"Stupid-a-facking game"
American Like a Dragon (Yakuza)
I gotta tell ya; my estimation of David Chase, as a man, just fucking plummeted
really top tier environments. we can put the rest of it behind us, like the boring combat, whatever happened there
I love the Sopranos but hate this game.
I like The Sopranos show a lot, so I thought I’d like the game as well, but that’s not what happened. Pretty disappointing.
The story was fine (But maybe a little too over the top sometimes), the cast was awesome and it was so cool they got the cast from the show to do this, and the in-game graphics were ok too (Remind of Godfather and Scarface actually), but my, oh my, the gameplay sucks. The combat in the game is really bad and I didn’t know what I was doing most of the time. This game also gets repetitive a lot of the time because Joey is usually just talking from person to person, so I got tired of it pretty quickly and eventually just quit for the day. I know the Sopranos isn’t like Godfather or Scarface where you rule with force, but it’s just not fun to play like this. Accurate, but boring. I hate how the mouth moments don’t match the words in the in-game cutscenes as it always takes me out of the experience. I also don’t like the idea of playing as Puss’ illegitimate son, it just feels thrown in there.
Overall, I was pretty disappointed with this game. Again, I think the show is amazing, but this game was just bad.
The story was fine (But maybe a little too over the top sometimes), the cast was awesome and it was so cool they got the cast from the show to do this, and the in-game graphics were ok too (Remind of Godfather and Scarface actually), but my, oh my, the gameplay sucks. The combat in the game is really bad and I didn’t know what I was doing most of the time. This game also gets repetitive a lot of the time because Joey is usually just talking from person to person, so I got tired of it pretty quickly and eventually just quit for the day. I know the Sopranos isn’t like Godfather or Scarface where you rule with force, but it’s just not fun to play like this. Accurate, but boring. I hate how the mouth moments don’t match the words in the in-game cutscenes as it always takes me out of the experience. I also don’t like the idea of playing as Puss’ illegitimate son, it just feels thrown in there.
Overall, I was pretty disappointed with this game. Again, I think the show is amazing, but this game was just bad.
This review contains spoilers
Papa-pizza
Raveloli
Gabaghoul
Raveloli
Gabaghoul
Stupid-a fucking game. -Furio Giunta
thoroughly enjoyed playing this even tho its not allat + it ends super abruptly. never forgiving that bee movie game ass quicktime event tho
This review contains spoilers
I can't believe Yakuza 0 ripped off this game's climax of raiding the docks and fighting a guy on a boat.
You ask me Ton', it's anti-Italian discrimination!
You ask me Ton', it's anti-Italian discrimination!
It was ok.
Fun to pass the time if you're a fun of the show. But clearly there's no reason to play this one if you're not a fan of the Sopranos.
Fun to pass the time if you're a fun of the show. But clearly there's no reason to play this one if you're not a fan of the Sopranos.
Extremely visceral and cutting edge. Knows what it’s doing and does this with such expertise and rawness that it brings a smile to my jaded face. It gets a rare 4.5 score from me because it takes place in New Jersey, but it would be a 5 if it took place in Frankton, New Jersey.
4,5 solo porque los soprano termino cortando a la mitad de una esce
I remember playing this as a kid, and didn't even know this was based on a show. Still wanna play it again tho.
"Chrissy, how the hell did you manage to fuck up dis bad? Now look where we are, we're in a fuckin' PS2 prerendered cutscene!"
"I'm sorry, Ton', the fuck am I s'posed to do about it?"
"I'm sorry, Ton', the fuck am I s'posed to do about it?"
Very observant. The sacred and the propane.
asi conoci los sopranos
Yes, the gameplay is pure ass. But we get the main cast of the show, explorable Bada-Bing, Vesuvio’s, Satriale’s, some pretty funny interactions and NPC’s to keep you from going totally mad from the often-frustrating combat, and not a bad licensed soundtrack for the Bing. If you have any love for Soprano’s and can stomach a dated tie-in game, it’s definitely worth a trip!
OOOOOHHHHHHH !!! 🤌🤌
This is just a tragedy. You can tell these guys really loved the show by how much attention to detail was paid in depicting the locations and established characters from it. It's just too bad they didn't know how to make video games. "Shame about it."
Stupid-a fucking game.
My estimation of THQ as a video game publisher just fucking plummeted.
