The Godfather

Rating: 9/10 (26 September 2016)

The Godfather is a 2006 open world action-adventure video game developed by EA Redwood Shores and published by Electronic Arts. Originally released in March 2006 for the PlayStation 2, Xbox and Microsoft Windows, it was later released for the PlayStation Portable as The Godfather: Mob Wars, Xbox 360 as The Godfather: The Game, Wii as The Godfather: Blackhand Edition, and PlayStation 3 as The Godfather: The Don's Edition.
The game is based upon the 1972 film of the same name, and tells the story of an original character, Aldo Trapani, whose rise through the ranks of the Corleone family intersects with the plot of the film on numerous occasions. His actions in the game often take the form of events that happened off screen in the film; for example, he avenges Bonasera's daughter, he drives Vito Corleone to the hospital after he is shot, he plants the gun for Michael Corleone to kill Sollozzo and Captain McCluskey, he places the horse's head in Jack Woltz's bed. Although the game was condemned by Francis Ford Coppola, who claimed Paramount never told him about its development or asked for his input, it does feature voice acting from several stars of the film, including James Caan as Sonny Corleone, Robert Duvall as Tom Hagen and Abe Vigoda as Salvatore Tessio. Marlon Brando also recorded dialogue for Vito Corleone, in what would be his final acting job, but his ill health made most of his recordings unusable. Al Pacino, who played Michael Corleone in the film, is absent in both likeness and voice, choosing to lend his image instead to Scarface: The World Is Yours.
The Godfather received mixed to positive reviews across most systems, although the PSP version was generally seen as inferior to the others. The game was a commercial success, selling over two million units. In 2009, a sequel was released for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Windows. Based on the 1974 film, The Godfather Part II, the sequel did not sell as well nor do as well with critics as had the original, and EA scrapped plans for an adaptation of the third film.