Customer Reviews

The Sopranos: Road to Respect

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

I know that the title of this review sounds strange, but I wanted to write a review from a little different perspective than most of the other reviewers of PS2 games. In short, I wanted to represent those of us out there who enjoy games on a more casual basis. Believe it or not, there are those of us out there who don't have weeks upon weeks to make it through a long and challenging game but, instead, just want to play, roam, and follow a story in a matter of a few hours. I have tried several traditional role-playing games and I can tell you that after a few times getting defeated at the end of a level and having to redo the same action over and over again, I grow quickly bored. In fact, I dare say that I have yet to finish even one game because I get so frustrated by having to repeat the levels. Well. I'm happy to announce that you don't have to worry about that with this game. Yes, it is very easy. But that is EXACTLY what I loved about it.

The Sopranos: Road To Respect plays like a movie, not a game. The levels and moves are very easy to complete and, as a result, you can probably get through it in a matter of 4-5 hours without having to re-do much, if any, of the action at all. And because the voice-over work is so spectacular - all of the characters being voiced by the original Sopranos actors - you never grow tired of the story, the dialogue, or the gameplay itself. This game has an incredible amount of dialogue and I guarantee that you will not be disappointed with it.

The game takes you through many familiar, and some not-so-familiar locations ranging from the Bada Bing, Satriale's pork store, Vesuvio's restaurant, and various other locations such as a porn studio, a hospital, a local gym, a rave party, an apartment building, and the docks. The scenary is accurately recreated, interesting, and fun. You advance through the game by getting fairly simple missions and essentially beating the heck out of most everyone in your path - which you can accomplish using objects from your environment or just with your own two fists. There is a lot of interaction with the familiar Sopranos characters and you will love the feel of being a part of the cast and of the show. Beating people up is, for the most part, pretty easy. But that's also part of the fun. You wouldn't feel too tough if you kept losing, now would you?

The graphics could, in my opinion, have been a litle bit better. There is a lot of realistic violence and even some gratuitous nudity, but the graphics are a little subpar in my opinion to what I think most of the gaming community will be used to these days. But the characters are certainly passable and definitely a lot of fun to interact with.

In summary, I'm sure that, although this game may not appeal to true gamers who really like to spend endless hours with a game, it will definitively appeal to fans of the show, most of whom are probably not a part of the die-hard gaming community. Please understand that I mean no disrespect at all to the gaming community or to those people who expect a game to be more difficult and last many more hours. I can, in fact, see how that crowd would feel very let-down by this game. But I also do not want their negative reviews to turn-off the more casual gamers, like myself, or to the fans of the show who do not want to necessarily be challenged by the game, but, rather, who just want to play through an interactive, well-acted episode of the show. For those fans, I guarantee that you will love this game. I know I did.

I am a big Sopranos fan and own all the DVD's of the series, so I was excited about the game especially after playing the Godfather game (which I have a new found admiration for in light of this game). This game is easy completed in 3-4 hours and none of the missions are hard. Like some have said here, I died 2 times over the entire game. They give you special moves wtih trademark brutality but they are not simple to employ. Sometimes you have 2-3 guys on you and to get anywhere you simply have to use the basic punches of to get anything done. If you pick up a tire iron or a 2x4, it'll get the beatings done faster and I recommend it. I enjoyed playing with our favorite Sopranos characters, and the story line is ok. There is NO free roaming in this game. You have to stick to the tasks. No driving either. The girls are hot (for a video game anyway) and that helps pass time at the Bing. Over all, you'll end up hating A.J. and Christopher by the end of the game.

Fans will enjoy the game but if you're looking for a shoot em up (not alot of shooting in the game, more punching) and real mafia business you're going to be really disappointed.

I am a huge fan of the television show, but this game really disappointed me. I really don't think that this game should have been released yet. I finished the game in less than 3 hours. I thought I was about to level up and the game was over. I died a total of 3 times, and I suck at video games. Way too short. This seemed like a demo rather than a full legnth game. I don't the fact that I spent 39 dollars, and got so little for my money. Do not buy this game. Rent it if you want, but do not buy.

