The original PC game Mafia does a far superior job of capturing the essense and vibe of The Godfather than EA's The Godfather. There are several times when the game tries to re-create pivotal moments in the movie and it fails. When special, moving scenes are re-created, the game doesn't deliver the same flair, style or feel from the movie.
Later on - because the game's length ranges from 12-50 hours depending on how you play - The Godfather completely loses the flow of the movie. The areas where it shines most are in the beginning, when you hear the theme song slowly evolving and you attend the traditional Sicilian wedding. How has it fared? Re-creating The Godfather in all its cinematic brilliance is an almost impossible job to do in a videogame, and EA's finished product conveys just how vastly different the medium of videogames is from movies. What's more, EA delayed the game from a fall release to give it extra time and polish.
EA has the hubris, the money, and the people to enter and contend. Most companies that have tried in this area have done OK or done poorly. To make both a great videogame version of the movie and to contend with three increasingly deeper, larger, and more sophisticated versions of GTA is not an easy task.