I’m currently going through the Sopranos right now as a way to finally see where “the golden age” of TV started and man oh man this show is such a treat. All of the actors are given amazing material to work off of and the actors themselves are just fantastic. I can’t imagine a Tony Soprano without James Gandolfini or Christopher Moltisanti without Michael Imperioli. It’s one of those rare shows like Better Call Saul where everyone behind the screen and in front are giving nearly 110 percent at all times and it just keeps getting better and better as the show goes on. So because the show was so stupidly popular for HBO they decided the best way to capitalize on the show’s success is to partner with THQ and get some sketchy fly by night game studio to hack out a Sopranos video game without the creators involvement and none of the aspects that make the show good in the first place. Yeah this sounds like a great idea.
For starters instead of jumping on the crime sandbox bandwagon like Scarface of Godfather instead it’s a third person beat em up game. Which I guess makes sense since by a technicality there is indeed a lot of fighting in the show. But the show isn’t really focused on violence that much as you’d honestly think if you just played this game. Don’t get me wrong the show uses violence but normally when it necessary for the sake of tone, here it’s used in such an uncomfortably gratuitous way it almost feels like the writers for the game had never watched the show before and just assumed it was like any other mob show, when in actuality the show is much more focused on the family life of Tony and not so much the mafia. The gameplay is probably some of the worst beat em up gameplay I’ve ever played. Where in a normal beat em up game where enemies take their sweet ass time and fight you one at a time, here they bum rush you seemingly at once to where you can’t get any sort of attacks in at all, best of all there are no I frames in this so you can’t just rely on having a short time to get any combos in; just be as aggressive as the bots and don’t bother thinking. Oh yeah and those combos; yeah don’t bother with them. The combat is super sluggish and unresponsive at times to the point where trying to do combos actually got me killed more often than just spamming the same basic combo over and over again. You also have a grab move but it barely works most of the time and by the time you can actually grab an enemy they’ll already be dead so there's no point in even doing it. By the halfway point you’ll unlock better grab moves that kill enemies in one hit by doing a QTE and once you have that the game becomes a cakewalk, I have no idea why they’d even keep these grab QTEs in the game other then seeing your character snap a dude arm in half like it was a stick because “violence is rad” or something like that. The whole gameplay system just feels so slapdash together, there's even a choice base system where during some conversations you can choose to either be nice or an asshole, I have no idea why this system is in the game because it doesn't seem like the different choices matter other then “do you wanna fight this person or not” so for most of the game I was the nicest mafioso the north jersey mob had ever seen. So yeah the gameplay sucks and has no redeeming qualities whatsoever but that’s not what really matters, what matters most is the story since this is a Sopranos game; so how's the story?
This game takes place in between seasons 5 and 6 so for the sake of not spoiling anything for people who wanna watch the show but don’t want a borderline shovelware game to spoil a 25 year old show I’ll be putting up a spoiler warning and for anything that might spoil characters names I’ll be slapping a 𝐑𝐄𝐃𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐃 for names. Still you have been warned.
The game takes place sometime after season 5 where you play as Joey LaRocca who’s is a illegitimate son of 𝐑𝐄𝐃𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐃. Tony sees Joey doing petty small level crimes and gets insulted thinking that he’s wasting the life that 𝐑𝐄𝐃𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐃 gave him. But since Tony and 𝐑𝐄𝐃𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐃 were such good friends he gives Joey a spot in Paulie’s crew. Sometimes for weird story reasons Joey will see 𝐑𝐄𝐃𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐃 in reflections as a kinda ghost but it’s never really explained and I’m assuming the only reason their even in the game was to mimic the weird dream sequences the show had; or it was so they could bring back 𝐑𝐄𝐃𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐃 to reprise his role as 𝐑𝐄𝐃𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐃 for fan service and nothing else because his character serves zero purpose to the overall story. Now I could go beat for beat to every plot point but I’m not because the story itself is paper thin, it’s pretty much just a rising the ranks gangster story with locations and characters from the show slapped in almost as window dressing. As a fan of the show it is really cool being able to explore the Bada Bing and Vesuvio's and having some of the show's actors reprise their role is fun; but then they start talking and it just goes downhill from there. Voice acting is a form of acting in of itself, so trying to get normal actors who have no experience with the style of acting normally leads to a very unfortunate outcome. None of the actors sound like their giving it their a game besides James Gandolfini and Tony Sirico and even then they can’t seem to get the same vocal inflections for their character so they all come off as flat and tired sounding at all times, Robert Iler who plays AJ is trying the least out of all the returning actors but knowing him that’s not a surprise at all. The actual writing of the game is honestly god awful and somehow turned around to becoming one of the most immature video games I’ve ever played. Within the first 30 minutes of starting up the game you get a fully clothed lap dance from a stripper after beating up the DJ at the strip club because he was playing music she didn’t like, or how about later in the game where you need to blow up a porno studio and in doing so you start beating people up with fleshlights and dildos. It feels like the game was written by a 12 year old who really wants to be perceived as grown up so they just have a whole bunch of grown up stuff crammed into it to have the perception of maturity but just come off as trashy. Nowhere else is that best established then the last mission
(content warning: sexual assault) So after Tony sent you to blow up a porno studio as payback for a newyork capo doublecrossing him he then seeks up revenge on Joey but trying to send him a message. That message then ends up being him and his brother kidnapping Joeys then girlfriend, viciously beating and raping her as a way to drew him out.
