The Sopranos: Road to Respect (PS2)

The Sopranos is simply one of the greatest television shows ever to be produced, critically acclaimed and award winning, any fan will tell you how well acted, written and enticing it is. In the unlikely event that you have never heard of "The Sopranos", it is basically about a modern day mafia boss, Tony Soprano, and his 'two families'. The first of which is at home- his wife, daughter and son and secondly, his "crew", the mafia ...
..."Scarface" re-created as games for the PS2 and PSP, HBO have decided to get a 'slice of the pie' as it were, and have teamed up with game developers, THQ (and Studios 7) to give us "The Sopranos: Road to Respect".

Road to Respect is a rather low budget and simple, mission based action game that allows you to play as the character Joey LaRocca, who does not appear in any of the television series so far. In fact, ... more

The Sopranos is simply one of the greatest television shows ever to be produced, critically acclaimed and award winning, any fan will tell you how well acted, written and enticing it is. In the unlikely event that you have never heard of "The Sopranos", it is basically about a modern day mafia boss, Tony Soprano, and his 'two families'. The first of which is at home- his wife, daughter and son and secondly, his "crew", the mafia family that he is the boss of. Now, around the same time that we have seen classic mob films such as "the Godfather" and "Scarface" re-created as games for the PS2 and PSP, HBO have decided to get a 'slice of the pie' as it were, and have teamed up with game developers, THQ (and Studios 7) to give us "The Sopranos: Road to Respect".

Road to Respect is a rather low budget and simple, mission based action game that allows you to play as the character Joey LaRocca, who does not appear in any of the television series so far. In fact, Joey is the son of one of the most infamous FBI informers in the television show, whom I will not provide the name of if you haven't watched season 2 yet! The story starts with a quick introductory animated video clip, which introduces Joey LaRocca and Tony Soprano. It shows a rather low-life and desperate Joey stealing a purse from an innocent lady and running off, however, whilst running off Joey bumps into his dad's close friend, Tony Soprano outside "Satriale's". Tony is furious with Joey and his antics and is quite ashamed that this is what the son of his one-time very close friend has become. So, after pinning Joey up against the wall in typical Soprano fashion, Tony lets Joey go, leaving the purse behind and telling him "maybe we could find you something to do" and this is where the game begins...

As I have mentioned it is a mission based game, in which you have to complete missions in order to advance through the storyline. You are assigned missions by familiar characters such as, Paulie, Christopher and even A.J. The missions are nothing exciting or challenging unlike those in popular mission based games like those in the Grand Theft Auto Series. In fact, in most of the missions you just have to "rough up" a few characters that are causing problems or "whack" certain people. It gets to the point where all the missions play similarly and there is not much variety.

Now this brings me on to the controls and graphics. Well, firstly, the controls are simply awful. It is unbalanced and hard to master, as well as requiring a similar repetitive combination, all of which gets very boring with time and can become quite challenging when there is a number of characters attacking you. They have tried to utilise the use of the analogue stick as has been done very nicely with the Godfather game, but to no avail. It is hard to aim your gunshots or punches, which I what I mean about it being "unbalanced" and loose. There is also a lack of variety in terms of weapons or combination of attacks available as well as technical issues, as there are many glitches when in combat. Obviously I wasn't expecting an incorporated version of Tekken here, but all you can do is punch people about 20 times until they eventually fall down, grapple, and pull off some limited and unimpressive generic moves, which become boring pulling them off twice. Now as far the graphics go, it is a poorly designed game and best described as being "linear". The characters do bear some resemblance to those in the series, but the developers have managed to make them look as non-human like as possible. A feature I did like however, was the visual depiction of popular locations, such as the Bada Bing and Vesuvio's, which were in depth and very accurate. I have been quite negative so far, but there is one very good thing about this game and that is the dialogue, which is quite funny and the fact that they have used the real actors to do the voice-overs, which should appeal to any fans of the show.

So, back to the story, which is in fact quite well written and humourous at times. The ghost of Joey's dead father pops up from time to time and these kinds of 'visions' are typical of the show. Throughout the game, you can earn money from collections, pay tributes to your captains and attempt to gain admiration with the other members of the family through the respect counter. The problem is there is no incentive to collect money, as there is nothing to spend it on! You pay tributes in order to bring your “heat” rating down; otherwise you get “whacked” if you bring too much heat on the family, which is quite realistic though. There is little else to do in the game, other than play a mini version of Texas Hold ‘Em, but even this has a dull interface and is clumsy, which prevents you from being able to play it for a sustained period of time. You can also unlock additional movie clips but these are nothing special and far from interesting and you can pay for a lap dance at the Bing, but even this is the sort of thing that would make a 10 year old child giggle. However, as the storyline begins to progress and you have completed some missions, the game does get slightly engaging, as Joey is due to be “made”. I thought to myself “oh well it’s been pretty rubbish so far, maybe it will get interesting now”, but I was heavily disappointed. After getting my hopes up of the game finally getting better, Joey is “made” and then the credits roll. And to be honest, this is the worst thing about the game; the fact that it is so short. I paid the full price for this game, anticipating something half decent and enjoyable, but I completed it in 2 days and found myself asking, “is this it?”

Overall, this game is way too short, the graphics are poor and there are many technical faults. The controls are also awkward and there is no factor that makes you want to play it again. The music is pretty good throughout but again, nothing special. In terms of game play, I would seriously advise any serious gamer to stay away from this and also anybody else that is not a fan of the show. Any avid Sopranos fans like myself may find it interesting to play alongside characters such as Silvio and Vito and to also hear some of the things that Paulie comes out with! But it really isn’t worth buying the game. It is an evident attempt for HBO to make some easy money off the highly successful series and it doesn’t do any justice for the show itself.

Incredibly simple, linear and poorly designed; this game can definitely be given a miss. Hope this is helpful :) 

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