When considering how entertainment portrays the most notorious criminal organization in history, a few franchises should jump to mind: The Sopranos, The Godfather trilogy and most everything else that Robert de Niro or Al Pacino starred in. When it comes time for the jump to gaming, however, the best representations are found in the Grand Theft Auto series and Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven.
The Don is not pleased
When considering how entertainment portrays the most notorious criminal organization in history, a few franchises should jump to mind: The Sopranos, The Godfather trilogy and most everything else that Robert de Niro or Al Pacino starred in. When it comes time for the jump to gaming, however, the best representations are found in the Grand Theft Auto series and Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven. There have been other attempts to capture the mystique and vibe of the Mafioso lifestyle, though most of them have fallen horribly short of being a decent depiction of the gritty gangster life outlining the Cosa Nostra.
Sadly, it’s become something of a standard, even an expectation, in the world of gaming for big-name franchises to make lame video games. The creators of Dragon Ball, The Simpsons and Family Guy have all attempted to immortalize their characters and storylines for multiple consoles, but these games have done little more than offend fans of the TV shows and bore serious gamers. While this may be acceptable for animated characters that don’t have a list of guys to whack and shops to shake down, it’s almost inexcusable to design a shitty Mafioso game.
Take, for example, The Sopranos: Road to Respect. THQ should have spent less on hiring the actual voice actors from HBO’s brainchild and more on developing a decent control scheme, top-notch graphics and a storyline that does the Emmy-winning show justice. Instead, the gameplay is horribly repetitive and dull, with a story that offers very few surprises and very little reason to keep mashing the same buttons as you blunder through the lame combat system. It’s horribly frustrating to be on a mission for the DiMeo family, the group that you start off working for as you aspire to become a made man, and to engage in combat with the same cookie-cutter thugs, only to get surrounded and beaten to a pulp because the controls won’t respond fast enough for you to break free and retaliate. Honestly, how is a hard-working piccioto supposed to move through the family’s ranks when he can’t even tune up some goombah from a rival family? Fughedabboudit!
Past this, the missions you’re given are almost entirely linear and there’s very little deviation from the main storyline. You can choose to be polite and respectful during conversation to follow one storyline, or you can respond to members of your crew or another’s like a wise guy and slightly shift the direction of a conversation and what comes next. Point in fact, the only truly entertaining feature in this travesty of a game is the pickpocket feature: after you’ve finished working some chump over, you can snatch whatever he has on his person and get some extra bucks or ammo.
The Godfather games that have been released thus far are much better in terms of story development and combat control. Here, you can actually move around freely in the massive world of 1940s New York and use every weapon found in the movies (including the chainsaw that separated that prize-steed’s head from the rest of him), as well as a few other tools meant for clipping your enemies.
The developers, Electronic Arts, did a bang-up job of license use, bringing in most of the actors from the original film for voiceovers and keeping to the basic structure of Don Corleone’s tales.
However, this game’s major pitfall comes from making the player out to be a lackey for most of the game. Even after you attain the rank of Don, you’re still on the street running your own hits and shaking down the businesses you oversee. Isn’t the whole point of becoming a Don to amass soldatis to do your bidding for you while you lay low at a Turkish bath, sipping cognac and smoking a Cuban?
There are also a few technical problems and glitches that pop up at the worst of times that keep this game from being great, and it is slightly annoying how similar the game is to the film-once you’ve seen the story, playing though it can be dull at times.
Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven is more on track. It puts you in control of a cab driver who inadvertently goes to work for the mafia during Prohibition, slowly making his way up the ranks as he helps the Saleiri family push booze and gets the skippers and capos where they need to be. The control, story and visuals are all incredible, though the PC version dwarfs the console editions in the final category. Set in a blend of The Untouchables-era New York and Chicago, this game is horribly addictive for anyone who has ever wanted to live the life of a Mafioso without leaving the comfort of their home.
Perhaps the lesson here is that making a good mafia game requires the creation of a new story. That isn’t to say that a mafia game should deviate from the gritty, violent scenes of Tommy-gun rampages and angry, brooding gangsters who will do anything to taste the sweet nectar of power, but it helps to bring in some new plot devices and vary up the cast a bit. Mafioso gaming developers shouldn’t be afraid to make gamers an offer we can’t refuse by giving us what we’re always craving: new ideas and concepts that expand on what’s already here.