Not only is this just the most tasteless way of sparking a third act but just the mere thought using sexual assault ub the way you used it is goes beyond just being trashing and just completely disgust me to no end. Unless you feel like you can confidently approach that subject in a realistic and mature manner you could do something thoughtfully intelligent with it; what you shouldn’t be using it for shock value and having the thinly veiled veneer of having that same prestige television writing the show had. Fucking shame on you.
This game is a disgusting stain on this show’s legacy and it genuinely upsets me that something like this could even get past HBO’s quality assurance test. This is one of those very rare cases where I find literally zero good qualities about a game, it’s just one of those games where it’s rotten right down to the bone and one of the VERY few times I actively regret playing it. The nicest thing I could say about it was it was only 3 hours long so it’s not like I was wasting a lot of time. Don’t play this game, honestly it’s not worth it and I regret even giving this game the time of day.
For starters instead of jumping on the crime sandbox bandwagon like Scarface of Godfather instead it’s a third person beat em up game. Which I guess makes sense since by a technicality there is indeed a lot of fighting in the show. But the show isn’t really focused on violence that much as you’d honestly think if you just played this game. Don’t get me wrong the show uses violence but normally when it necessary for the sake of tone, here it’s used in such an uncomfortably gratuitous way it almost feels like the writers for the game had never watched the show before and just assumed it was like any other mob show, when in actuality the show is much more focused on the family life of Tony and not so much the mafia. The gameplay is probably some of the worst beat em up gameplay I’ve ever played. Where in a normal beat em up game where enemies take their sweet ass time and fight you one at a time, here they bum rush you seemingly at once to where you can’t get any sort of attacks in at all, best of all there are no I frames in this so you can’t just rely on having a short time to get any combos in; just be as aggressive as the bots and don’t bother thinking. Oh yeah and those combos; yeah don’t bother with them. The combat is super sluggish and unresponsive at times to the point where trying to do combos actually got me killed more often than just spamming the same basic combo over and over again. You also have a grab move but it barely works most of the time and by the time you can actually grab an enemy they’ll already be dead so there's no point in even doing it. By the halfway point you’ll unlock better grab moves that kill enemies in one hit by doing a QTE and once you have that the game becomes a cakewalk, I have no idea why they’d even keep these grab QTEs in the game other then seeing your character snap a dude arm in half like it was a stick because “violence is rad” or something like that. The whole gameplay system just feels so slapdash together, there's even a choice base system where during some conversations you can choose to either be nice or an asshole, I have no idea why this system is in the game because it doesn't seem like the different choices matter other then “do you wanna fight this person or not” so for most of the game I was the nicest mafioso the north jersey mob had ever seen. So yeah the gameplay sucks and has no redeeming qualities whatsoever but that’s not what really matters, what matters most is the story since this is a Sopranos game; so how's the story?
This game takes place in between seasons 5 and 6 so for the sake of not spoiling anything for people who wanna watch the show but don’t want a borderline shovelware game to spoil a 25 year old show I’ll be putting up a spoiler warning and for anything that might spoil characters names I’ll be slapping a 𝐑𝐄𝐃𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐃 for names. Still you have been warned.
