Minimum System Requirements
1.4 Ghz Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon processor
256 MB RAM
2x or faster DVD Drive
5 GB of free space
DirectX 9.0c compatible video card
DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card

Video card must have 64 MB or more memory and contain one of these T&L capable chipsets:
ATI Radeon 8500 or greater; NVIDIA GeForce 3 or greater, except GeForce4 MX

Test System
3.4 Ghz Intel Pentium 4
2 GB RAM
16x DVD Drive
GeForce 6800GT 256 MB PCI-E
Onboard Realtek AC'97

Installation

The game asked me to read a license agreement that it did not show. There was a blank box with a yes or no button. It told me to install DirectX 9.0c, which is installed, and would not install any further, even after I “installed” DirectX 9.0c again. Luckily, I remembered a trick that I had to use to get certain 9.0c games installed, and that trick was to change the compatibility mode of the installer to Windows 2000. There should be no reason we have to jump through this many hoops to get a game installed.

Once the game installed and booted up, I was treated to the Paramount logo and the familiar strains of The Godfather theme, beginning with the trumpets. Very cool. I started a new game, and the first thing you do is make your mobster, using EA's "MobFace" sliders. I don't think it's as extreme as the level of customization as in EA's other games, as I had a hard time making a guy who didn't look tough. Still, there are a multitude of clothing options that you can buy later, once you get some cash together, to make yourself look like less of a street hood and more like the made man you are.

When you look at the characters, the game looks great. You see Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Abe Vigoda and James Caan throughout the game, as your mobster moves up the ranks of the Corleone family. Unfortunately, Al Pacino didn't allow the developers to use his likeness or voice for the game, so Michael is some generic guy. EA handled it rather well, but as someone who hates recasting, it's really a shame they couldn't get him onboard.

Graphics

The problem with the graphics comes once you get about halfway through the game. Most of the locations are carbon copies of each other. You have about 5 or 6 basic locations, and the only ones that receive any customization at all are the ones that play a part in the story. There might be two different versions of a certain place, but that's it. Every bakery shaped a certain way will have the same basement, filled with counterfeit money printing presses, even if there is no counterfeit operation running in the basement! Repetition is really the story of this game.

Sound

The sound is nothing to write home about. The voice acting from the main characters is, well, the main characters. It's essentially the same performance they gave in the movie. As for everything else, they have the Godfather music playing, generally well-acted generic voice overs, pretty authentic sounding guns, but that's about it. There are some funny moments when a random passer-by on the sidewalk will say something like “That thug you killed was a f---ing asshole,” but later on in the game, you get the same handful of fearful or respectful responses from everyone, and you'll have heard the few different themes so many times you wish you could turn them off—but you can't. Yes, that's right, there are NO options for the sound.