It's a romantic world, the most famous and well-respected film of which - after Mickey Blue Eyes of course - is The Godfather. The Mafia, Eh? When they're not extorting money from local businesses, they're taking mistresses and killing each other in front of the kids. It appears this is the direction EA is heading towards, rather than a bland exploit 'em up. Since we've played Mafia though, we know that subtle and intelligent treatments of organised crime are possible. As you take over these interactive spaces, you weaken these families and can then go after their borough strongholds such as New Jersey and Brooklyn.'ĭespite real, valid efforts to keep the game within the rich backdrop of the Godfather movies, the nature of mass-market gaming will inevitably clash with those who know the value of celluloid. 'It's your job to gain respect, money and territory - there's always a dominant family in every neighbourhood and when you've taken over all their businesses, only then will it become Corleone.

Above this, meanwhile, lies a Risk-style strategy game where you try to weaken the other families block by block.

The Open World game has nine tough neighbourhoods to control, five warring families and 200 interactive building locations - often housing some racket or other for you to disrupt or take over with characteristic GTA stylings. However, as far as Godfather action is concerned there's plenty of it, and on two strategic levels. However, we've associated some of those characteristics with your character, who parallels the path of Michael to some degree - you ex|x?riei)ce betrayal and loss too.' Chin-stroking industry watchers like what we are, meanwhile, might wonder if Pacino's refusal to take part was more to do with the upcoming Scarface game - to which he most definitely has lent his likeness. 'We got every other actor and it's hard to say why Pacino didn't want to do a deal. 'We didn't get his likeness,' concedes De Martini. Was all this lost when Al Pacino refused to be featured? (The Michael character remains, but looks and sounds different.) Far more important was Michael Corleone's conversion from blue-eyed war hero to ice-cold gangster. These are the kinds of activities you'll be involved in However, respect and revenge were arguably only a small part of the film's power. you won't be able to stop that, but there were things leading up to it that are alluded to in the book but not the movie.

'You start the game as one of the Corleone children, so there's a lot of pre- and post-story surrounding scenes in the movie that you get the opportunity to play out. 'So, you're not going to be able to select a Horse's Head mission, but you will be involved in the liorse's head activity. 'If you think of the most familiar scenes from the film, they'll be there, but presented to you in an organic way,' enthuses De Martini. Frankly, sticking Michael Ironside or David Ducltovny on the box and claiming you've got an all-star cast doesn't have quite the same impact. Snch lineage gives yon some impressive co-stars, namely Robert Duvall, James Caan and the late Marlon Brando, wlw lent their likenesses and recorded dialogue for the game - altliough Brando was so ill, he may now be replaced with a voice actor. You're handed very specific moments from the film, so well intersect and wrap around The Godfather story, both the movie and book,' So the approach we aqreed with Paramount was that we wanted to create The Godfather living world, not necessarily a 'movie qame'. 'When you look at The Godfather, there's only about ten action-oriented sequences in it. So lias EA noticed just how much GTA sells and it now wants a piece of the action? Were horses' heads left on pillows until developers qot the picture? David De Martini, the game's executive producer, claims it was nothing so sinister. The First Two Godfather films sit atop the tallest of the celluloid trees, so it's no small task for EA Redwood Shores, the in-house studio previously involved with the Tiger Woods and James Bond franchises, to convert it into 3D accelerated form.

The godfather pc serial key