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... did I just slice that guy in half with my tommy gun?

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 22 / 24
Date: March 26, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I have to say it's a bit odd to hear streams of swear words coming from a game built for a Nintendo system.

The Godfather: Blackhand Edition is a visceral experience for gamers, which is definitely brought on by the implementation of motion sensitive controls. Hand-to-hand fighting is done by swinging the Wiimote and Nunchuk, which is done with extreme precision and feels much more controlled than Wii Boxing.

Some of the actions may take awhile to get. Of course, trying to get the character to slam someone's head into a table as opposed to headbutting them really isn't too much to complain about. :)

Parents who are worried about the impressionable young minds of their children will most likely not want their kids playing this game (along with implementing the willful ignorance of the fact that they'll probably just play it over at their friend's house.) Grand Theft Auto was all about sandbox style car thievery with the added incentive of being able to kick people's butts. Blackhand is pretty much about organized crime, the incentive of getting to steal cars, and finding new and inventive ways to kill people... mainly the latter. My girlfriend was watching me play and at one point she just looked on in horror as I bent a guy over and shot him in the head with a shotgun at point blank range (while I, I'm sorry to say, laughed with testosterone filled glee.)
I actually spent a good twenty minutes running in and out of the safehouse, chucking bottles at people.

The game definitely earned it's M rating, but the overall gameplay is exemplary. The controls are fluid and intuitive, with the storyline mixing into the original movie complete with voice work from some of the cast members. It was a bit of a shock when "Michael Corleone" shows up and looks and sounds nothing at all like Al Pacino, which was a bit of a letdown.

The ultimate problem with the game, though, comes down to the graphics. I'm all about the gameplay, but EA really took the low road when they just ported over the PS2 version. They've added a ton of gameplay and, of course, the controls, but there have been plenty of times where I've thought "damn, these graphics are ten years old." Of course, with the realistic controls, maybe the world is better off with obviously shody graphics.

The storyline missions keep the game moving and there are plenty of side missions to keep you occupied. It's advertised as offering around 50 hours of gameplay, so anyone who beat Zelda and is looking for their next big time consuming epic, this would be it.

Exciting Adventure Flawed Somewhat by Monotony

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 14 / 14
Date: November 16, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Begin as a street-level hood and work you way up to Don of New York in The Godfather: Blackhand Edition, a game that blends elements from the Oscar winning film with a parallel story of your character's rise through to the top of the Corleone crime family. Through hits, extortions, and bank heists, earn respect and money while slowly building your power within La Cosa Nostra.

In classic "Zelda" fashion, your character has free reign over the 5 "worlds" of Little Italy, Hell's Kitchen, Midtown, New Jersey and Brooklyn. Each location features hotels, shops, and bars that are controlled by one of the other Five Families. Through intimidation and bribes, you must take control of each of these businesses and eventually lord over the towns. While this process is fun at first, the sheer number of shops becomes a bit overwhelming, and since all businesses need to be knocked-over to win the game, there will be some sessions that feel like "homework" as you do nothing but repeat the extortion process several times on similar businesses.

During these rackets, you occasionally get summoned (often by real characters from the movie like Tom, Tessio or Clemenza) to perform hits or missions. Blackhand's greatest strength is that many of the early missions are iconic scenes from the film. Your character gets to assist placing the horse's head in the bed, performs the "leave the gun, take the cannolis" hit and tags along behind Sonny for his fateful trip to the toll booth. With real life likenesses of Duvall, Brando and Caan and the ever-present familiar Godfather soundtrack, seeing your character woven into some of the most famous moments in cinema history is nothing short of surreal.

Violence for fun!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 15 / 16
Date: May 07, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game because of the reviews on this site (as I usually do). This is a great game that follows in the footsteps of GTA with a solid new interface. Really cool game even if you haven't seen the movies. If you have seen the movies you should be glad to know that in the beginning of the game you start out as Luca Brasi's errand boy!! Running around lower Manhattan hassling shopkeepers and bribing cops. Tons of blood and swearing. Driving the cars is very intuitive as well. Only four stars overall, but that is more for the Nintendo graphic capabilities that remind me of Playstation 2 caliber. Sweet!!! Buy it. Did I mention fast loading times???

The wii version is the best!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 9
Date: May 19, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The godfather blackhand edition is truly the first major wii game apart from Zelda.

Pros:
The controls are wonderful.
Many unlockables.
The game is very long and enjoyable.
Driving is a blast.
Huge environments

Cons:
Graphics could be better
Low selection of character models and varity in vehicles

Awesome game.

I hope we get more of this type of game for the Wii

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: May 04, 2007
Author: Amazon User

In places the graphics on this game do look a bit shoddy, but in other places they look really good, But thats not the main draw with this game!
The controls are absolutley superb and really let you get your hands dirty doing assorted Mob tasks with your Wiimote, for example if someone in the game offends you, you can grab them by holding down "Z" and "B" and then motion a back handed slap with your Wiimote and hey presto you give the guy in the game a slap, if he still isnt very pleasent towards you bring the Wiimote and nunchuck up towards you sharply and give him a taste of your forehead, Great stuff!
This game also holds the privelige of being the first time on any Nintendo console that a NPC has come up to me in a game and told me "What the f**k you lookin at c**k Sucker" before I pushed him through a plate glass window, Pure brilliance a must have for any serious Wii'er!