The game takes place sometime after season 5 where you play as Joey LaRocca who’s is a illegitimate son of 𝐑𝐄𝐃𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐃. Tony sees Joey doing petty small level crimes and gets insulted thinking that he’s wasting the life that 𝐑𝐄𝐃𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐃 gave him. But since Tony and 𝐑𝐄𝐃𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐃 were such good friends he gives Joey a spot in Paulie’s crew. Sometimes for weird story reasons Joey will see 𝐑𝐄𝐃𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐃 in reflections as a kinda ghost but it’s never really explained and I’m assuming the only reason their even in the game was to mimic the weird dream sequences the show had; or it was so they could bring back 𝐑𝐄𝐃𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐃 to reprise his role as 𝐑𝐄𝐃𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐃 for fan service and nothing else because his character serves zero purpose to the overall story. Now I could go beat for beat to every plot point but I’m not because the story itself is paper thin, it’s pretty much just a rising the ranks gangster story with locations and characters from the show slapped in almost as window dressing. As a fan of the show it is really cool being able to explore the Bada Bing and Vesuvio's and having some of the show's actors reprise their role is fun; but then they start talking and it just goes downhill from there. Voice acting is a form of acting in of itself, so trying to get normal actors who have no experience with the style of acting normally leads to a very unfortunate outcome. None of the actors sound like their giving it their a game besides James Gandolfini and Tony Sirico and even then they can’t seem to get the same vocal inflections for their character so they all come off as flat and tired sounding at all times, Robert Iler who plays AJ is trying the least out of all the returning actors but knowing him that’s not a surprise at all. The actual writing of the game is honestly god awful and somehow turned around to becoming one of the most immature video games I’ve ever played. Within the first 30 minutes of starting up the game you get a fully clothed lap dance from a stripper after beating up the DJ at the strip club because he was playing music she didn’t like, or how about later in the game where you need to blow up a porno studio and in doing so you start beating people up with fleshlights and dildos. It feels like the game was written by a 12 year old who really wants to be perceived as grown up so they just have a whole bunch of grown up stuff crammed into it to have the perception of maturity but just come off as trashy. Nowhere else is that best established then the last mission
(content warning: sexual assault) So after Tony sent you to blow up a porno studio as payback for a newyork capo doublecrossing him he then seeks up revenge on Joey but trying to send him a message. That message then ends up being him and his brother kidnapping Joeys then girlfriend, viciously beating and raping her as a way to drew him out.
Not only is this just the most tasteless way of sparking a third act but just the mere thought using sexual assault ub the way you used it is goes beyond just being trashing and just completely disgust me to no end. Unless you feel like you can confidently approach that subject in a realistic and mature manner you could do something thoughtfully intelligent with it; what you shouldn’t be using it for shock value and having the thinly veiled veneer of having that same prestige television writing the show had. Fucking shame on you.
This game is a disgusting stain on this show’s legacy and it genuinely upsets me that something like this could even get past HBO’s quality assurance test. This is one of those very rare cases where I find literally zero good qualities about a game, it’s just one of those games where it’s rotten right down to the bone and one of the VERY few times I actively regret playing it. The nicest thing I could say about it was it was only 3 hours long so it’s not like I was wasting a lot of time. Don’t play this game, honestly it’s not worth it and I regret even giving this game the time of day.
gabagool
what a fucking crock of shit
Ay Tone, did ya play the new Sopranos game, Road to Respect?
This review contains spoilers
The Sopranos: Road to Respect is a game created by 7 Studios which takes place during the fifth and sixth seasons of the show.
Gonna go into plot now: You play as dead mobster Salvatore "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero's illegitimate son Joey LaRocca; you run into mob boss Tony Soprano one day robbing an old lady of her purse right in front of Satriale's and Tony is pissed throwing you around before offering you a place in the family. The game is sort of loosely built plot wise so I'm gonna post the Wikipedia article here and kind of go over it piece by piece: "During his first job, he accidentally kills Mario Buscetta, the nephew of Angelo Buscetta." With context, Mario Buscetta is a mob guy who works for his Uncle Angelo in Philadelphia, and while doing bouncer duty at the Bada Bing you encounter this guy trying to talk to Tony before harassing Paulie in the men's bathroom. Paulie gets tired of him and commands Joey to beat the shit out of him, which he does but beats him so badly that he thinks he kills him. Paulie demands you get rid of him by dumping him off at the docks, and so you grab your stupid douche friend Reggie to join you. After fighting your way through the docks, you find he's still alive, THEN shoot him while finding a watch "From Angie" before dumping his body in the harbor. Having no clue who Angelo is, Reggie just thinks it's from his girlfriend and steals it while Joey just says fuck it. You run get Reggie out of a nearby casino while he's drunk (going through floors trying to find this guy) before finally pulling him out. You also help out Christopher with getting protection money from a gym ran by Saul, a pervert who films stuff in the women's locker room. Some stuff that I forget happens, and they find out that Reggie was seen wearing Mario's watch. With the fact that Reggie could be tracked down and what happened to Mario would come to light, he's made a liability and you're commanded to kill him.
