The Godfather is a riot well not quite in this game you take the role of an underworld gang leader with the aim of domination.

You will recruit and name top-level enforcers and bag-men, establish rackets and premises, and hire literally hundreds of hoods to back up your claims with muscle.

Beginning in with just a small back street corner you must try to expand at the expense of others which is no easy job, with all the player bordering each other and the option of moving anywhere on the game map confrontation is inevitable. Because every player is in close proximity it makes you a high risk candidate to be blown to smitherines. However with careful probing of their territory and setting up raids and hits finding their strengths and weaknesses you could find yourself eliminating the opposition.

Set in Chicago of the 30s, Godfather is the heir of It's a Crime! and St.Valentine's Day Massacre PBM games. Players take gangsters from different ethnic groups, discover rackets and rise to dominate the city. There is a lot of scope for diplomacy and double-crossing, and you can cooperate with or fight any other player in the game. There also is a solid grounding in the history of the period: where the design departs from historical accuracy in the interests of gameplay, this is almost always spelled out in the rulebook or informations sheet. The combat system is rather simple but well detailed, and the resource management is also important, while the game system emphasises strategy and diplomacy.

For more information please visit the Pagoda web site or The PBM Locomotive.