I love mafia games – even the party game Mafia, which has nothing to do with the actual mob – and always find myself ready for more. I’ve played through the Mafia trilogy, as well as the semi-recent remasters. They’re as good and bad as you expect. The third is probably the best, though its open-world setting can be frustrating. Now, we have the latest entry in the franchise, Mafia: The Old Country, and it simply has me yearning for something a bit older.
Mafia: The Old Country is set in Sicily during the early 1900s, tracking the beginning of the Sicilian mafia. It’s an exciting concept and, if done right, could be wonderful. The problem is that, like every other Mafia game, some of it works and some of it doesn’t. While the characters and location are fantastic, the open world isn’t very exciting, leaving much to be desired.
While The Old Country is still worth your time, if you’re anything like me, it’s just going to remind you of a much older yet much better game. Who else remembers The Godfather on PS2?
The Dawn Of The Don
The first time I played The Godfather upon its release, I’d never seen the movies. That might sound ridiculous, but I loved the game as an introduction to the franchise. At the time, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was the undisputed king of open-world gaming – with Grand Theft Auto IV set to follow in 2008. But GTA’s modern setting didn’t scratch the gaming itch I had for an open-world game.
The Godfather offered me a trip back in time. It allowed me to create my own rookie mobster – complete with a character creator called Mobface – and build him up through the ranks of the Corleone family as he was inserted into the events of the first Godfather film. I didn’t know any better at the time, but director Francis Ford Coppola sure didn’t like what he saw.
“They use the characters everyone knows, and then for the next hour they shoot and kill each other. I had absolutely nothing to do with the game, and I disapprove.” – Francis Ford Coppola
Luckily, what Coppola thinks about video games doesn’t really sway me because I couldn’t disagree more. The beauty of The Godfather, as a game, is that it felt like an immersive experience. So much so that a couple of days into playing it, I sat down and watched The Godfather.
I’ve seen all three movies a few times since. The Godfather 3 remains a puzzling final chapter, at best.
Dipping back in after watching the movie felt like one of the best DVD bonus features I’d ever seen. I was living the movie in an open-world game. Granted, the graphics were PS2-level, but for the time, it looked pretty good. What’s more, two of the movie’s stars reprise their roles – Robert Duvall as Tom Hagen and James Caan as Sonny Corleone. Meanwhile, Marlon Brando was replaced by a voice mimic who studied recordings the actor made prior to his death. The big missing piece was Al Pacino. He didn’t reprise his role, and his likeness wasn’t used – though it was incorporated into Scarface: The World is Yours.
The Scarface game, also an open-world action-adventure set in the criminal underworld, was released six months after The Godfather.
Still, Pacino’s lack of involvement couldn’t stop my excitement. It took the formula Grand Theft Auto was trailblazing and tried to do something new with it. I’d argue they pulled it off, especially when you consider its closest alternatives at the time. While Scarface was decent, the second Godfather game was bad, and LA Noire, Rockstar’s attempt at a period open-world game, was so small in comparison to Grand Theft Auto that it never seemed to become a big enough hit to warrant a return. It’s one of the most “on the rails” open-world games I’ve ever played.
Note: The Godfather 2 overlaps here and there with its movie namesake, but also changes parts of the story and is far less focused than the game that preceded it.
The Godfather Is Not A Perfect Game, But It’s Perfect For Me
I’m not going to sit here and tell you The Godfather isn’t a flawed title. For one, the game attempted to mimic the controls and gameplay of the wildly popular Grand Theft Auto 3, which was already imperfect. While it won’t deter you from the game, it’s not the smoothest experience. Additionally, it’s far more graphic and violent than the movies themselves. Ultimately, that works for me, though.
In the movie, we are experiencing life for the top members of the Corleone family. For the most part, those people don’t get their hands dirty. They have minions for that sort of thing. The game makes you that minion and expects you to prove your worth as you move up in the family.
So while the level of graphic violence might seem extreme compared to the movies, in my mind, it helps to tell the story going on in the background. It created a rounded experience for me before I moved on to watching The Godfather 2.
So say what you will about it, digging into Mafia: The Old Country isn’t giving me the itch to revisit other entries in the Mafia franchise. Instead, I’m very close to digging my old PS2 out of the closet to make sure it still works. Because I know I still have The Godfather on a disc somewhere in my closet, too. And really, that’s the mafia video game experience I still want at this point.
And if not that, I’d like to go back to Rockstar’s The Warriors, another awesome open-world game based on a great decades-old movie.
