Godfather II

Like a good Don, EA is playing it smart. Being the head of the family means outthinking and then outflanking your opponents, and such is the move they’re pulling with the second Godfather videogame. The first, of course, was mostly a me-too attempt at Grand Theft Auto, which has proven to be the quickest way for your game to get whacked. So in The Godfather II, they’re shying away from GTA and focusing on gameplay types that better serve their license’s strengths. Namely, strategy.

Yes, strategy. Running rackets for the Corleones isn’t about causing as much destruction as possible or simply beating up penny-pinching store owners (though there’s a fair share of both). Instead, Godfather II ’s focus is entirely on “being the Don.”

Starting in Cuba, you’re an aid to Fredo in the Corleone family when the country’s revolution happens, causing you to quickly flee to New York. Praised for your grace under pressure, you’re handed the responsibility of managing the family’s affairs in America.

Our demo took place in the third playable city, Miami, where you’re tasked with taking over a gun racket. Pulling up the Don View — an overhead, god’s eye–style peek at the current city map — we surveyed the situation in the city. The Don View gives you an in-depth, icon-laden instant look at the state of your businesses: which fronts you own, which ones rival families control (more on this later), how many men you have taking care of each, and more. The game pauses whenever you’re in this mode, and in fact, you can pull back out to this view at any time. Though your mileage may vary, EA estimates that you’ll spend roughly a quarter of your gameplay time managing your family from the Don View.

The strategic options don’t end there. You can send members of your crew to rivalcontrolled buildings and bomb them (different guys have unique skills, such as demolitions, electrician, and arsonist) to disrupt their dealings and weaken them for hostile (read: bullet-filled) takeovers. Successfully take over all the fronts for a certain racket and you’ll earn another strategy-like bonus for your family. In the case of, say, the gun-running racket — if you successfully overtake it from your enemies, everyone on your side will get a bulletproof vest. Even with a monopoly in hand, though, you’ll need to hire guys to guard your interests, lest they be taken over by one of the other underworld families. In some instances, EA showed us, it can even be worth hiring more help than you can afford, because the benefits of preserving the monopoly (in this case, the bulletproof vests) outweigh the slight financial hit.

Dropping back down into the gameworld, you’ll need to help out your men in battle. In an example we saw, the district attorney asked us to — ahem — “convince” a diner owner to cooperate (accomplished with the original game’s Black Hand controls: use the triggers to grab your target and then mash his face onto a hot stove). It’s part of the favor system in Godfather II : you scratch the backs of powerful people, and in turn you’ll earn “Sting Cards” you can use against your rivals to get some of their guys arrested and thus weaken their defenses.

When battling other families and not just hapless business owners, it’s worth your while to target the “made men” (they’ll have an icon over their heads indicating their status), as they’re exponentially more powerful than the nameless hired goons. Of course, these other families aren’t going to stand pat and let you take over the whole town — or whack their guys. They’re constantly vying for real estate, too, and they’ll react when they see you starting to amass a huge empire. You’ll need to fight battles on multiple fronts — expect police opposition as well when you make a bit too much of a ruckus.

If you’re smart, though, you can take the back way into a building. Doing so at a warehouse we needed to seize allowed our electrician to cut the phone lines so that the employees there couldn’t call the Boys in Blue for help. As in Rainbow Six, you can issue simple squad commands to your crew by pointing where you want them to go and pressing a button.

By blending the first game’s criminally satisfying Black Hand controls with a freeroaming world and a legitimate emphasis on underworld strategy, Godfather II will, at the very least, be a true Godfather game and not a Brando-branded GTA clone. And the late Don himself would certainly approve of that.