It was a bright day in New York City, and while most of the residents of the Big Apple were already getting very little to think about their day, Joey Verola wondered if it was today that he would become a man or be shook. Welcome to the life of a man whose career in the mob has spanned three decades as he shares his story of glory, blood, and bullets. Made Man for PlayStation 2 weaves an intriguing narrative, but when it comes to the gameplay, this one comes close to floating with the dolphins.
Gamers play the role of Joey Verola as he looks back to his childhood and his life working for the "family" as he is called by the manager. He assumes this could be the day he was welcomed into the family as a man-made... or maybe it was the day he got a bullet in the back of his head. Anyway, he's sharing his story, and it's an entertaining one. The game follows Verola's life while he was on his 1968 service tour in Cambodia during the Vietnam War, where he rescued Johnny "Eggs" Biondo during the search. After the fight, Eggs takes Joey to his thankful Mafia Don dad, who gives Joey a position in the family and his first job. Joey accepts the role, and from there, we pursue his career that leads him from the 1970s to the 1980s.
The game jumps to various times, but the game actually starts in 1971 when Joey is asked to transport a truck transporting tobacco to a destination in North Carolina. Stopping for a coffee, Joey's truck is hijacked by a gang of what he terms "inbred hicks" who have come together with a rival family to loot from his New York family. Without a second of pause, Joey follows the truck and we follow him into the back alleys and even a marsh full of hungry crocs. As he shares his adventure, Joey takes us to different times and different locations. One mission takes place in the cemetery as rival gangsters threaten to scrub you out, and another mission is to knock out a printing press.
Most of the time, however, Joey spends the game killing anyone and everyone that gets in his way. Blessed with the ability to use dual weapons from revolvers to rifles, Joey must have become the perfect death machine. He's also handy with explosives (thanks to his Vietnam tour) and because he's an angry man, he can get into a killing rage (called Kill Rush) that you can trigger when his Kill Rack meter is full. He can also execute wounded enemies with the Retort Kill (the game is split-screen and you'll watch Joey finish the wounded enemy with a health boost). Joey will leap for a cover due to the Hop to Cover symbol that appears on the surfaces and holds to the walls until the enemy has pinned it.
Although we've seen gestures like this before, Made Man's handling of action is bad. You're not going to find a reticule, and Joey's not going to hit an opponent. You're going to have to manually aim Joey's guns at the enemy, and while you can zoom in a bit, you're going to find it hard to reach moving targets. By the way, you'll find very few opponents who can dive to cover up or jump out of the way of your gunfire. Mainly, all of the opponents you're going to meet will simply stand there as you target them. You may be out there killing a gangster while his pal just waits for his turn to get a bullet to his back. There are still a variety of glitches here, such as attackers that can fire through doors, vanish through walls, and when you think you're behind a safety shield, the enemy can somehow manage to get a clear shot. And the jump for the cover move is executed too slowly and not as smoothly.
Visually speaking, Rendered Man can be surprisingly comprehensive at some stages and extremely short-lived at others. For eg, a cemetery level reveals some truly detailed surroundings, such as the New York skyline and the many rows of tombstones. Then you play Vietnam's stage, and the jungle looks dull and lifeless, and the warehouse missions just look too plain. Character designers look terrible, and their lips don't move through talks. There are moments where both the cut-out scenes and the special effects appear as they belong to the original PlayStation.
Like the graphics, the sound of the game can be both good and simply poor. For instance, the soundtrack of the game is generally pretty decent and delivers music that has the right feel for a particular amount of time in the game. The voice acting is perfect as well (though packed with more profanity than the episode of The Sopranos) and tries to portray how these Goodfellas really speak. Again, the sound effects are bad, and anything from gunshots to explosions doesn't have the right ring to it.
Unfortunately, even with a fascinating plot, Made Man clearly falls flat in the Action Department because of a variety of glitches that won't fail to frustrate. Although there are some enjoyable stages here, it's hard to love the shootouts because the controls make it all too clumsy, from shooting to diving for a cover-up. In short, Made Man just lacks all the material that could make this a surprising action game with a gang twist.
