Again you’re faced with taking over the same generic businesses, beating up the same faceless goons and micromanaging the same elements, albeit it in a different, yet equally textureless location. It doesn’t dare to mix things up, with even the game’s side-quests following the exact same rules as that of the main game. It’s just an unrelenting turf war, where the spoils are nothing but an ever-increasing balance of funds with which to bulk up your line of defence. It seems that the developers have focussed their attention so tightly on creating a functional interface that they’ve lost sight of creating a game with any form of structure. It’s a one trick pony that EA Redwood rides for all it’s worth, and it’s just not fun.

The game’s filled with a myriad of technical flaws and dubious design decisions as well. For starters it’s far too easy, with your bullet-soaking abilities making the whole thing a complete walkover. It looks atrocious too, being seemingly unpolished and devoid of any detail, something which the original was excused for for being, you know, a last-gen port. There’s also the case of balancing, which, in the instance of Godfather II, makes the game’s primary method of acquiring and protecting rackets feel rather obsolete. Why should you care for the safety of a business that brings in a daily revenue of one thousand dollars when you can fulfil a favour for someone in half the time that garners ten times the cash? The answer, apparently, is because you want to keep hold of any health and armour bonuses earned by controlling crime rings, which, of course, you don’t actually need because the game is so damn easy.

Some of the more interesting tactical elements are also wasted by Redwood’s idleness. Rather than fritter away money allocating guards to protect particular rackets, it’s often far more effective to deal with any attempted takeovers yourself whenever the situation arises. And even if you do decide to decorate your businesses’ interior with a lick of mobster, the strategy involved is so rudimentary that it’s simply a matter of outnumbering your opposition. Meanwhile, marking a rival family member for death – something which we had assumed would dispatch our mobsters to make the hit – instead just placed a waypoint on our mini-map; something that we could have done for ourselves far more quickly and easily elsewhere in The Don’s View. It’s admittedly a small complaint, but one that made us question its relevance; a question that we found ourselves asking repeatedly throughout The Godfather II.

But perhaps we’re being too harsh. The series’ Blackhand fighting mechanic has been tightened since the first game, delivering a hard-hitting melee system that’s unparalleled in the genre and complete with some of the most gruesome animations we’ve ever seen. If you get a kick out of sadism, you’ll at least take something from it.

Godfather II is a game that’s never quite sure of which audience it’s trying to please, instead choosing to go straight down the middle and culminate in an experience that is as unengaging as it is unsatisfying. It’s a game that never lives up to its opening promises of opportunity and one that quickly deteriorates into mindless repetition. It’s a terrible shame because somewhere in the middle of it all there’s a brilliant concept itching to be put to good use; EA Redwood’s enthusiasm to add a strategic twist to the genre is commendable, even if their execution isn’t. The Godfather II, quite frankly, is an offer we can refuse.

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