as Sonny’s Causeway Execution pathetically ugly – essentially a whole lot of dinky black dots with white halos appearing on his body – lame. It’s this unfortunate lack of attention to detail that, as we said before, ruins many of the game’s vital movie moments. It does enough to actually mar the memory from the movie, making us wonder “did it look that bad there, too?” Thank God for the “Film Clips” that are unlocked by doing certain events – at least that way we can observe the scene in its original Cinematic glory, rather than the butcher-block approach presented by a Grand Theft Auto Engine. We’re not sure which one powers it, but considering the sheer amounts of shooting, carjacking, and wanton lawlessness that goes on generally unpunished.

While The Godfather the Game may be lacking in visual splendor, at least it provides a respectable foothold in terms of an audible experience. Though proper voicing for Don Vito (Marlin Brando, not available due to death), and Michael Corleone (He refused to voice the role) was not available, the entirety of the cast and characters within the game is voiced by their original counterparts. For what it’s worth, the absence of these lead roles doesn’t have too significant of an impact upon the game, but it’s enough to flaw the delivery. When you move away from the voices of the world, there’s another set of sounds to contend with – the flat, bland, lifeless undertones of the city. Flat gunshots, lifeless cars, poorly broken glass, it’s like we’re living inside a slow, motionless blur. Perhaps the only redeeming point to the game is the use of the movie’s music, granted, even this isn’t without flaw. Considering that the main theme is used repeatedly – conversations – driving – the works, a “surprise” in terms of an event is wasted when we know it’s coming by the tired, old, overused music. Seriously EA, there’s a lot more effort that needs to be put into play in this situation, and this is just one of those situations where the developers/publishers have really dropped the ball on giving a franchise what it deserves.