"Angie sends a hitman to kill Joey, but Joey kills the hitman during a rooftop chase." You're told to track him down to his apartment, you attempt to kill him but you fail cause of a distraction, beat up a bunch of dudes and then try to kill him before killing another mob guy (named Tuzzio who I didn't remember) from Angelo's family who tracked down Reggie to kill him.
"A few days later, Tony's son A.J. has a drug deal go bad on him; his partner wasted the drug money, prompting the dealers to kill his partner and steal his dad's car." This is basically verbatim, and during one of the other subplots AJ asks you in the bathroom in the middle of a Bar Mitzvah to help out because he knows his father would flip shit.
"Joey retrieves the car and kills one of the dealers, only to have the car stolen by Angie's men. While Joey is fearful the theft of Tony's truck may get him whacked, Tony says that A.J. admitted responsibility. Tony has Joey retaliate for the theft by burning down one of Angie's businesses." This is also true, though Tony is also giving you a stern warning about stuff too, and this is also in between doing more favors for the other mob guys, collecting money from Lawyer Neil (who is a frequent user of the Bada Bing and borrowed money to do something? I think) while also taking Tuzzio off of life support before he can blame you for shooting him on the rooftops.
"A few days later, Angie returns Tony's car, completely wrecked, and containing Joey's girlfriend, Trichelle, beaten and raped." This is also verbatim, but Trichelle is Joey's girlfriend in the game, an old friend of his from his younger years (though he does have an on and off flirtatious thing with one stripper) whom he ran into and established a relationship with. Also the plot device of a sexual assault and the whole "Girlfriend gets attacked" thing is really....contrived and completely unnecessary and honestly feels derivative. You have a couple scenes here and there with them both but nothing really that memorable to build her to be more than just a tool to drive the plot forward.
"Joey vows vengeance. At the docks, he finds Angie and throws him off of his yacht, killing him." That is also true, but again this is in between fifteen different subplots involving the Gym where you work with Christopher and others I can't remember, and the game ends with the ghost of Big Pussy telling you he's proud and you become a made member of the family. I'm not gonna look up the rest of the plot because not only are there so many side bits and character moments (like multiple moments where Joey talks to the ghost of his dead dad whose like "Hey Joey I was a fuckin rat, fuck it I died but I love my buddies so be nice to em you fuckin mook") but also because I'm not that bothered but if it's wanted later on I'll edit this review, and also on top of that it both doesn't matter in the main series/overall canon anyways. So truth be told, you get what amounts to an episode or two worth of material that's non canon if they only focused on the mafia side of the thing and little on the actual family side other than AJ. If you're wondering where Carmela and Meadow Soprano are they're not here, and if you're wondering where Joey is in the main series, he's not there. In fact, if I remember correctly I remember reading that David Chase wrote it specifically in mind for that. I'm gonna plug the video for behind the scenes on the game right below, sorry for the choppiness, maybe one day I'll re-record it for later and some of it will be cited later. To finish off my feelings on it, it does feel like it was written to be a Sopranos episode, and I love the main series so it's fucking great writing wise and plot wise it's fine even if it's just sort of a side note.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-cVUIHW5zo&t=772s&ab_channel=G15ExtraStuff
Gameplay is where I'm gonna go next and oh boy is it fucking garbage, I've played this a couple of times over my years and I'd safely say I'd rather be shot in a creek point blank multiple times, smothered with a pillow, burned alive in a car bomb, garroted, have my shit kicked in, get called a Dickfart and laughed at, stabbed over a horse, and finally get ran over by a motherfucking truck than ever play through the combat again. It is the most shallow and repetitive shit, and there were multiple times where I wanted to smash my fucking skull into a curb and stomp myself because honestly that's what it felt like playing this game. For the most part you can punch people, hit em with objects, grab them and use environmental takedowns but it can also just be a slog to get through. There were a couple of times, like Neil the lawyer's office at the end of the game where these dudes just somehow felt invincible and kept wailing on me nonstop and it was the spongiest shit and with how the fighting in the game moves it was a repetition of "I'll grab you, you throw me off, you grab me, I punch you some more" rinse and repeat and it was just frustrating as fuck to deal with. I'll also tell you that you get a pistol in this game, but you don't ever use it except for certain situations because if you use it in public once you get this cutscene where Tony and them shoot you off of a boat and you're like "Come on Tone please I'm sorry don't shoot me" and while it looks cool it's also frustrating I can't use anything but this lousy ass combat system (though the pistol for the most part does fuck all damage and sounds like