The Escapist Show: Episode 23: Godfather II

[Team Hollywood]

Episode 23: Godfather II

The freakin' Escapist takes a looks ova' dare at EA's upcoming release of Godfather II. Ba-da-boom its freakin' awsome! You will like it...or else!

This week's musical guest:

Ian Dorsch [http://www.willowtreeaudio.com] - "Escapist Show Theme"

Watch Video

 

[B-lockdown080]

Russ" The Viper" Pitts? nice...

 

[khamstra]

Loved this!! Especially the "playing solitaire" intro and "Fuquay Fats" creds

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Very tempted by the Godfather game. Looks like what GTA 4 should have been.

 

[DamienHell]

I picked up Godfather II today, its already an amazing game. Nothing is more fun then finding the best way to rob a bank, through trial and error.

 

[Disembodied_Dave]

The credits were hilarious.

 

[Nerdfury]

Looks like a pretty good game but, I'm sorry, is this using last gen graphics and engines? It looks like it's a slightly updated GTA:SA.

 

[SonofSeth]

I'm interested, but the more they talk about what the "real fantasy" is, the more I go ugh!

 

[Doug]

Very tempted by the Godfather game. Looks like what GTA 4 should have been.

I was thinking that alittle, to be honest. But the devil is in the details, and we'll have to see if the game works - apparently Godfather 1 (the game) wasn't so hot.

 

[Ryuzaki]

Interesting credits there.
Liked the video, the game looks quite good.

 

[sebar nl]

I loved the first GF game and i seem to like this game even more!

 

[The_Prophet]

Very tempted by the Godfather game. Looks like what GTA 4 should have been.

This.

 

[Ilosia]

For some of the interview they seem to be just talking about features that were in the original game as though they were entirely new.
Certainly looks interesting though, pity my cpu managed to damage itself a while back.

 

[Reaperman Wompa]

I can't wait to see this. A lot of it could be a bit shaky, but I must admit if they can keep it up to the standard of enjoyability that was present in the first one this game will be great. Can't wait to go take down more rackets, I always loved that in the first one, it was great to just work through a neighbourhood taking racket after racket.

 

[Doug]

Anybody in North America got this yet? Seems it was released there today...?

Let us know your first impressions if you do

 

[t.tocs]

I picked up Godfather 2 yesterday and it's pretty darn good. It seems like another GTA clone at first, but stick with it, it's not. It does a lot to distinguish itself amongst those types of games.

You start the game as Dominic and after your boss gets killed (not a spoiler), you take over a NY Mob family. You become the Don of New York Corleone family. You get a family tree and it consists of you (Don), and underboss, Capos, and Soldiers. You initially only get to recruit one person, but as you progress in the story, you get new people. Now you can't just recruit anyone. You have to find people with certain skills. The skills they can have are Demolition (they blow buildings up and holes in walls), arsonists (destroy buildings with fire, shutting it down for a rival family), bruiser, safecracker, engineer (can cut power to buildings, cut fences...), and medic. I picked medic for the first person because I like health.

The first part of the game involves taking down a rival family. You go to their properties (for this family it was a prostitution ring) and take them over. You kill all their guards, then rough up the owner. When you rough him up enough, you take over the joint and make money. The other family will retaliate, so you can hire guards to protect it for you. In this sense, there's a lot of micromanagement that is "thinking like a don". This is the selling point of this game. It's amazing. They took a good thing like GTA and made you important so you make the big decisions.

If a rival family capo is giving you trouble, help a person on the street with a key over their head and they will tell you where to find him. You can't just go up and kill him though, there are certain kill conditions. For instance, the first guy I found, I had to throw him over the edge of a building. If I just shot him, he would go to the hospital and come back eventually. Since I did the kill condition though, he is gone forever.

When you take over all of a families crime rings, they retreat to their compound. When this happens, you have to storm it. You need to bring a demolition guy up with you because the building has to be destroyed. When it's destroyed, the building is yours (after repairs) and that family is gone for good.

The only cons about this game so far (I've put about 8 hours or so into it) would be the driving. Driving is rough. I can understand a little though since you are driving older cars that handled like hell, but you will kill a lot of pedestrians by accident. Also, sometimes you see stuff in the distance materialize out of nowhere. This is usually people or cars. After a while, I didn't notice it anymore.

If you are on the fence about this game, I'd say give it a try. It's a good one. If you like achievements, there are a bunch of good ones that are easy, and some that are not so easy, but very attainable with time. There's no "collect every hidden thing..." type ones...at least, not that I know of.

If you have any specific questions, send me a message. I'm at work all day today so I'm free to answer any questions you might have.

 

[Doug]

If you have any specific questions, send me a message. I'm at work all day today so I'm free to answer any questions you might have.

Is the core combat similar to GTA?

Does the 'don view' and rakateering work? (Assuming you've got that far)

Is it fun?

 

[t.tocs]

If you have any specific questions, send me a message. I'm at work all day today so I'm free to answer any questions you might have.

Is the core combat similar to GTA?

Does the 'don view' and rakateering work? (Assuming you've got that far)

Is it fun?

