The Godfather II Preview

The original Godfather game was a solid take on the anti-hero genre, offering a wide open world to explore and fantastic production values. The game sold well, making it a given that EA would once again want to tackle the universe popularized by Francis Ford Coppola’s beloved film franchise. The Godfather Part II once again puts players in the world of organized crime ran by Michael Corleone and his associates. This time, the game is poised to offer more of a strategy element than its predecessor, as well as an emphasis on letting you discover what it truly means to be a Don. GameZone recently attended a Showcase hosted at EA’s Redwood Shores studio in order to get some impressions on the ambitious title.

In The Godfather Part II, you begin by creating a new character similar to how the first game began. However, this time around is a bit different, as your character quickly becomes imbued with the responsibility of running Michael Corleone’s Miami operations, effectively becoming a Don from the get-go.

The game really emphasizes the Don aspect quite heavily, throughout the strategy elements. The Don’s View gives you the means to explore the city and check your territory and that of your enemies. The game’s world is completely dynamic, meaning that as you vie for your opponent’s territory, they’ll be fighting each other and trying to take you on as well. Being a Don, you won’t be required to complete every single mission on foot, as you’ll have soldiers to go about and take over areas of the city for you while you do different ones.

Additionally, you can make some friends in high places by doing jobs for politicians and other people of influence. By doing things for them, they’ll owe you something in return, and will perform “stings” on rival families via the favor system, compromising their power throughout the city and giving you the chance to take them down.

While the game’s strategy elements are pretty important, there is still a fair amount of action sequences throughout the game. The Blackhand combat system makes a reappearance, only instead of being mapped to the right thumbstick, they are mapped to the trigger buttons, which both of them controlling a corresponding fist and allowing for some easy combos.

Graphically, the game will feature a huge new city to explore inspired by Miami, filled with great driving routes. The game will utilize the same proprietary engine as Dead Space, which was created in-house.

The Godfather Part II is turning out to be an impressive title that improves upon the original by offering some great strategy elements. Look for it to launch in 2009.