shit). After you use this lousy ass combat system, what you do is you loot money off of people's bodies (and also in random spots in the area), you'll end up using this money for two things: Pay tribute to earn respect back after losing some respect from shooting off bullets or due to certain story mandates or to earn concept art and some video trailers or whatever, other than that it's useless. You can also get this money by running into little sidequests during your missions, mostly revolving around talking to certain people and for 95 percent of it ends in a fist fight where you loot money off of them or interact with them in a dialogue tree thing (which isn't complex and doesn't usually end in anything different it's just hit left on D-Pad for friendly, nothing for neutral or right on D-Pad for aggressive and it happens throughout the game). I promise you I'm making it sound deeper than it actually is, it's really a simplistically mediocre game. I'm trying to think of other things off the top of my head but other than being able to play Poker against the guys (of which is probably the only good part gameplay wise) and get really bad virtual lap dances you don't really have much in the way of good in this department. Onto Audio/Visual.
Audio/Visual is good when the main cast is involved but it's a strange mix. Tony looks like a fuckin teletubby but his voice acting is immaculate, same with Paulie (the funniest guy here) and some others. Silvio and Christopher look decent, as does main character Joey (which fun fact is voiced by Christian Maelan, the same guy who David Chase originally wanted for Christopher but brought him into this game instead). Other characters audio wise sound ok but can suffer from some dialogue that isn't the best in their department, and you can tell there's a dip in quality compared to when the actors actually do it. Like it's some sort of strange hodgepodge then when it works it's believable and when it's not you can sit back and sort of laugh at how stupid someone looks or sounds. The soundtrack consists of "Woke Up this Morning" by Alabama 3 of course but there are also tracks from the Bada Bing involving "Catchy Sounding Electro song" and "Girls, Girls, Girls" by Motley Crue along other licensed tracks and they do the job. It's just the mixture is so jarring sometimes that I don't really know what to think, but it could also be that my memory has it tainting this game so if I'm wrong about the sound design I'll gladly raise the rating to a 2.5 but otherwise it's sticking to a fucking 2 cause it's frustrating.
Overall:
The game sucks, that's obvious. I'll tell you why I played this game: first time I was young and in a "gangster/mafia game" phase and this was one of many games I've played before giving it away to a friend who then lost it. The second time I picked it up was because I became a HUGE Sopranos fan, as well as an Exclusive games collector and some friends wanted me to stream the game on Discord one day. Funny note about the game, it's only PS2 exclusive because the other ports were cancelled (like in the video above, the graphics are high enough to look like it could be an Xbox 360 Port at certain points). If you're a huge Sopranos fan and you want to play it out of curiosity so be it, just know you'll be suffering through a four to five hour game that'll feel longer than it needs to be out of the sheer combat alone. And it's not gonna be an open world crime game either so don't get excited. If there's anything else I think of I'll edit the review and put it out there but for the love of god do yourself a favor and spare yourself the torture.
Gonna go into plot now: You play as dead mobster Salvatore "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero's illegitimate son Joey LaRocca; you run into mob boss Tony Soprano one day robbing an old lady of her purse right in front of Satriale's and Tony is pissed throwing you around before offering you a place in the family. The game is sort of loosely built plot wise so I'm gonna post the Wikipedia article here and kind of go over it piece by piece: "During his first job, he accidentally kills Mario Buscetta, the nephew of Angelo Buscetta." With context, Mario Buscetta is a mob guy who works for his Uncle Angelo in Philadelphia, and while doing bouncer duty at the Bada Bing you encounter this guy trying to talk to Tony before harassing Paulie in the men's bathroom. Paulie gets tired of him and commands Joey to beat the shit out of him, which he does but beats him so badly that he thinks he kills him. Paulie demands you get rid of him by dumping him off at the docks, and so you grab your stupid douche friend Reggie to join you. After fighting your way through the docks, you find he's still alive, THEN shoot him while finding a watch "From Angie" before dumping his body in the harbor. Having no clue who Angelo is, Reggie just thinks it's from his girlfriend and steals it while Joey just says fuck it. You run get Reggie out of a nearby casino while he's drunk (going through floors trying to find this guy) before finally pulling him out. You also help out Christopher with getting protection money from a gym ran by Saul, a pervert who films stuff in the women's locker room. Some stuff that I forget happens, and they find out that Reggie was seen wearing Mario's watch. With the fact that Reggie could be tracked down and what happened to Mario would come to light, he's made a liability and you're commanded to kill him.