Core combat? Yes and no. You pull out your weapon with LB (on 360) and shoot with right trigger. To bring up your weapons, you hold in LB and a wheel pops up with all weapons. It's pretty close to GTA. The way it's different though are the cool executions. Get a guy down to enough health and he drops to his knees out of commission. Run over to him and press in the right stick and you will execute him. If you have a shotgun he shoves the barrel of the gun in his mouth and pulls the trigger. A bat, he gives a nasty beating, etc.

Don view and racketeering definitely work. You press start and enter don view. You see all properties across the town you're in. Red = you own, yellow = enemy owns. I think other families get different colors if multiple. Let's say you just took a strip club from an enemy. You bring up your map and it will highlight the joint for you. Click on it and it brings up a menu. Hit X to determine how many guards you want to hire to protect the place. Guards are $100 per day, unless you own the adult film industry racket and it's decreased (by own, I mean own all the buildings in the game that deal with adult industry...if you own all of something, you get a bonus). You can also hit A to send one of your "made men" to the building to protect it. This is good if you have a high value property and you aren't using that person right now. If a building you own comes under attack, you can't max out the guards...the guard option is taken away, but you can send you're guys. If you are in Florida and your building in NY gets attacked, send one of your made men to help. They are the equivalent of a handful of guards. If they fall, they go to the hospital for 12 minutes (just like if one of your guys falls in battle). Owning all the properties of a racket is really fun and brings out the micromanagement of this game. Just talking about it gets me excited because I want to go home and play. It really is a fun game.

Oh, another big thing about the game is the RPG aspect. Each character (including you and your made men) have upgrades available. You spend money to upgrade these stats. Some stats include:

Health: Increases the rate at which you regenerate (25% faster, then later 50%)
Survivability: Increases the amount of time you hang around until you die, meaning this gives more time to your medic to get to you.
Handgun: Increases accuracy of handgun
Big Guns: Increases accuracy of big guns
Special Skill: Decreases the time it takes a specialist to do their work (i.e. less time for safecracker to crack safe means more time to run from cops before they get to the bank).

This is a lot of fun in and of itself. I love RPG games and the inclusion of this really puts a personal aspect to the guys. I train them how I see fit, I dress them a certain way (when in Florida they wear polos, when in NY suits), it's a really fun game.

 

[Doug]

Spoiler: Spoilered for space

If you have any specific questions, send me a message. I'm at work all day today so I'm free to answer any questions you might have.

Is the core combat similar to GTA?

Does the 'don view' and rakateering work? (Assuming you've got that far)

Is it fun?

Core combat? Yes and no. You pull out your weapon with LB (on 360) and shoot with right trigger. To bring up your weapons, you hold in LB and a wheel pops up with all weapons. It's pretty close to GTA. The way it's different though are the cool executions. Get a guy down to enough health and he drops to his knees out of commission. Run over to him and press in the right stick and you will execute him. If you have a shotgun he shoves the barrel of the gun in his mouth and pulls the trigger. A bat, he gives a nasty beating, etc.

Don view and racketeering definitely work. You press start and enter don view. You see all properties across the town you're in. Red = you own, yellow = enemy owns. I think other families get different colors if multiple. Let's say you just took a strip club from an enemy. You bring up your map and it will highlight the joint for you. Click on it and it brings up a menu. Hit X to determine how many guards you want to hire to protect the place. Guards are $100 per day, unless you own the adult film industry racket and it's decreased (by own, I mean own all the buildings in the game that deal with adult industry...if you own all of something, you get a bonus). You can also hit A to send one of your "made men" to the building to protect it. This is good if you have a high value property and you aren't using that person right now. If a building you own comes under attack, you can't max out the guards...the guard option is taken away, but you can send you're guys. If you are in Florida and your building in NY gets attacked, send one of your made men to help. They are the equivalent of a handful of guards. If they fall, they go to the hospital for 12 minutes (just like if one of your guys falls in battle). Owning all the properties of a racket is really fun and brings out the micromanagement of this game. Just talking about it gets me excited because I want to go home and play. It really is a fun game.

Oh, another big thing about the game is the RPG aspect. Each character (including you and your made men) have upgrades available. You spend money to upgrade these stats. Some stats include:

Health: Increases the rate at which you regenerate (25% faster, then later 50%)
Survivability: Increases the amount of time you hang around until you die, meaning this gives more time to your medic to get to you.
Handgun: Increases accuracy of handgun
Big Guns: Increases accuracy of big guns
Special Skill: Decreases the time it takes a specialist to do their work (i.e. less time for safecracker to crack safe means more time to run from cops before they get to the bank).

This is a lot of fun in and of itself. I love RPG games and the inclusion of this really puts a personal aspect to the guys. I train them how I see fit, I dress them a certain way (when in Florida they wear polos, when in NY suits), it's a really fun game.

Sweet, abit like 'Gangsters 2' with first person view and more fun? (Gangsters 2 was ok, but not brilliant).

Sounds like good things all round for Godfather 2, so I'll get it when it comes out here - although that looks like it'll have to be monday, unless Steam will offer it.