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".

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.

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?”