Sopranos Demands Your Respect Again (The Sopranos (PS2))

Member Name: robertjb

Product:	The Sopranos (PS2)
Date:	27/08/09 (17 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good voice acting, new story

Disadvantages: dialogue system broken, very linear, poor graphics, repetitive and short

I absolutely loved the Sopranos tv show and when I heard that a game of it was being released for the PS2 I was over the moon. You play as Joey La Rocca, the illegitimate son of Pussy, who was whacked in the tv show for being a snitch. La Rocca is a petty crook until Tony takes him under his wing, and this is where the game begins.

The best thing about the game is the superb voice overs which are done by the actors from the tv show, however these are immediately let down by the fact that the graphics in the game are so poor. I could perhaps understand the poor graphics if there was a solid frame-rate but there is not and it does little to make me enjoy the game. The areas to explore in the game are very limited and this frustrated me a lot of the time. I was hoping for a more open world GTA style offering but instead you get shoe-horned into specific locations and are penalised if you stray from the set path.

A lot of the game revolves around combat, and La Rocca has plenty of moves to use to attack rivals and there are also interactive surfaces like table saws however this becomes repetitive as this is the main feature in the game; button bashing. At times it's all too easy and I like a challenge when I'm playing games. I don't want to be able to play straight through a game in a couple of hours without feeling challenged which is what happened here. There is also a dialogue system giving you three choices of tough, smooth or neutral whenever you're talking to a character, however these have no real influence on the final outcome of the game it is quite pointless.

There are also a variety of mini-games to play; poker and slots are available and you can also buy some design art to add to the replay value but to be honest once you've played this game once you won't go back to it again. I was glad that I tried it out though and for many Sopranos fans I would recommend picking it up cheap just to feed their addiction, but for non-fans, stay away!

Summary: A good premise for a game gone wrong as usual, for Sopranos fans only