I'm sorry to say that this game is Weak. I was looking forward to some real Mafia gameplay. There is no free roam - you just follow the story line. I did more fighting than shooting. I finished it in 4 hours and only died 4 times. It kind of plays through like a movie you're a part of b/c there aren't any options. The graphics are cool and the fact they did their own characters is cool - but it's just not what I expected. Weak.....

The Sopranos - Road to Respect is a Grand Theft Auto style game where you work your way up through the mob family, mission by mission. There is great voice acting - but less great gameplay.

First off, you need to be prepared for how short this game is. I've played games where the cinematics alone took up multiple hours, and to be honest with this game being based on a multi-year fantastic award winning series, with awesome actors, I was expecting that here too. However, the dialogue is often very trite, and there isn't nearly enough of it.

You are not one of the main characters from the show - instead you are an up and coming punk, a bastard child of Big Pussy. You are of course given silly little tasks at first, but as you prove your worth, they give you more and more challenging things to do. Often you're roaming around classic locations from the show.

Here's the problem. You would think with such a wealth of material to work from, and such fantastically complex, intricate plots, that they could easily pull off a multi-hour game. Sadly, that is not the case. Instead, you get a pretty straightforward series of activities that could come from pretty much any clone game.

The graphics are not stellar, either. The PS2 has been out for enough years that some rather impressive graphics have been created for it. There were numerous issues with The Sopranos that, really, a game with this kind of backing should not have displayed.

I do adore the Sopranos and admit it was fun to romp around in the Sopranos world. So let's take it for granted that some sort of game in the Sopranos WOULD be made, and that it would involve the cast members. That is never really a question here. The question is whether that world is a quality done world. I'm afraid the answer is - not really.

Certainly, if you adore the Sopranos, rent this game to see what it's all about. You'll probably get through it long before the rental period is up, and only have spent a few dollars. If you find that you adore talking to "real voice characters" over and over again enough to own it, you can always buy yourself a copy at that point.

I agree with other reviewers who state this game seems incomplete. I, too, only rented it and I'm glad that I did. As a big fan of the show, I enjoyed the interaction with the other characters as well as the actual sites used in the show, but it's extremely linear gameplay and sometimes extremely frustrating. Good luck turning down AJ on his request for you to perform security at his rave - all he does is up the ante. This pulls you into a side storyline I would much rather have avoided.

There is some flexibility in the options you have to perform specialty moves, but often you'll find two or three enemies on you at once, and all you can do is punch and elbow your way around. The shooting is fairly ridiculous, too, as your character can easily survive multiple gunshot wounds and heal up simply by beating the guys who were doing the shooting.

Perhaps the most enjoyable part of the game is sitting down at a table in the back of the Bing to play virtual poker with Christopher, Silvio, Paulie, and Tony (enjoyable primarily once again for the dialogue). This is basically the only feature I could find that had any replay value. In the regular game, the only other things you can do the second time around are talk to people you didn't talk to the first time (which gets you nothing), meander down a useless hallway of locked doors, and find other loot to steal (and never use, except to play poker).

The dialogue (surprisingly vulgar and true-to-the-show) is great, though, and makes this a must-play even if that IS only one play. Only buy it if you're into virtual poker or computer-generated silicon lapdances.

When I heard the Sopranos game was coming out I figured, I would be playing one of the great games of the genre. This is a show that has changed the way mafia shows are viewed, so you would figure the game would break the same kind of ground. Boy, was I wrong.

Everything from the graphics to the load times was horrendous. The game play is nothing more that button mashing and bare-knuckle fighting is really the only way to fight. Everytime you get into a scene and get going the game goes to a load screen. I found it very frustrating to hear the characters talk about things happening and you not actually doing them. Unfortunately because of the type of game genre it will always be compared to "The Godfather", "Scarface", and "GTA". They in no way provide the fun these games did. It is short and unfulfilling with no cool unloackables and no iteresting weapons. The only unloackable to speak of is a Poker game, which is not very fun due to the fact that poker, is poker, is poker. I think that THQ missed the boat on this one. The potential for this game was limitless and may have ruined a Sopranos video game franchise.

