The mob life is a violent one and you’ll dole out the violence with both weapons and your bare fists. The gunplay in the game works well, allowing you to lock onto targets or switch to a free-aim mode in which you can target specific areas of an enemy’s body to shoot a weapon out of his hand or hit his knee so that he can’t walk. You can also take matters into your own hands, roughing up your enemy by punching and kicking him or by smashing him against nearby objects. The Sixaxis is used when pushing an enemy around or slamming him into walls and objects to add a more realistic feel to the fighting. When it works it is pretty cool, but it feels like the Sixaxis doesn’t always respond in the way you think it will so you’ll wind up doing a lot of random shaking of the controller during fights. The game has no shortage of ways to kill your enemies and it will track the number of times that you’ve killed someone using a specific execution technique. These can be accomplished as part of the fighting such as throwing someone into oncoming traffic, or you can beat them just short of death and then pull a trigger to initiate an execution.

As you take over rackets, kill rivals, and generally make a name for yourself you’ll earn respect which is the game’s equivalent of experience. When you earn the required amount of respect you’ll advance to the next level and earn points that can be put towards improving your character’s abilities. This system adds a nice little RPG element to the game and lets you customize your character to suit your style of play. For example, you can invest in faster reload times and better aim if you enjoy using your guns or in your total health and strength if you like getting up close and personal.

The PS3 version of the game introduces a hit squad to the game. This is a welcome addition in which you can hire from one to four guns to accompany you on a task and provide you with some extra firepower. It also makes a lot of sense given the context of the game – mobsters would never send in a lone wolf to try and takeover a warehouse when the city’s entire supply network is at stake. The hired guns perform pretty well and you’ll appreciate their help when they’re there to back you up.

One of the weakest parts of the game is its graphics, which look decidedly last-gen. The game looks better than it does on a PS2, but it’s obvious that you’re looking at an old-school graphics engine at work here. It’s too bad because if you have the PS2 version, you may as well just pop that disk into your PS3 because the new additions to the game are not really enough to warrant a new purchase of the game.

Overall The Godfather is an enjoyable game in spite of its lackluster graphics and tendency towards some repetitive gameplay. If you’re craving some GTA style gameplay on your PS3, it will certainly help pass the time until GTA IV is released.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 80%. The Godfather is enjoyable enough if you can look past the fact that it uses your $600 PS3 to generate PS2 quality graphics.

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