Pretty in pinstripes

Over the weekend I tried out the new Godfather game, and it's very, very cool — especially if you're intimately familar with the movie. The music, the atmosphere, the city, the cars, the locations, the characters are all perfect. It really is like inhabiting the world of the Corleones.

Even the story is spot-on: Your character exists on the periphery of the movie plotline, rising through the ranks of the Corleone family during the Five Families War. You could easily be one the “lotta new faces round here” Clemenza sees hanging around the Corleone stronghold, or one of the shadowy characters briefly spotted during the film's gang-war montage.

Fans of the movie will appreciate the game's attention to detail. You start out as a young street punk taken under Luca Brasi's tutelage (as a “favor” from Don Corleone, to whom your father was faithful unto death). After Luca's murder, you witness Sollozzo's attempt on the Don's life, and help a panic-stricken Fredo get his father to hospital — an act which gets you noticed by Clemenza. Pretty soon, Tom Hagen is calling to invite you up to the family compound (which is where I left off).

(And since it was Barzini who had your father murdered, I can only assume that eventually you'll get to join up with this guy on the road to revenge.)

The best part of the game has to be the city itself — they've beautifully captured late-40s New York, right down to the pigeons and the litter blowing down the streets of Little Italy. Anyone who knows their way around Manhattan (I do not) could navigate the game without ever consulting the map.

Another feature of the game that is ridiculously detailed is the character generator, which you use to “build” your character at the beginning of the game. It allows you to control an overwhelming number of features and traits, including dozens (possibly hundreds?) of details in the face alone, which essentially allows you to make your character look like anyone.

I let Maus do the choosing when it came time to set up my guy (she named him “Enzo”) — we must have spent well over an hour tweaking all his facial features, until she got him just the way she wanted. When we were done and took a good look at the results of her careful sculpting, I realized that what Maus had created was... Andrew McCarthy.

Not exactly a convincing face for a menacing button man. But who knows? Maybe if I earn enough money to buy Enzo a fedora and a tommy gun, or maybe let him grow a moustache and collect a few facial scars, he'll rise above his pretty-boy visage and garner enough respect to eventually “take the cannolli” for Clemenza.