I got about 15 minutes alone with The Godfather and I was pretty impressed. The game is a sort of a Grand Theft Auto but set in a world where your actions have much deeper and lasting repercussions.

The game is set in the 1930's New York of Mario Puzo's Godfather, casting you as a young up-and-coming henchman in the Corleone family and your decisions dictate your future.

The plot is drawn from the book and film, but only loosely. The team decided to just include a dozen "touchstone moments" from the Puzo work and instead mostly write their own stuff and tie it into the over-arching storyline.

You have 10 neighborhoods to work your muscle-flexing, window-breaking, cop-bribing ways in. The game is fairly open ended; you can get assignments by talking to your boss or just sorta roam around and try to extend the reach of your family.

I walked in to a butcher's shop and hit him up for a little payoff. When he said no I took a bat, conveniently located in a nearby corner, and went to town on his glass display case, cash register and scales. (You see, if I had beaten him to death he couldn't pay me.)

The Godfather uses a intuitive and visceral sort of control set-up that mimics Fight Night. To swing a bat, for instance, you pull back on the right thumbstick and then slam it forward. To grab someone, you pull in both triggers and hold. To choke you click down on both sticks, and to throttle you wiggle the sticks.

The shooting is also pretty cool. You can pinpoint specific body parts when you shoot. So if a guy is firing at you, you can choose to take him out with a headshot, kneecap him or shoot the gun out of his hand.

I also love the animations in the game. I unleaded a Tommy Gun into this old woman walking by and she jittered around, hands stuck straight down by her side as the bullets winged into her. As soon as the clip emptied, she slumped to the floor.

The game is a fantastic blending of GTA-mechanics and old-school mafioso violence. I think this could shape up to be one of the best games on the Xbox 360.