The Godfather Videogames Retrospective

[00:00:00] This podcast is a production of Unfiltered Studios. If you would like to know more about joining Unfiltered Studios, please visit our website at unfpod.com for more information. And brief note, we didn't have time to go into it as much detail as I would have liked, but we did briefly talk about the really underrated Godfather Videogames.

[00:00:21] So it started in 2006, just followed by another sequel, and a few years later it's come in multiple special editions including the Black Hand Edition and the Dawns Edition for PS3. And it was developed by Electronic Arts before they were bought and sold.

[00:00:43] I really dug the renderware engine on this. It was definitely playing up the action-adventure portion that the movies downplay. It was just funny because I was stoked to play it. I read a review about it in Game Informer, and I saw how they were doing all kinds of utter Grand Theft Auto, but 30s, 40s, you know, post-Depression-inspired ones like Mafia that would kind of have you as a Philip Marlowe-type private eye.

[00:01:13] In this case, you're playing a non-canon character named Aldo Trapani, who was recruited into the Carly Owen family and works his ranks up. I got sick of setting people's businesses on fire. I just wanted to beat up the other rival gangsters. And so it was a lot of fun. It was just much like all these other Grand Theft Auto-inspired games. You can bring a bunch of muscle and crew along with you to get in other stuff.

[00:01:37] I just found it very hard to navigate at first because it seemed like everybody wants to kill you, and I was running out of money to bribe people with. So it's one of those. It's a lot of fun, but it will kill up a bunch of your time. So don't do it unless you're ready to get into another one of these kinds of games. But yeah, we talk about it a bit later in the episode, so have fun listening to the rest of that. But they brought back Abe Vigoda, Robert Duvall, James Caan,

[00:02:03] and it was actually Marlon Brando's final voiceover role, but apparently the recordings were unusable because he really was in bad health. But he still got credit for it because he worked on it. Sag rules, baby. I didn't mind them having it as from the street soldier's perspective. Obviously, Game 2 is from Godfather Part 2's perspective, but I just dug how I was like, yeah, let's have you helping being part of the crew that avenges Bonasera's daughter,

[00:02:31] kill Luca's assassin, drive Vito to the hospital after he's shot, plant the gun for Carlione to kill Salazzo, crooked cop captain, and plant the horse's head in the producer's bed. So big key stuff. And it's always was like, yeah, I always wondered who the on-scene guy was. But that works. It wasn't like with Electronic Arts' Lord of the Rings of Third Age game, where you're like, I don't believe this guy is there fighting with the other heroes on screen.

[00:03:00] It's like, yeah, no, this makes sense. There's always some underling behind the scenes, and I don't think it was always, you know, some of these other muscle guys. There had to be someone else. The voice acting was very solid. It's brutal. Cool gunplay. Awesome gore effects. Obviously, Coppola bashed the game before it came out, claiming it was a cash grab by Paramount because he wasn't involved in the input. The best part, like many of these games that Electronic Arts did,

[00:03:30] is you could unlock scenes from the movies that you could play in high def, so that was fun, too. And the way you can navigate and look at where enemies were on your map was also well done. Also, Doug, the various melee weapons you could pick up, extort businesses, is just the main thing that got under my skin, where I'm like, yeah, I know that's what mobsters do, but I don't really want to do that. I want to fight all the different ones. The other fun part is you could advance in rank,

[00:03:59] moving from outsider to enforcer, associate, then soldier, then capo, then underboss, and then don, and then don in New York City, where you could take over all the other rival businesses and warehouses and compounds. And so, yeah, voice acting was very solid. Doug Abrahams completed the rest of Vito's lines. There was a bunch of other semi-famous actors who'd been around forever, and Abrahams also voiced Clemenza in some scenes.

[00:04:27] I dug just all kinds of other stuff, like with the plotting, you pose as a private eye at one point, as an excuse to just guard Vito outside one place. You do all kinds of other just sneaking around. Much like Tom, the lawyer, you get adopted into the Corleones because your dad was a soldier in the family, and he got killed by a rival Barzini family. Gary Chalk, who many will recognize from Stargate SG-1, Cold Squad,

[00:04:55] Freddy vs. Jason, as well as voices on Transformers, will recognize his voice as playing the dispatched henchman Luca Brasi, which makes sense. That actor died years ago, but he did good. And it's so funny. I love how the executive producer of the game had to clap back at Coppola. He's like, Puzo has his freedom with the book. Coppola had a similar freedom with the movie.

[00:05:25] We deserve the opportunity to evolve the fiction for the interactive space, to dare to be bold and make an open and living world Godfather experience, rather than just making a movie game. I mean, he starts off even before that quote saying, our team feels a great sense of responsibility. We've seen the film hundreds of times and read the book many times as well. We are experts in the fiction and are excited about the opportunity. See, he covered his tracks very well because that wasn't good cross-promotion when the filmmaker disowns it

[00:05:53] and gives it negative publicity before the game comes out. But yeah, the intense storyline and drama was well-ranked, well-rated by critics. I think when I read Game Informer, it was very well-reviewed. Despite Al Pacino turning down the offer to voice Carly Owen, they still used his, you know, they didn't use his likeness, but they used the character in the game. It's wild how he went and worked on Scarface The World Is Yours instead, but whatever.

