Needing a break from Grand Theft Auto and not willing to buy a PS3 I decided to buy Godfather. Overall I like the game but it needs improvements. It feels and looks like the 40's and is a nice revisiting of the movie, which I wanted to watch again after playing awhile! You can create your character from hairstyle and eye color to height of eyebrows and size of ears. It satisfies my shoot 'em up craving and has some fun melee effects. You can toss people out of windows, over ledges, in front of moving cars and you can strangle them and bash their head into walls and solid objects. The greatest thing about it is it has the sweetest duck, cover and shoot system I have ever played. The weapons are nice with 3 upgrade levels, each with a noticeable difference in fire power and speed. You cant just charge in blasting and expect to survive you must carefully plan your attack and use your wits and cover.
However the bad parts of the game are really bad. The game is short, it said I played 100+ hours but heres why. You get paid every Sunday but time moves slow, so slow the first time I finished the game I had only received 7 checks! So I let the game run for hours, even overnight several days just to get paychecks. You also have to drive alot, it takes 3 real-time minutes to drive to New Jersey! So game play is closer to 50 hours. There are only 4 vehicles. They are heavy and slow and when you hit another car you stop dead. No cool physics that let you bounce off or fly over. You just stop and have to slowly back up and go around. Everytime you exit a car you must wait for him to close the door. Even when the car is on fire and about to explode youre waiting for him to close the door before you can make him RUN.
The game is not well thought out and poorly paced. It should take longer than two months to become Don! You may kill a guy in a side mission but he will be alive to kill again in the story mission. If you start a mob war with a family and completly eliminate that family, you're STILL at war with them until you bribe an FBI agent. (How can you be at war with people who dont exist?) The same family you eliminate will still be talked about in the storyline because there is no cohesion. You move up the ranks by doing the story missions but even when you become Don you're still doing menial type jobs because the promotions are too fast and completely unrelated to the other things you may be doing.
Though barbers and tailors exist in the game you cannot use them to change your clothes or appearance. You must save the game, quit the game, reload the game and then you get an option to go to the tailor or barber. When you save the game it will not default to the game you are playing so you must select it everytime. It asks, are you sure you want this file, but covers up the list so you're not really sure which file you selected.
The last drag -and there are more but hey, Ive got a life- involves the shoot mechanism. There are certain kill styles you can perform, which are cool, but theres 1 style you cant control. If you shoot someone very close to you it will start an animation that causes you to stand straight up (losing cover), grab the guy, shot him in the stomach, then the head and then finally stop. Meanwhile bad guys are blasting the heck out of you cos you are in plain sight and unable to shoot back. I have died countless times because of this and its a drag. There isnt as much to do as people say. You can extort businesses and takeover rackets (which is required if you want to complete the game), rob banks, do assasinations and do the story missions. Thats it.
There are definitly fun elements to the game and its nice to see yourself in the cut scenes with James Caan et al, but it does get repetitive and I really wish I could snap to a place rather than drive all the time. I played through twice but only because it went so fast I wanted to get my $20 worth. Its certainly not worth more. I will play it again but only after I forget how frustrating it can be.

This game is my new addiction. For fans of grand theft auto, this game is for you. For people like me who wanted to play grand theft auto, but didn't want to be some gangsta pimp, this game is for you. For people like me who LOVE the godfather film (1st one/2nd one) this game is for you. For people like me who just want to have a great time playing a video game worth while, this game is for you.

I highly recommend this game to anyone looking for nonstop entertainment, violence and bad language ('F' bomb) in a video game.