The Godfather: The Game [PS2]

• Read the preview of The Godfather: The Game.

Yahoo! Video Games: Why make a Godfather game now, and not before?

Dave DeMartini: This license has been a treasured property for many, many years. When Viacom approached us at Electronic Arts about making a game, we were obviously very interested and very enthusiastic about its potential for becoming a blockbuster interactive experience.

YVG: What kind of research did you do to recreate the 1940s-50s look and feel of the game?

DD: We spent hundreds of hours researching during preproduction for the Godfather. We sent teams of people to NY and into reference libraries to make sure that we had successfully captured this era in our game. The clothing, the cars, the landscape, and the buildings are all in the Godfather game. No detail was too small.

YVG: Was it a challenge to take on an adaptation of a movie that's loved by so many people? Have you felt the need to avoid some of the cliches the movie created, or do you see the game as embracing the movie in its entirety?

DD: It was a huge responsibility to take on this project. We had to respect this Godfather story but we also had to make sure not to fear it. We had to focus on making an interactive experience as compelling as the movie and book. We had to have the freedom to create new plotlines, new characters, and a new approach. And that is exactly what we did. We paid respect to the fiction by being completely true to it, but we have given the story new perspective by adding new content, new characters and a new heroic character -- "YOU". You create yourself as the star of this interactive experience and instead of focusing the story on the view from the top, we focus on you as an outsider trying to make a living with the Corleone family. You play your path up through the family ranks. It is a wonderful twist which gave us a great amount of freedom with the star characters actions.

YVG: Will the player get to see or take part in many of the movie's set pieces? Can you change their outcome?

DD: You can not change the outcome of the set pieces but you certainly experience all of the set pieces and get to play the pre set piece and post set piece. For example, you don't save Sonny at the toll booth but you get to extract revenge for the family against those who perpetrated that terrible act. You also get to play out missions like planting the gun in the restaurant bathroom that Michael uses to take out Solazzo and Officer McClusky.

YVG: Marlon Brando, James Caan and Robert Duvall all lend their voices to the game, but where's Al Pacino?

DD: It would have been an honor for us to have him join our great cast, but unfortunately it did not work out. That said, we have the greatest cast ever assembled for a video game. The talent we have in this game is amazing -- Brando, Caan, Duval, Abe Vigoda, and 20 other actors from the original film.

YVG: How big is the city? How does it compare to other free-roaming action games?

DD: We have greater density than other games as indicated by a very complicated metric that basically measures stuff per block. In short, the Godfather has more of it -- cars, people, venues, cops, mobsters, black market sellers, hidden stuff, etc. It was always our intention to focus on a world so interesting that the player would rather walk the streets than drive. Walking is 80 percent of our experience and driving is 20 percent. Geographically, we are comparable in size to other free roaming games with five neighborhoods (in Godfather's case Brooklyn, Little Italy, Midtown, Hells Kitchen, and Jersey) but in our game they all open to the player form the start. The only thing keeping you close to home in Little Italy at the start of the game is the power and influence that the other mob families wield in the other neighborhoods.