Electronic Arts is preparing to spring The Godfather II on the Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, and PC in February which means that the hype train is pulling out of the station.  I thoroughly enjoyed the original Godfather game when I played the Nintendo Wii version nearly two years ago, so I'm definitely looking forward to this sequel even if I won't be able to physically choke my rivals with the Wii's nunchuk cord this time around.  One of the new gameplay elements featured in Godfather II involves performing favors for your fellow mob Family members and, in turn, convincing others to do favors for you.  What's involved in completing these little missions, you ask?  The Godfather II Creative Director Michael Perry fills us in on the facts behind the favors with this PTB-exclusive explanation.

As Don Vito Corleone once said to Bonasera, "Someday, and that day may never come, I'll call upon you to do a service for me." A Favor is a currency in a mob Family, one that can be called in at any time. In the Godfather II game, Favors come in two forms: Favors from Corrupt Officials, and Favors from people asking for help.

Corrupt Officials exist in every city, and it pays to keep them in your Back Pocket (as Sollozzo once said to Don Vito, about "all of those politicians that you carry around in your pocket like so many nickels and dimes.") When you first meet a Corrupt Official, they'll ask a Favor of you, such as roughing up a rival politician or stealing evidence from a safe. In return, they'll give you a Favor that you can keep in your Back Pocket. These returned Favors include things like putting a Sting on a rival Made Man to lock him up for a few days, rebuilding your bombed businesses, and even springing your Made Men from jail if they happened to get arrested. You can call in a Favor from your Back Pocket at any time, so it is very worthwhile to make deals with every Corrupt Official you find.

Favors are also asked of you by people you meet in the city. You might be asked to smash up a shop, assassinate someone, or even blow up a business. People will have an icon over their head that indicates what they will return in exchange for a Favor. They will offer either Cash or Kill Conditions for Made Men. Doing Favors for Cash is a great way to raise money to spend on Skill Upgrades for you and your Family. There are an unlimited number of Favors available, so you can always raise Cash whenever you need it. And if someone asks you to do a Favor that you'd rather not do, simply decline it or cancel it and do a Favor for someone else.

Sometimes, you might be asked to blow up or smash up one of your own rackets! You could always decline to do the favor, but in the mob world, this is known as insurance fraud. Payouts can be quite nice. In fact, you'll bring in a lot more money from a bombing than you would from that day's racket income. And if you have a "Rebuild Bombed Businesses" Favor in your Back Pocket, it'll be as if nothing happened.

In a previous blog post about Made Men, I described how to kill Made Men permanently by using the appropriate Kill Condition. By doing Favors for people you meet in the cities, you can learn the Kill Conditions for every single Made Man in the game. Remember, it's all about the Made Men in the Godfather II game, so stock up on Kill Condition Favors and put a Hit on every Made Man that you can find.

It's a relief to hear that there are unlimited opportunities for favors available.  All too often I've hit the metaphorical wall with these kinds of objectives in that I need to complete that one last seemingly impossible mission before the next dozen or so goals become available.  Botch a favor, however, and it sounds as if I can just move on to another one and hope for better results.  Bombing my own business to complete a favor makes my organizational tendencies tingle in a sour way, but whatever the Family wants, the Family gets...