[00:06:23] He probably just, out of all the movies he was wanting to do an enhancement of, I guess he figured, hey, you know, I don't want to mess with perfection. I'll mess with something that's always been critically derided, but very popular. I got less to lose there, I guess. Maybe they didn't have it in the budget for him. I don't know. But they claimed he declined. So whatever. I think that's okay because it's kind of like a Star Wars game that's not about the Skywalkers. With this, it's not about Michael's journey as much as it is

[00:06:52] all the other underlings keeping Vito, the Don safe. But yeah, pretty well ranked across the board. 7 out of 9 to 8 out of 10 stars for the most part. It seemed like the Nintendo Wii version wasn't as well rated, but I can honestly say when I played the hell out of this on my PS3, it was fun as hell. It was so much fun, very satisfying, and as good as you're going to get. Again, I did not play the second game,

[00:07:22] but I heard it was well ranked as well. It seems like if you have time to game, it's worth picking up. If I am at anybody else's crib and they're playing these games, I'm going to definitely participate. I wish there could have been some more multiplayer in the actual game itself. It was what it is. It's cool how you got to design how your character looked and everything, just everything that you want in a game like this. It really did deliver on. So enjoy the rest of our episode.

[00:07:51] Having us harp on it a little bit more and leave us show a rating. Tell us what you think of how we're organizing all these different pop culture chats. If you want to join in the chats themselves, we'd love to invite you onto the show. Let us know. You're old enough and the time is right.

[00:08:32] We'd like you to become an associate to the Corleone family. We could use a man of your abilities representing us out on the streets.

[00:08:40] Now I invite you to be reborn as one of us.

[00:10:23] Sometimes we get so deep into conversation that we have separate segments worthy of their own place in the sun.

[00:10:52] Well, when the video game came out, it was very apparent to me, you know, back in 06, it was like, yeah, people still love it. So you know it's going to be a hit because they want to play as their favorite characters. There's even a RPG game that came out called The Five Families very recently. It was shut down in 2019 but I heard about it. I guess it was mobile but I played the shit out of the first Godfather game and I was blown away by how they brought back all the beloved actors to do the voiceovers.

[00:11:22] There was hysterical catchphrases like, The Corleones got your car! You know, that's the main show and shout out. And after a while though, it was very much like Grand Theft Auto. You had heat attracted to you and I couldn't play after a while though because I didn't want to keep having to buy you know, merch and everything but that was kind of the fun of it. It was kind of like some of these other video games based on movie tie-ins. You could have various armed guards follow you around and muscle

[00:11:52] carry out your commands. And that time period too you're looking at video games that were tied to different products like for example The Warriors definitely around the same that came out. Yeah. Yeah. So they were looking for movie tie-ins for video games not just ones that were coming out in the next month or two but actually properties that people really enjoyed.

[00:12:23] Yes. So when you got The Godfather it speaks to a lot of what made it so popular and I'll talk to this a little bit later but there are what I see in the movies especially is just especially that first one it's just a mixture of genres that you can actually point to and it's like it's so complex you have so many moving parts but they all work together and they make a stunning film.

[00:12:54] I know all about it, Paulo. Look, I'm telling you the truth, Dominic. I trusted you and you sell us out?

[00:13:24] You lie, I did no such thing. You're wrong. You crazy? Fuck, what the fuck was that? That was business. Come on, let's go. We got places to be. Tomorrow we get back to work.

[00:13:47] Bella once said ain't that I gotta tell you, Fredo, sometimes I love this job. We'll return after these messages. We got a 90 minute weekly shack stop

[00:14:17] that's growing all over the world. Find it at 2 p.m. and 10 p.m. Eastern time on Mondays then 3 p.m. on Wednesdays then 7 p.m. on Thursdays. You can catch it on many more radio stations. 99.9 KERB 1 p.m. Central time 2 p.m. Eastern on Mondays then catch the Encore on Thursdays at 5 p.m. Central time 6 p.m. Eastern then catch it Wednesday mornings at 11 a.m. Eastern time

[00:14:47] 10 a.m. Central 1077 K Twins then hang out with us Wednesday afternoons on MXTR and House Shack Radio 3 p.m. Eastern time then Thursday get up bright and early with us on 95.7 Web Radio at 6 a.m. Pacific time 9 a.m. Eastern of course we've got the Friday covered as well 12 p.m. Eastern time on MXTRFM and 10 p.m.

[00:15:17] Eastern time 9 p.m. Central 1077 K Twins find everything on House Shack Do you ever find yourself thinking about who would win in a fight between Goku and Superman? Hi I'm James Gavsey and on the Who Would Win Show me and my co-host Ray ignore anything important happening in the outside world and debate fictional battles between characters from comics movies and video games. We got a new show every week and almost always am I the winner? Not true Ray.

[00:15:47] In the past we've discussed such matches as Captain America versus Darth Vader Solid Snake versus the Iron Giant classic matchups like RoboCop versus Terminator and even the Muppets versus Sesame Street. That one was crazy. So if you're a fan of geek culture and love a spirited debate check out the Who Would Win Show wherever you get your podcasts or check us out at whowouldwinshow.com Facebook,

[00:16:22] Twitter, and podcast is available on Podbean. Spottopcasts are available. Feel free to review our show and leave comments on any of those sites. Thanks a million for listening. It's a jacked up review show. We'll be right back.