On the bright side, the voice over acting is great. Can't really go wrong there, it has all the characters and uses them well. The stroyline is not that bad either, but I felt like many other avenues could have been explored. Just like when you seem to get to the good part of the story the game is over.

I was very surprised that this game did not live up to the great show that the Sopranos is.

Gameplay 4/10
Graphics 4/10
Story 6/10
Replay Value 2/10

There is good reason for reading reviews before making any purchases online and this is no exception. All the other reviews that panned this game are right on, I have nothing much to add, other than thinking they should have changed the name of this game to Sopranos: Road to Boredom. I'd rather replay ET on my old Atari 2600 than this pile of gabagoul. The story line is weak, the playtime is a joke and I don't even agree with some of the other reviews about the graphics, I've seen more realistic looking characters on the aforementioned Atari system.

I myself should have listened to the other reviews, my own fault, but since I'm such a big fan of the show and had a gift card to use from Christmas, I figured the other reviewers just didn't appreciate the show enough to like this game. Trust me on this, you could be the biggest fan of The Sopranos and this game will do nothing more than disappoint you, I'm actually surprised HBO allowed this embarrassment to even be released.

Here is the game in a nutshell, you run around pre-set settings doing nothing more than finding people to talk to, you punch your way through a few more scenes here and there, run around some more (many times at the same pre-set settings) and 5 hours later the game is over.

Even when you do get to a fight scene, you sit there frustrated half the time because you are cornered in a small room with 4 fanooks that pistol whip the crap out of you without any chance of breaking free.

If you still insist on playing this game, go down to your local Blockbuster and rent it. Then come back to thank me for saving you the $35.99 you would have paid to own this sorry excuse for a game which you will never want to play again. I will be listing mine on Ebay and can only pray to the Gods I'll get at least 1 cent back for it.

Count me as another player who enjoyed Scarface and Godfather much much more. I didn't like the constant loading of scenes, I didn't like the furious button tapping required in hand-to-hand combat. I did like the strippers and the lap dancers, it is more sexy than Scarface. I rented it, played it a couple of hours, lost interest. But I'm not a fan of the show, either. When, oh when, do we get a Goodfellas game where we can play Joe Pesci stabbing a guy in the throat with a ballpoint pen, and then kicking the guy to death with "Atlantis" playing in the background?

I woke up this morning and found myself a gun and decided to continue the Sopranos story on my PS2. Following the finale of one of the greatest shows ever to grace our screens, I decided to finally play The Sopranos: Road to Respect. I had read many bad reviews of this game, but wanted to form my own opinion.



The minute the game starts you are engulfed in the world of the Sopranos. In the game, you get to play as Joey LaRocca, the illegitimate son of Big Pussy, who is going through some hard times until Tony decides to give him a job. Joey is part of Paulie's crew and starts at the bottom, doing clean ups and fetching food for the crew. The whole game is spent doing jobs to impress Tony for the hopes that some day that you will become a made man.



What makes this game fun is that they got the actors to voice the parts and their video game likenesses are incredible for a PS 2 game. I am however disappointed at how short the game is. I believe I finished it in less than 4 hours. Though it was short, it was enjoyable to a huge Sopranos fan, like me. I actually started to play it again the next day because I thought I had missed some things the first time around and I was glad I did. In the casino mission, you will notice that you can actually play the slots, which is an added bonus to the game. Another bonus I did not notice the first play through was that you could play Texas Hold'em against Tony, Sil, Paulie, and Chris-ta-fer (I miss Ade).



Again, I recommend this game to any gaming fan of the Sopranos, though it is extremely short and fairly easy gameplay, I plan to enjoy it over and over again to fill the void left without the show. So it you are a fan, why don't you start down your own Road to Respect, you won't be :BLACK SCREEN: