Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Not good., April 3, 2006
Fun:1.0 out of 5 stars
Do not be fooled by the moderately good reviews by the gaming press.
This game is far worse than the reviews might lead you to believe. I was certainly fooled.
I got the impression that it would be a fun game (though none too original) that made good use of the franchise. That's fine by me.
In reality it is far from fine.
I have to mention I am a PC gamer, so when I say the graphics are generally awful in this game maybe that impression is a result of my high end PC gaming background (I am currently enjoying Oblivion with all settings maxed).
It could well be that the graphics are fine if your a PS2 or xbox gamer, I dunno everyone has their own standard.
Compared to GTA SA this weird "console port" (weird in that it seems to have hit the stores in its PC version first) completely fails to take advantage of the advanced effects that are possible today.
With GTA SA with all settings maxed on PC, I have a very beautiful looking gameworld to play around in.
In this case however, there is virtually no scalabilty, you are pretty much stuck with the standard console look.
Which means - no lighting or shading worth mentioning, ugly cartoon shadows that exist independ of any light source, ugly (huge) blocky textures and clippy paper thin (endlessly repeatative) environments.
New York is a boring wallpaper maze filled with toy cars that have no texturing or bodywork effects - just different colours (hard to believe for a recent game).
I should say that the animations and the cut scenes are top notch and the likenesses of some of the original actors from the film work well.
It's well done in the same way a good puppetshow can be. You are impressed how they managed to breath life into such stiff and non-lifelike models.
The people milling about are well done within these same limited margins, they are in no way lifelike.
They also lack any sense of graphical style that might make up for that, so in the end you have well enough animated, but boring generic stickmen streetwalkers.
Gameplay.
In the same way the graphics fall short of the style and invention of GTA save a few high points (animations and likenesses), so does the gameplay.
This GTA clone is really no fun at all. Think of GTA done badly and there you go, with the exception of a pretty nice fighting system.
When the gameplay is generally so unispired though, being able to beat folk up with such florish and detail is wasted.
Kinda like the reverse of GTA were the gameplay is so good you forgive the simplistic fight system.
The car handling gives no feel that this is actually a heavy hunk of metal you are controlling, they just wiz about the streets, the last nail in the coffin for any period feel this game hoped to inspire in the player.
The GTA lean towards gameplay at the expense of realism is obviously aimed at here, but there is no balance struck, you just have a limited stock of ugly generic cars that are just as boring to drive as they are to look at.
As far as the story and missions go, what's the point when the basic guts of the game is so inferior?
In the end it seems it was a really bad idea to mix together such an over the top arcade gameplay style (and a pretty poor one at that) with such a serious and realistic plot.
You have a detailed and nuanced story here, but I am not someone that puts story before gameplay. The Godfather score is stiring, but it is not enough to stop me knowing just how empty of atmosphere this rendering of 1950/40's New York really is.
A true turkey that needs to be outed. Has EA become so powerful that people fear to tell the truth about a game that cost the company millions to licence, or have they enough money to ensure favourable reviews when it counts? Hard to believe.
But it's harder for me to believe how kind the reviews have been for this turd.
Just be cautous before you waste your money like I did, the press let me down badly.
|
|
|
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Worth $30 but could have been better!, April 10, 2006
Fun:3.0 out of 5 stars
I won't waste your time giving some detailed and redundant review of what you can read at gaming sites or in gaming magazines.
This game is very much like GTA: San Andreas, just not as fun or dynamic.
You CANNOT skip the intro screen or cutscenes even if you beat the game. EVERY DARN TIME the game is started, you have to basically look at a commercial for Paramount and The Godfather. UGGGGH!!!! Every poorly acted cutscene in the movie has to be viewed. You cannot skip them. This really sucks but I have found Electronic Arts always forces that kind of [...]on you. I would write to them and complain! Make a statement!
The graphics are good...not great...but good. This game also runs and plays well on slower machines. I ran it on a AMD 2500+ Win XP machine with an ATI 9500 Pro card and 1 gig of ram. It played quite nicely!!!
What I hated the most was the music. It is forced on you. NO DISABLE METHOD!!!(again, another Electronic Arts stunt...way too much ego at that company)Every time you jump in a car to drive or pull out your weapon for a fight music kicks in! This is especially annoying when you are trying to listen to enemy footsteps. So, you have to hide your weapon then take it out again and the music will go away for a short while. UGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHH!
You spend your time doing repetitive things...taking over and extorting business to raise your stats and earn money. Truthfully though, the only benefit is to buy more powerful weapons. Once done, you have no need for any money!!!
At the end you can become the DON of NYC. You get a large cut of the profits(worthless at this point) and you get unlimited ammo (worthless again because the game is over!!! UGHHHH!)
What I really enjoyed was the old school feel of the 1930's era gangster and you can really get into the nitty gritty of customizing your character. You can change eveyr facial feature, pick his clothes, eye color, hair style, weight and physical build.
About 90% of the storyline and cutscenes are just [...] filler to lend some kind of "plot" to this game.
This game has nowhere near the replayability or pleasure level of GTA:San Andreas.
Overall, it is worth playing [...]
|
|
|
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Great idea, horribly engineered, May 12, 2006
Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars
As some reviews have already stated, the controls in this game are HORRIBLE. It does not appear that the group who made this game did ANY testing at all. The camera is unmovable and its stuck in one of the worst positions i've ever seen as far as a camera is concerned. They tried to give the game a sort of Splinter Cell feel with a few of the camera and game mechanics but failed horribly.
On the good side, the game's content isn't too bad. You can do things as advertised such as extortions. You also run on a point/reward/skill system which is very fun. The weapon mechanics seems nicely done.
Back to the bad. The game is simply unplayable because of the controls. They also have cutscenes that can't be skipped. It's very sad that no one seems to raise an eyebrow in the company when/if they tested this joke of a game.
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
