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I have to say it’s a bit odd to hear streams of swear words coming from a game built for a Nintendo system.

The Godfather: Blackhand Edition is a visceral experience for gamers, which is definitely brought on by the implementation of motion sensitive controls. Hand-to-hand fighting is done by swinging the Wiimote and Nunchuk, which is done with extreme precision and feels much more controlled than Wii Boxing.

Some of the actions may take awhile to get. Of course, trying to get the character to slam someone’s head into a table as opposed to headbutting them really isn’t too much to complain about.

Parents who are worried about the impressionable young minds of their children will most likely not want their kids playing this game (along with implementing the willful ignorance of the fact that they’ll probably just play it over at their friend’s house.) Grand Theft Auto was all about sandbox style car thievery with the added incentive of being able to kick people’s butts. Blackhand is pretty much about organized crime, the incentive of getting to steal cars, and finding new and inventive ways to kill people… mainly the latter. My girlfriend was watching me play and at one point she just looked on in horror as I bent a guy over and shot him in the head with a shotgun at point blank range (while I, I’m sorry to say, laughed with testosterone filled glee.)

I actually spent a good twenty minutes running in and out of the safehouse, chucking bottles at people.

The game definitely earned it’s M rating, but the overall gameplay is exemplary. The controls are fluid and intuitive, with the storyline mixing into the original movie complete with voice work from some of the cast members. It was a bit of a shock when “Michael Corleone” shows up and looks and sounds nothing at all like Al Pacino, which was a bit of a letdown.

The ultimate problem with the game, though, comes down to the graphics. I’m all about the gameplay, but EA really took the low road when they just ported over the PS2 version. They’ve added a ton of gameplay and, of course, the controls, but there have been plenty of times where I’ve thought “damn, these graphics are ten years old.” Of course, with the realistic controls, maybe the world is better off with obviously shody graphics.

The storyline missions keep the game moving and there are plenty of side missions to keep you occupied. It’s advertised as offering around 50 hours of gameplay, so anyone who beat Zelda and is looking for their next big time consuming epic, this would be it.

Rating: 4 / 5

Begin as a street-level hood and work you way up to Don of New York in The Godfather: Blackhand Edition, a game that blends elements from the Oscar winning film with a parallel story of your character’s rise through to the top of the Corleone crime family. Through hits, extortions, and bank heists, earn respect and money while slowly building your power within La Cosa Nostra.

In classic “Zelda” fashion, your character has free reign over the 5 “worlds” of Little Italy, Hell’s Kitchen, Midtown, New Jersey and Brooklyn. Each location features hotels, shops, and bars that are controlled by one of the other Five Families. Through intimidation and bribes, you must take control of each of these businesses and eventually lord over the towns. While this process is fun at first, the sheer number of shops becomes a bit overwhelming, and since all businesses need to be knocked-over to win the game, there will be some sessions that feel like “homework” as you do nothing but repeat the extortion process several times on similar businesses.

During these rackets, you occasionally get summoned (often by real characters from the movie like Tom, Tessio or Clemenza) to perform hits or missions. Blackhand’s greatest strength is that many of the early missions are iconic scenes from the film. Your character gets to assist placing the horse’s head in the bed, performs the “leave the gun, take the cannolis” hit and tags along behind Sonny for his fateful trip to the toll booth. With real life likenesses of Duvall, Brando and Caan and the ever-present familiar Godfather soundtrack, seeing your character woven into some of the most famous moments in cinema history is nothing short of surreal.

Rating: 4 / 5

This game has a lot of positives, especially for fans of the Godfather series. Running the in-game missions is quite fun, and seeing how the storyline comes together is really fun. . . up to a point.

Early on in the game the missions and side quests are challenging and a lot of fun; however, once your character gets promoted a few times, and increases his skill levels, the missions and quests tend to become easy to finish. And once you have mastered the fun, interactive play-style of this game, you can speed through the missions in an unrealistic way. There is very little incentive to try to extort every business owner, and if one does, there is no special reward.

The biggest disappointment with the game is that the ultimate goal of becoming the don of NYC is not hard enough to reach. Moreover, once that promotion is attained, the game continues without any remaining goals – nor a finale in any real sense. Additionally, the storyline gives out 3/4 of the way through the game, and you are left to wonder about what happened to power structure of the Family – - – - how could your character have become the don???

Although the game is a lot of fun to play initially, I gave the title 3 stars, because the game simply peters out mid-way.

To those complaining about the graphics I just have to say – come on, you’re missing the point of the game. I am hard pressed to understand how better graphics resolution – which would seem to mean better looking blood and bullet holes – would make the game any better. The game is not a simulator – it is a particularly violent adventure RPG. Anyone looking for “realism” should really consider why they feel a need for better looking gore.
Rating: 3 / 5