Excellent game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 19
Date: March 22, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game is awesome. I thought it would be meh but the controls on this game are very well done and the game play is excellent. Nothing better than grabbing a guy by the shoulders when hes down, picking him up, then headbutting him and punching him into a wall.

The Godfather of Wii

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: March 23, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Most people think EA has lost it. That they just are full of uncreativity and that when it comes to making any game besides sports -- they just bomb. None of their games truly live up to the hype they were given. Even Medal Of Honor -- a once respected game in the industry -- has fallen from it's popularity because of poor development and other war games that are just...well, better.

And the Original Godfather -- the last game from EA I was even considering to buy -- wasn't horrible, nor was it a GTA killer. It was just an avergae game. However, for the Wii, EA has done something I respect: Instead of simply porting the game to the Wii, slapping controls on there -- they added new content, they re-designed it to take advantage of the Wii's hardware (aka the Wiimote) and made a game that's not always simple, but is pure fun.

The feeling you get when you slam a man into a table, wall -- whatever, is simple amazing. The graphics will give you more then enough eye candy (sure, it's no PS3/Xbox 360 -- but once again, the Wii surpases what the Xbox could do :-D).

In the end, The Gdofather Blackhand Edition is worth buying. Almost a waste of money to rent...because once you beat someone up, you'll be in love.

The Mature game Wii owners have been waiting for.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: March 22, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I'm only 5 hours into the game and have never played the original release on xbox or PS2, but already I couldn't imagine going back to using a regular controller. Why tap X to hit someone when you can actually swing your fist! It feels so good to pick up some poor store owner, slam him aginst a wall, and beat the living [...] out of him until he agrees to pay protection money. Yes, the controls actually work and they work very well. There's over 20 different gestures you can make with the wii remote so things won't start getting boring for quit a while. A must have for all Wii owners wanting a mature game with a deep story.

Repetitive, boring

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: July 15, 2007
Author: Amazon User

There are some good points to this game - the primary missions do make you feel like you're part of the story, if you've seen the movie. And driving around is a lot of fun - it was a little awkward at first, didn't seem at all natural, but I grew to like it - the cars and trucks all have very different handling characteristics, each type has a distinct "feel". The good is outweighed by the bad though.

First, you can tell a movie company had a hand in it - you have to sit through the intro every time you load the game, you can't skip it by pressing a button like you can in most other games. This holds true also for cutscenes in the game.

There also is a lot of overhead in this game... I do like the driving in this game, but don't like being forced to do it. You have to spend a lot of time driving around different places in this game, not just for missions but to upgrade guns, get ammo, etc. Later on, when you buy new safehouses they come with some ammo, and you can call a driver to whisk you between safehouses, but it's still a pain.

The weapons selection is uninspiring - you get a garrotte, a clubbing weapon, three pistols, a tommy gun, a shotgun, dynamite, molotovs, and bombs. The difference between the guns was noticeable, but not fun like the difference between cars. And I never figured out why you'd want to use the .38 or pistol rather than the magnum.

Aside from the special missions which get you advancement and make you feel like part of the movie, which were quite fun, the other things to do are very repetitive. The extortion business also gets boring after a point - while it was a little fun in the beginning to try to figure out the best way to extort a shopkeeper, halfway through the game they all became very complaisant for some reason and agreed as soon as I talked to them.

Another odd thing is the police. If you bribe the police chief then you can get the police to do most of your shooting for you. And you can defuse mob wars just by bribing a fed. So while the game is somewhat challenging in the beginning, as you extort more business, get more money, buy better weapons and more safehouses, it gets too easy, to the point that halfway through the game it seems pointless. I played it to the point at which I'd been promoted to Don (done the promotion missions and also taken out all they compounds of the other bosses), at which point the only thing to do is extort every single remaining business, at which point I quit since this is just a matter of driving around, walking in and talking to the shop owners.

All in all, not much fun. I had just finished Resident Evil 4 when I played this game, and this was vastly inferior.

Truly shows the emerging possiblity of the WII

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: August 27, 2007
Author: Amazon User

While the godfather was labeled as nothing more than a GTA clone on every other system, the game has become something unique on the WII. The use of the WII controls is simply awesome. Tired of the help aim shooting a guy in a chest? Not a problem, head shots are super easy with the Wii mote. Why shoot? You can strangle, punch, and throw people off a ledge, all of which is somthing you actually do with your wii mote. Then there's the fun of being in the godfather 1.5, doing missions and things alluded to, but never seen in the actual film. The game is also fairly lengthy in story, and really nice to completely take over. The game is a whole lot of fun, and I can't wait to see what people learn from this game. Try it!

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