The Godfather: The Game - Interview

Detailed discussion with the Creative Director of EA's Godfather game on interactive cut-scenes and being locked in a room with Marlon Brando. Plus videos.

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We use cinematics to help tell the story, to push forward the plot, and to introduce characters. But you'll also notice the face-to-face system - which is this system of intimidation and negotiation - it goes into cinematic mode to make it feel more dramatic, but you're fully in control. So for me, the face-to-face aspect is like 'live cinematics' and to me, that's a great goal - to actually be able to play live during the cinematics. Then you get the best of both worlds.

Kikizo: Can you clarify, how did things work out with regards to Marlon Brando's voice acting in the game?

Campbell: I was actually lucky enough, because I wrote the original script, to be the guy who was locked in a room with Marlon Brando for like three hours while we recorded the new dialogue for the game. And it was an incredible, awe-inspiring moment meeting the guy. Now obviously it's thirty years later than when they first recorded these voices, so we found that with Marlon Brando, I mean, all this controversy exists as a storm in a teacup, because Marlon Brando is in the game, and we have three forms of Don Vito's voice, because it's a ten-year period - so we have the real Brando, when the Don is in the hospital and he's old, when he's recovering and when he's in his dying years; we supplement that with the Brando from the movie, obviously the lines in the movie we can use.

And then we have an impersonator, like many of the actors who were already dead when we even started the project, to actually give us the voices for the younger Don Vito. With Sonny [Sanito Corleone played by James Caan] and Tom Hagen [played by Robert Duvall], again you'll notice the difference in their voices since thirty years ago. But these guys are actors, Marlon Brando an actor; they know how to perform. So even someone like Abe Vigoda who played [Salvadore] Tessio, recreates that character right in front of you. And when we motion captured James Caan, he was Sonny again... I mean, he just becomes Sonny again - it's amazing.

Kikizo: What kind of improvements do you hope to put into the Xbox 360 version?

Campbell: Well, we're not really talking about it that much at the moment, but personally I think the designers in the team - myself, Mike Olsen and Mike Perry, we're looking for design improvements, rather than just graphical improvements. We know what we're going to get from the 360 in terms of graphical improvements; it's going to be amazing. But we're thinking that the whole attitude towards place-to-place, and locations, is going to be immeasurably improved on the 360, because you're going to be able to read people much better. So instead of doing big crude animations, it's going to be a lot smoother, and we may get to the point when you can see sweat on someone's forehead, it depends - it's still in development, so I can't speak authoritatively.

Kikizo: How could you summarise the effort to make The Godfather game an innovative use of IP for EA?

Campbell: Sometimes it's almost like a little strategy game, and trying to figure out the best way to unlock these 'playgrounds' - it's realistic; how we're acting these characters is very important, and I think that's where we're innovating. And it's big news for EA; hopefully people realise that we're trying to innovate in the game space, in terms of the control and so forth.

The barrier between the controller [system] and the player is getting less and less, and you're getting more sucked into the game's events - that's mostly Mike Olsen doing that direction, and he's just a genius at coming up with the physical way of playing the game - he's a hardcore gamer, you know, he worked on the Tiger swing [gameplay mechanic] when they first started doing that. Beautiful stuff - it even impresses me, and I'm an old hack!

Kikizo: Thanks and good luck with the game's launch.

Kikizo Staff
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