The perfect blend for a game based on a movie seems to be this: the game itself needs to have enough of the movie's influence in it to make sense, but it also needs to have a little bit of 'kick' and flavour of its own. The game The Godfather was seemingly developed with this in mind. The important characters in the movie are represented well in the game, the gang warfare and 'mobster culture' are also captured extremely well, giving it the dark, gritty edge that you would expect for an R18 rating. But don't expect the game to be a video game rendition walk-through of the movie. The Godfather game has a life of its own.

Things begin with the creation of your character. The character creation is pretty impressive, getting right down to the minute detail of your character's appearance. You can choose different hair styles, or no hair at all, and you can even choose different facial scars for that authentic wise-guy gangster appeal. You can even go so far as to make your character non-Italian/Sicilian. Although we distinctly recall a lack of African-American gansters in the movie version of The Godfather, in the game, there are no such boundaries.

Once you've decided how your ganster is going to look, it's time to take care of business, Corleone style.

The story begins with your character being accepted into the family. That's the easy part. Now you have to go through the motions of proving your worth by doing whatever your bosses tell you to do - no questions asked. The animation of The Godfather is smooth and crisp with impressive detail, and characters bear an uncanny likeness to the movie characters. The movement within the game is fluid and the backgrounds and environments are also extremely detailed, bringing to life the era of the Corleones.

This is a good time to talk about the combat system in The Godfather. The life of a gangster can be pretty hard going. There will be times when you'll take a beating. You'll be expected to 'whack' other people at the drop of a hat, but most importantly, you'll be expected to learn the tricks of the trade. The Godfather utilises a system known as 'Blackhand Control'. This is basically the name given to the method of extracting information from people to get things done. Most of the time, this will involve violence of some sort. Sometimes, you won't need to do much to get what you need and other times, you'll need real finesse to complete the missions.