Godfather blackhand edition is simply the ps2/xbox/360 version tuned up with a ton more features. If you have any other versions do not think this game offers much new, it does not.
Godfather on Wii is without doubt one of the systems best games yet and has restored my confidence in EA. You see GF isn't simply a port with wii controls tacked on it successfully intergrated them into every area of interaction in the game.
Grab and drag people into walls then thrust to smack their heads off walls, tables ectra, punch by swinging the numchuck and you can even honk your horn by swinging around.
Personal favorate is strangling done by squeezing tight while shaking the controllers slowly until them simply die.
Combat wise this game is brilliant, the controls become second nature in no time and manual aiming can be used for those lovely head shots better than any Wii game thus far.
The game world is New York divided into 5 neighbourhoods each ruled by a powerful gang. In any order you care to you can push your gang into these neighbourhoods in an effort to take over the neighbourhood. You do this by arriving at the doorstep of the gangs warehouses, mansions and busineses that they're extorting and taking them over by brutally bashing in a shopkeeper with a baseball bat, or eliminating all the rival gangs protecting the shop. The further you push into a gangs territory the more ****ed off they become until they shoot on sight and you find yourself hunted.
Gang wars feature classic drive by shootings where you find yourself ramming other cars off the road in a race to bomb enough businesses to stop them doing it to you, or you can just pay off an FBI member to leave your gang alone and crack down on the enemy. You can pay off an army of police to help you in a gun fight and wipe a gang off the map by bombing their mansion and taking all of their businesses for your own.
Money makes the world go round in Godfather and buys you hit squads, corrupt cops to lend a hand or turn a blind eye and you earn it from harrassing shopkeepers and warehouse owners into giving you a cut of their profits. With this money you can buy anything and thus continue to assert your dominence in smuggling, bootlegging and prostitution.
And all of this is outside the main story
Don't make the mistake that GF doesn't have a deep story, all of the missions are tied closely to the first of the 3 movies. Sneaking into Waltz's house with a decapitated horse, avenging Sonny's death and taping the gun to the toilets are all in a days work.
And then theres side quests that usually involve solving someones problem, perminatly by hitting specified targets like corrupt police and rival gangs lawyers or eradicating drug fronts.
Graphically Godfather is among one of the best Wii games out but the graphics look nothing compared to some of the better games on GC and PS2. What you do get is an awful lot of different animations for an awful lot of people. Old time New York is a dark and desolate place anyway. The graphics are forgivable at this stage in the Wii's life.
Sound is strong throughtout, while some of the driving anthems are too techno to not draw you from the seedy world of the godfather they do work as getaway music. Dialogue is crisp and the voices of James Caan/ Robert Duval and late Marlon Brando are present, thought not Al Pacino.
So whats bad about the Godfather BH? well only three main points that detract from the experience.
Bad world design, the world map is pretty disjointed by bridges that are much longer than needed to be. You will be doing a lot of driving and a lot of looking at the main map (not the mini map but the one that requires accessing the main menu) some areas of the game take 5 minutes of driving to access and more time to get back due to the lack of teleports. While you can teleport around the city initially you have to pay and some areas are miles from teleports. The map simply isn't very accessable, theres multiple times when you will find a dead end because you used the mini map.
Repeatative indoor areas, theres not enough variation in the building interiors, a lot of them look the same and most are the same just with different people. There are about two variations of nightclub layouts and about 3 for factories. Shops however are normally very varied and with all the locations to visit I can forgive this repeation.
Reuse of models, theres frequent times where I found myself in a room with prostitutes who looked exactly the same. It's fine to reuse models but in the same room is lazyness. Gangsters are fine to reuse as you don't pay attention to anything but the colour of their coats but i'm talking two identical people in the same room when other models could have been used.
Other points include the content, this is the first 18+ on the Wii and theres a reason. Gun fighting, strangling, beating up of civilians horrifically with your own hands, prostitution (although theres no sex in the game) and the frequent F bomb. Blood spill isn't that bad compared to movies like Casino but the horse in the bed is just as brutal and unnerving as ever.
So
Gameplay 9
Level design 6
Graphics 6
Sound 8
Longativity 10 (sooo much to do taking over a neighbourhood takes a good few hours)
Overall 8/10
and give it a 9 if you love the movies like me
Godfather blackhand edition review
Linear Mode