"Angie sends a hitman to kill Joey, but Joey kills the hitman during a rooftop chase." You're told to track him down to his apartment, you attempt to kill him but you fail cause of a distraction, beat up a bunch of dudes and then try to kill him before killing another mob guy (named Tuzzio who I didn't remember) from Angelo's family who tracked down Reggie to kill him.
"A few days later, Tony's son A.J. has a drug deal go bad on him; his partner wasted the drug money, prompting the dealers to kill his partner and steal his dad's car." This is basically verbatim, and during one of the other subplots AJ asks you in the bathroom in the middle of a Bar Mitzvah to help out because he knows his father would flip shit.
"Joey retrieves the car and kills one of the dealers, only to have the car stolen by Angie's men. While Joey is fearful the theft of Tony's truck may get him whacked, Tony says that A.J. admitted responsibility. Tony has Joey retaliate for the theft by burning down one of Angie's businesses." This is also true, though Tony is also giving you a stern warning about stuff too, and this is also in between doing more favors for the other mob guys, collecting money from Lawyer Neil (who is a frequent user of the Bada Bing and borrowed money to do something? I think) while also taking Tuzzio off of life support before he can blame you for shooting him on the rooftops.
"A few days later, Angie returns Tony's car, completely wrecked, and containing Joey's girlfriend, Trichelle, beaten and raped." This is also verbatim, but Trichelle is Joey's girlfriend in the game, an old friend of his from his younger years (though he does have an on and off flirtatious thing with one stripper) whom he ran into and established a relationship with. Also the plot device of a sexual assault and the whole "Girlfriend gets attacked" thing is really....contrived and completely unnecessary and honestly feels derivative. You have a couple scenes here and there with them both but nothing really that memorable to build her to be more than just a tool to drive the plot forward.
"Joey vows vengeance. At the docks, he finds Angie and throws him off of his yacht, killing him." That is also true, but again this is in between fifteen different subplots involving the Gym where you work with Christopher and others I can't remember, and the game ends with the ghost of Big Pussy telling you he's proud and you become a made member of the family. I'm not gonna look up the rest of the plot because not only are there so many side bits and character moments (like multiple moments where Joey talks to the ghost of his dead dad whose like "Hey Joey I was a fuckin rat, fuck it I died but I love my buddies so be nice to em you fuckin mook") but also because I'm not that bothered but if it's wanted later on I'll edit this review, and also on top of that it both doesn't matter in the main series/overall canon anyways. So truth be told, you get what amounts to an episode or two worth of material that's non canon if they only focused on the mafia side of the thing and little on the actual family side other than AJ. If you're wondering where Carmela and Meadow Soprano are they're not here, and if you're wondering where Joey is in the main series, he's not there. In fact, if I remember correctly I remember reading that David Chase wrote it specifically in mind for that. I'm gonna plug the video for behind the scenes on the game right below, sorry for the choppiness, maybe one day I'll re-record it for later and some of it will be cited later. To finish off my feelings on it, it does feel like it was written to be a Sopranos episode, and I love the main series so it's fucking great writing wise and plot wise it's fine even if it's just sort of a side note.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-cVUIHW5zo&t=772s&ab_channel=G15ExtraStuff
Gameplay is where I'm gonna go next and oh boy is it fucking garbage, I've played this a couple of times over my years and I'd safely say I'd rather be shot in a creek point blank multiple times, smothered with a pillow, burned alive in a car bomb, garroted, have my shit kicked in, get called a Dickfart and laughed at, stabbed over a horse, and finally get ran over by a motherfucking truck than ever play through the combat again. It is the most shallow and repetitive shit, and there were multiple times where I wanted to smash my fucking skull into a curb and stomp myself because honestly that's what it felt like playing this game. For the most part you can punch people, hit em with objects, grab them and use environmental takedowns but it can also just be a slog to get through. There were a couple of times, like Neil the lawyer's office at the end of the game where these dudes just somehow felt invincible and kept wailing on me nonstop and it was the spongiest shit and with how the fighting in the game moves it was a repetition of "I'll grab you, you throw me off, you grab me, I punch you some more" rinse and repeat and it was