Download Godfather, The

Brace yourselves. The epic film saga comes to Abandonia in the form of The Godfather for DOS. I have always been a fan of the Godfather series, so reviewing this was a joy.

The plot is a mixture of all three films in the trilogy. You will travel to New York City, Miami, and the village of Corleone in Sicily. The game originally came on six floppy disks and has a total of five levels of gameplay.

At its core, The Godfather is a side-scrolling shooter with some first-person shooter sequences. You pretty much shoot at the enemy mobsters, while trying not to harm citizens (women, police officers, etc). However, this game does have some serious faults, one of them being the lack of a menu. When you start the game, you're shown an introduction... and that's it. You're dropped onto a street corner with no instructions on how to control your mobster. Eventually you can figure out the basic controls (walk left/right, duck, fire), but this is a serious issue for me.

The music goes along with the films, and it certainly does lend a "crime film" feel to the entire game. But to be honest, I wanted more... more than just shooting at other mobsters to clear the level. But, everyone is different.

I do want to praise the graphics. From the beautiful newspaper intro to the well designed city streets, there is a very high level of attention to detail.

If you're a fan of The Godfather, it's worth playing. If you don't like The Godfather or have never even heard of it, it may not be worth your time. This game is a classic nevertheless. For the gamers among us, this game plays well as a side-scrolling shooter, but the lack of a control "help" screen still bugs me.

I give this game a 3. It's not perfect, but it has some value in being based on a such a historic franchise.