EA sent over some interesting promotional materials on their upcoming movie game,
The Godfather.
We're hoping to score an exclusive interview with someone on the team
at a later date but until then check out some screens and get some
information about the game from the source.
Q&A – Brooklyn.
Steven Smith, World Designer
What makes Brooklyn a unique neighborhood in The Godfather?
Brooklyn is a neighborhood located along the riverfront
between two of New York City’s main bridges, the
Brooklyn and the Manhattan.
Both bridges serve as two key life lines connecting Brooklyn to the rest of New York City. Most
of the Brooklyn businesses are located in this
core area, which reflects a rather grungy working class neighborhood with
warehouses, industrial buildings, dock sides, town house walk ups and Federal
housing estates. Near the end of the Brooklyn
Bridge is the Brooklyn City/Borough Hall,
the civic area and an upscale pocket neighborhood reflecting Brooklyn Heights.
How is Brooklyn 'planned' differently than the others?
Brooklyn in the Godfather
game world context is a very stylized version of the actual neighborhood.
The main area we wanted to focus upon is the industrial waterfront area.
Thus the character of the river front area is emphasized for Brooklyn
with attention to the Vinegar Hill and the Down Under the Manhattan Bridge
Overpass (or DUMBO as it is known) regions. The outer areas of Brooklyn
are Brooklyn Heights, the Borough Hall, and a Federal
Housing Estate near the old navy yard.
What key movie and
game locales are found in Brooklyn?
One of the key movie moments takes place in Brooklyn. You’ll have to dispose of a certain
traitor to the family. In terms of general game play, Brooklyn is the
neighborhood belonging to the Tattaglias, and with this family as an early
adversary the player will get quite familiar with Brooklyn
in the course of the game.
The Tattaglia Family was known a bunch of sleazy pimps and
drug pushers. Do certain parts of Brooklyn
reflect that?
We had this idea very much in mind when developing the Brooklyn neighborhood. We wanted this neighborhood to
project a grungy and industrial décor, and so we opted to emphasize the water
front region as the setting for the neighborhood core. In the context of
fifty years ago, areas such as the Brooklyn
water front were not desirable places to visit due to the heavy commercial
activity of loading and unloading of goods and produce. Such areas are
off the main the path and not inviting to the general public. Thus it’s an
ideal setting for illegal activities.
What is your favorite
location in Brooklyn and why?
In Brooklyn there are two
areas I like. One area is around the Brooklyn Borough Hall. This
building projects a grand civic appearance and has attached to it a modest city
park. It’s inside that park that the player can meet up with black market
sellers. The challenge however is that there are enemy gun men who like
to wait in ambush in the park. The player can get a pretty good if not
vicious shoot out going in this area, and it’s not guaranteed that you will
make it out in one piece. The other area I like is centered around the
enemy warehouse in the waterfront region. I feel that this area
really reflects the Brooklyn waterfront region of the late 1940’s, with the Manhattan Bridge visible behind it to one side and
a huge power plant building looming in the background. And as is the case
with all enemy warehouses, it’s a location for a guaranteed and ruthless fire
fight.
Q&A – Brooklyn.
Steven Smith, World Designer
What makes New Jersey unique in the
world of The Godfather?
New Jersey
is the only neighborhood in the Godfather world which has a different
environmental feel to it. It’s patterned after a traditional small
American town, particularly of the type found in the outer regions of Manhattan. Though
most of the buildings are made of brick they are lower in height, typically two
or three floors. Many of the city blocks are not populated with tenement
buildings but instead they are occupied with detached houses usually with
corner businesses at the end of such blocks. The most noted feature of New Jersey is the town
square park located in the middle of the neighborhood, complete with a band
shell structure and community type venues located around it such as a bank and
a church.
New Jersey is considered by many to be the ‘armpit of
the Northeast’. Does that show at all in The Godfather version of Jersey?
In the Godfather world New Jersey is a neighborhood that conveys an
industrial ambiance. Through no fault of its own that’s the nature of
such communities circa 1945 that were located along water way transit
points. It’s an outlying residential community located along the
waterfront of the Hudson River, and so it’s
going to have warehouses, power plants and rail yards.
What type of research
went into re-creating 1945-1955 New Jersey?
The starting point for research was to look at aerial
photographs of New Jersey along the Hudson River region. Much of the area appears grid
like and uniform, so little things such as city parks, angled streets relative
to the grid layout, and rail yards in urban areas tend to stand out and
identify an area that can represent a symbolic New Jersey town for the Godfather world.
These elements along with the locations of the Lincoln and Holland Tunnel toll
plazas to the north and south respectively really identified the general
location for the New Jersey
neighborhood. Other research pertains to looking at the types of
buildings which are representative of many of the outlying neighborhoods of Manhattan such as the two
story brick storefront and detached housing typologies.
The Stracci's are considered the Butchers of Jersey
because of their ruthless ‘business’ methods. What type of trouble might
you find in Jersey if you snoop around in the
wrong areas?
Well for one thing most nearly all the business venues in New Jersey begin as
Stracci owned locations. Thus when the player begins to take over a
couple of these venues and gets the attention of the Stracci’s, the player – if
injured - will need to take care when trying to get to a safe house or clinic.
The Stracci’s will be highly visible on many of the jersey streets. Also,
snooping around the main rail yard can yield some interesting if not altogether
dangerous results.
What’s your favorite
area in Jersey and why?
I like the area around the Stracci compound and the rail
yard. I find the Stracci compound to be an interesting challenge because
the entry to the compound can be approached from three directions and so the
player has some choices on an attack approach. The rail yard is a big
open area where it might be possible to lose or neutralize a pursuing vehicle,
and its one of the approaches to the Stracci compound