just frustrating as fuck to deal with. I'll also tell you that you get a pistol in this game, but you don't ever use it except for certain situations because if you use it in public once you get this cutscene where Tony and them shoot you off of a boat and you're like "Come on Tone please I'm sorry don't shoot me" and while it looks cool it's also frustrating I can't use anything but this lousy ass combat system (though the pistol for the most part does fuck all damage and sounds like shit). After you use this lousy ass combat system, what you do is you loot money off of people's bodies (and also in random spots in the area), you'll end up using this money for two things: Pay tribute to earn respect back after losing some respect from shooting off bullets or due to certain story mandates or to earn concept art and some video trailers or whatever, other than that it's useless. You can also get this money by running into little sidequests during your missions, mostly revolving around talking to certain people and for 95 percent of it ends in a fist fight where you loot money off of them or interact with them in a dialogue tree thing (which isn't complex and doesn't usually end in anything different it's just hit left on D-Pad for friendly, nothing for neutral or right on D-Pad for aggressive and it happens throughout the game). I promise you I'm making it sound deeper than it actually is, it's really a simplistically mediocre game. I'm trying to think of other things off the top of my head but other than being able to play Poker against the guys (of which is probably the only good part gameplay wise) and get really bad virtual lap dances you don't really have much in the way of good in this department. Onto Audio/Visual.
Audio/Visual is good when the main cast is involved but it's a strange mix. Tony looks like a fuckin teletubby but his voice acting is immaculate, same with Paulie (the funniest guy here) and some others. Silvio and Christopher look decent, as does main character Joey (which fun fact is voiced by Christian Maelan, the same guy who David Chase originally wanted for Christopher but brought him into this game instead). Other characters audio wise sound ok but can suffer from some dialogue that isn't the best in their department, and you can tell there's a dip in quality compared to when the actors actually do it. Like it's some sort of strange hodgepodge then when it works it's believable and when it's not you can sit back and sort of laugh at how stupid someone looks or sounds. The soundtrack consists of "Woke Up this Morning" by Alabama 3 of course but there are also tracks from the Bada Bing involving "Catchy Sounding Electro song" and "Girls, Girls, Girls" by Motley Crue along other licensed tracks and they do the job. It's just the mixture is so jarring sometimes that I don't really know what to think, but it could also be that my memory has it tainting this game so if I'm wrong about the sound design I'll gladly raise the rating to a 2.5 but otherwise it's sticking to a fucking 2 cause it's frustrating.
Overall:
The game sucks, that's obvious. I'll tell you why I played this game: first time I was young and in a "gangster/mafia game" phase and this was one of many games I've played before giving it away to a friend who then lost it. The second time I picked it up was because I became a HUGE Sopranos fan, as well as an Exclusive games collector and some friends wanted me to stream the game on Discord one day. Funny note about the game, it's only PS2 exclusive because the other ports were cancelled (like in the video above, the graphics are high enough to look like it could be an Xbox 360 Port at certain points). If you're a huge Sopranos fan and you want to play it out of curiosity so be it, just know you'll be suffering through a four to five hour game that'll feel longer than it needs to be out of the sheer combat alone. And it's not gonna be an open world crime game either so don't get excited. If there's anything else I think of I'll edit the review and put it out there but for the love of god do yourself a favor and spare yourself the torture.
would have gotten another .5 if Patsy and or Artie were in the game. you go to Vesuvio multiple times too! the only fun thing is just interacting with npcs and seeing all the dialogue the game has to offer. very much looks like new jersey, i'm impressed with how visually good this game is. perhaps the worst game in the Yakuza franchise
Woke up this morning, made an entire video game based off of The Sopranos television series
It's terrible. But it does come close to being so bad its good.
It misses it through.
If you're a fan of the show I would still reccomand watching the cutscenes on youtube.
It's also weird how it ripped off Yakuza before Yakuza was even really a thing.
It misses it through.
If you're a fan of the show I would still reccomand watching the cutscenes on youtube.
It's also weird how it ripped off Yakuza before Yakuza was even really a thing.