Ever since Electronic Arts announced they were creating a video game based on the first chapter of The Godfather, fans have been eagerly waiting to see how the world of the Corleone family would translate into the digital realm. And while turning an Oscar-winning film into a playable game may seem like a daunting task, Full Sail Game Development graduate Jameson Durall has been hard at work at EA’s Redwood Shores studio, helping to make sure the adaptation lives up to the source material.
“Living up to people’s expectations is tough,” Durall admits with a laugh. “But I think it’s come along really well, and I don’t think people will be disappointed. It’s definitely a challenge to make sure that we are careful of the fans. This is a huge, high profile project, so it’s going to get a lot of exposure. And with that kind of pressure, we made sure we did it right!”
Keeping the flavor of the film intact has been very important to the team, and Durall assures that Godfather fans will soon feel at home as they delve into the digital criminal underworld he’s helped to create. “It’s based on the first Godfather movie,” Jameson explains. “You play an up and coming gangster whose storyline is in parallel with the characters and events from the movie, so you see the things that happen in the film from someone else’s point of view. You’ll do things for the Don, and you’ll help out with some of those things that you actually saw in the movie.”
Set to hit stores this spring, the game has been developed simultaneously for the PC, Playstation 2, Xbox, and the Xbox 360. As Durall’s first title for Microsoft’s next-generation console, The Godfather added some unique new challenges to the development cycle. “It’s difficult to learn a new console at the beginning, when you’re trying to learn the tools and its abilities, but it’s always exciting to see what you can push out of it,” he says. “You learn very early on to be very realistic with that, though. You just find the best way you can to push the system to get the most that you can out of it. With technology moving the way it does in this industry, you never stop learning.”
Besides being his 360 debut, The Godfather also marks Durall’s first title for Electronic Arts – he previously lent his talents to 2004’s acclaimed Xbox title, Oddworld Stranger’s Wrath. “EA has been awesome,” he exclaims. “This has been a great transition for me, because I ended up at a new company working on something that was really high profile. I mean, of all the projects you could be placed on at a new studio, this one is pretty high up there! I also really love the fact that because of EA’s size, there’s always several projects going on. So when this project ends, there’s a lot of different options there that I can move into.”
Five years after graduating, Jameson Durall continues to feed his passion for the gaming industry at Electronic Arts. And with the Xbox 360 paving the way for a new era of interactive games, Durall is more excited than ever about the future of the medium. “The industry is definitely growing. Especially with the next-gen projects getting so expensive and requiring more people. I mean, there’s almost 300 people working on this game! It’s getting to be one of those things where if you’re really interested in the gaming industry, you can probably find a way to get involved in it.
“There are lots of different avenues in this industry,” he continues, “and when I started I thought I was going to be a coder – but when I got out there I realized that I had a lot more fun, and I felt a lot more comfortable on the creative end of things…. More than anything, follow your instincts, because when you love what you do, it makes things so much better. I feel very lucky, very blessed, and very happy doing what I’m doing here every day.”
