GFII is an action game at its core, and most of your time is spent working over the guards at businesses until you can talk some sense into the owners with a meaty fist. While most of the guards are just petty thugs aching for quick trips to the trunk of a Buick, they have strength in numbers, and a quick phone call to a made man can turn your quick assault into a desperate standoff. This is why you should never underestimate the power of a little ingenuity on the battlefield. With an Engineer in your crew, you can cut the power to the phones while your Demolitions expert creates a makeshift door through the wall.

Businesses run the gamut of one-room taverns to winding warehouses and mansions, and each provides a new challenge, at least for the first time around. You can have as many guards as your payroll can handle, but it only delays the inevitable. Sooner or later, a rival family will take the property back, you retaliate, and the cyclical process begins. Trouble is, once you know the best way into a building, you know it for life. Reclaiming the same building over and over is a repetitious tug-of-war, but mainly an annoying feature of the early hours. As your crew grows to accommodate eight men plus yourself, you’ll have plenty of itchy trigger-fingers waiting on the sidelines to defend properties at your command.

You never lose crew members permanently, unless you choose to have them removed, and it’s easy to develop personal attachments. You can dress them to your liking, pick out their weapons, and purchase statistical upgrades. Each one has a specialty – Engineer, Medic, Arsonist, Safecracker, Bruiser, Demolitions – and gains additional specialties with promotions through your ranks. Higher-ranked men also have the power to deal and devour more damage. In a very questionable decision, multiplayer is the only way to earn points to buy weapon licenses, which grant access to stronger guns, while many recruits further in the game come prepackaged with better licenses. This creates a dilemma for anyone averse to going online – live with a loyal underachiever, or ditch him and spend more hard-earned cash on a newcomer?

I certainly wouldn’t blame anyone who opts to pick up some new blood. Don’t get me wrong—the online games are enjoyable, but the basic maps and combat mechanics won’t replace Call of Duty anytime soon. GFII has typical deathmatches and three, objective-based games focused on the Demolition, Safecracker, and Arsonist specialties. Multiplayer is more than a post-game diversion though. You play as your crew members and the money you collect from victory is transferred to your single-player bank account. It’s a welcome twist, but I can’t help but feel like the multiplayer exists for the sole sake of existing.

I have to commend EA Redwood Shores for having the moxie to break from the herd-mentality of “bigger and better.” Instead of expanding the urban sprawl and packing The Godfather II with pointless diversions at every turn, like so many other open-world games, EA picked one motif and stuck to its guns. The strategy elements fall short and are only as important as you choose to make them, but the combination of brutal action and customizable crews is reason enough to warrant a play-through.

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