The Godfather: Blackhand Edition for Nintendo Wii

If you are a fan of the Godfather series, then you really should pick up The Godfather: Blackhand Edition. If you are not a fan, you should probably pick it up anyhow. The game is fun, and provides several hours of gangster goodness.

First off, this game is not for kids. If shooting and strangling folks is now kid friendly, then I think that the adult language and adult situations still push this one into a mature title. But the game is not overly gratuitous - no exceptionally graphic deaths or nudity....more often you might just hear someone swearing on the street...or find a brothel. You are exploring the seedy underbelly of New York's crime world after all.

The player follows his character as he works his way into and then up the ranks of the Corleone crime family. You take on missions for the family, and make a name for yourself by intimidating merchants (or doing favors for them). You also have to capture the rackets in town (gambling halls, brothels, etc.). Your character gets a steady stream of revenue for the merchants and rackets that he is extorting.

You also build your character by gradually increasing abilities using skill trees. You can focus on negotiation and extortion or simply get better at hand-to-hand combat or firearms.

The combat system works fairly well. The controls become intuitive after a little while, and you can take pride in throwing people through windows or off of rooftops, felling a foe with a nicely placed bullet, or strangling someone into submission.

Naturally, you are frequently clashing with rival crime families. The primary goal in the game is to eliminate those other families to ensure Corleone control of New York City.

As you accept and complete missions you follow along the time-line and storyline of the Godfather. The game allows you to take part in a kind of parallel plot that integrates quite well with the Godfather story. You interact with Vito, Michael, Sonny, and all of the significant characters, and this is really fun for fans of the films. Nonetheless, the game does not require you to have knowledge of the films to undertake and complete any mission. Moreover, movie clips become unlocked as you play the game - so that you can view parts of the Godfather that are relevant to the story arc of the game.

The game really provides a lot of entertainment - from assassinations, to clearing out rival warehouses, or even destroying the rival families compounds. The missions are fun, and the game allows you to control the pacing by placing the decision to seek out and accept new missions in the player's hands.

A caveat.....if you speed through the missions, you might be left spending time intimidating merchants just to finish the game. Some of the play does become repetitive, and some of the story line seems to fall a bit short (such as, why would a key made man need to be out extorting a butcher?). . . but overall, the gameplay is fun, and the quest to become King of New York feels both engaging and rewarding.

The last fifth or so of the game seems to be the weakest, because the plot tends to go astray here. There are questions that are never addressed.....such as , how could you become Don when Michael seemed fine last time you saw him. .. but if you sink enough time into the game to get to this final phase, chances are you'll overlook these shortcomings.

I had a great time with this game. I recommend it without reservation.