Sid Meier, a legendary game developer and creator of titles such as F-15 Strike Eagle, Pirates!, Railroad Tycoon and Civilisation, amongst many, many others, knows a thing or two about game design, so when he speaks or writes on the subject, game developers aught to listen. And when Sid Meier starts talking about mistakes he’s made while developing a game, leading to valuable lessons from which future game designers can learn, those selfsame game developers have to listen.

Case in point: in an article appearing in Game Developer Magazine in January this year (2009), Meier speaks about a mistake he made on a game called Covert Action, in which he tried to cram two disparate and separate games (essentially two types of games) into one product, as Meier says:

“The mistake I made was actually having two games competing with each other… Individually, each part could have been a good game. Together, they fought with each other… Covert Action integrated a story and action poorly because the action was actually too intense - you’d spend ten minutes or so of real time in a mission, and by the time you got out, you had no idea of what was going on in the world.”

This resulted in what Meier calls the ‘Covert Action Rule,’ referencing this mistake he made in Covert Action. This blunder led to a diluted, confusing experience for players, which is a severe problem and definitely not what game developers want to deliver.

When a game contains two disparate, separate games, like Covert Action, but both of those game types fail to live up to the depth and quality of each genre’s respective peers, and the overall tone of the combined products brings words such as ‘lifeless’ and ‘joyless’ to mind, there are going to be even more severe problems. This is unfortunately the case with The Godfather II.

Continue reading El33tonline’s review of The Godfather II for PS3.