Scarface: The World Is Yours

"Say hello to my little friend! Gives GTA a run for its money."

"What's coming to you, Tony?"
"The world, chico. And everything in it."
In case you have been living under a rock, Scarface was a highly successful movie released in 1983, starring Al Pacino, Steven Bauer and Michelle Pfeiffer. The success of the movie didn't come immediately, it took a while for the success to boom and was highly influential in the hip hop market. It comes to no surprise that a game would come around the corner eventually, but how would the storyline go? Due to Tony Montana being killed at the end of the movie, many thought it was impossible. The developers, Radical, decided to place the players in an alternative position: what if Tony Montana survived the encounter at the end of the movie? This of course opens up many new possibilities for the Scarface storyline, and could make out for an impressive game for Scarface fans especially, but also for other fans of the action/adventure genre. Does it? Find out in my review of Scarface: The World is Yours.

Graphics
Being set in Miami the game can be very comparable to Grand Theft Auto: Vice City's graphics. I would, in fact, say that after playing both, Scarface looks like a more polished version than Vice City's graphics. Going down the road at high speed and passing a herd of palm trees, it really is a nice sight. The sea is really, really blue and has that tropical Californian feel to it. Waves usually shoot up when your driving along with your super fast boat. The buildings across Miami look to have a lot more detail about them. In the game there are fronts which you can actually enter and browse, similar to Vice City and the shops such as Ammunation (I know, I'm probably annoying you with the comparisons to Vice City - apologies). These range from outdoor theatres, donut shops, hotels (including the Sun Ray Hotel from the movie), pawn shops, record shops, highly detailed banks - the list is pretty wide. I thought these were a very nice touch, walking into a record shop and seeing people looking along the racks for records, or two people sat down eating their donuts at the donut place. Little things like these really add to that whole graphical experience.

Tony himself is well modelled in the game. You can see his scar across his left eye and the face does actually look like Tony. He also has wide options of different suits and shirts to wear which is very nice. What's Tony Montana without the slick dressing? Yeah, you can also wear the Hawaiian shirt. Minor characters such as pedestrians don't look too impress, but that's understandable. It's the same case as in Grand Theft Auto. I guarantee you will not step to check and spend time talking about how awful the minor characters look. After all, it doesn't really matter. You can't expect a busy road of pedestrians to look life-like. Maybe in next-gen.

Cars too are well designed. They all capture that "80's feel" about them. In the Exotics menu, where you can buy cars as well as many other luxuries, each vehicle has a graphic featuring the vehicle with their name usually in writing which you would see in an 80's catalog. I'm sure people before they play Scarface are wondering how many vehicles are actually in the game. I was genuinely surprised with the list myself. There are 30 cars which you can purchase, along with 12 boats. This isn't the final numbers. I have seen lesser cars roaming the streets which you cannot purchase. You won't really see multiple cars of the same type on one road.

Sound/Audio
Another aspect I was surprised about was the music in Scarface. During the opening credits I was speechless at how many well known bands from the 80's they have acquired the license for. The original Scarface soundtrack is included, so tracks such as Push it to the Limit, She's on Fire, and Rush Rush are all there. Play these while driving and that's the full Scarface experience right there. Not only that but there are many others. Motorhead, Iggy Pop, Johnny Cash, Judas Priest, etc. The game operates a tape player interface. You just bring up the menu, select Music and you can choose any track you wish, along with mixing different playlists to play only your favorites. Rock, Reggae, 80's Pop, Hip Hop - choices for everyone. I am really impressed with the Music in the game. No generic tunes here, just great 80's music.

There were many questions during the game's development, but I don't think there was one asked so frequently as this one: Who will do the voice of Tony Montana, will it be Al Pacino? Sadly, it isn't. Pacino's heavy smoking has caused his voice to change, so he couldn't do the brilliance of Tony Montana again. However, I say sadly, yet this really isn't the case. From what I know, Al Pacino's chauffeur in the movie, Andre Sogliuzzo, lends his voice for Tony and he was hand picked by Pacino himself. During the opening scenes, I was really thinking; "Wow, I'm in love. This IS Tony Montana!". Seriously, Andre Sogliuzzo does a really impressive job of portraying Tony in the game. No faults at all with the voice acting for Tony. Other notable voice actors include Jay Mohr, Michael Rapaport, Vida Guerra, Ricky Gervais, Wilmer Valderamma, Bam Margera, James Woods, Cheech Marin, Tommy Chong and not forgetting two original cast members of the movie: Steven Bauer (Manny) and Robert Loggia.

Gameplay
With Tony being driven out by Alejandro Sosa, Tony aims to rebuild his former empire. That's exactly what you drive for in the game: rebuilding the Montana empire. This means purchasing fronts, drug rackets, eliminating rival gangs, and taking warehouses to store your drugs. There are four main territories in the Miami area: Little Havana, Downtown, South Beach and North Beach. You start in Little Havana and work your way up aiming to gain complete control of all turf. Not only these four places, there are also islands which you can access by riding your boats down to them. You can get more drug options for these islands, as of course, the law enforcement in the area is much less than in Downtown or South/North Beach, for example. After collecting these drugs you have to drive all the way back to your warehouses, dodging sea pirates from the Islands to Miami, and then finally the Coast Guards in Miami itself.

Not all drugs are gained this way, though. You can carry drugs yourself but these are measured in grams, not kilograms. There are many street dealers where you can sell these drugs to at a rate of $10,000 per 100 grams. Although this seems like a nice way to gain money at the beginning, it really isn't as you process. The big money comes from your warehouses and selling the drugs in kilo format.

One of the features I really like is that you can customize Tony's mansion to fit your likes. Don't like the original interior of the mansion from the movie? No problem, you can purchase an upgrade to modify it to a more modern look, or a royalty look. That's not all. You can also buy furniture and unique collectibles. As you progress you unlock more expensive items. Some of the noticeable items are Manny and Gina's remains or even a space suit. You can place these items in the mansion anywhere you like. As we're on the topic of things you can purchase with money, you can also buy henchman for your cause. Drivers, boat pilots, enforcers and an assassin. Drivers and boat pilots will bring the chosen vehicle to you upon request (after a quick and usually demanding phone call from Tony). Once you purchase an assassin you can choose to play this character yourself and do things to help out Tony, which is a pretty neat feature. If your a guy who earns the major bucks, you can always purchase some investments. There are eight investments you can invest in. Montana Legal, for example, will make the cops turn more of a blind eye towards you. Montana Records unlocks more music tracks for you to play, etc etc. It really does make you feel like you are rebuilding Tony's empire. Keep in mind though, these investments are really expensive. They do not sell for cheap.

Banks are included in Scarface. This is, of course, a place to store your money, legal or not. You can also save your game here. Banks place interest on your money, and it is up to you to lower it. When you go to launder your money, you will get a wheel and have to hold the T key. If you let go of the T key and it lands near to the very end of the wheel, the lower the interest is. If you miss and it stops at the beginning of the wheel, the bank will place very high interest and collect a lot of money from you. This also operates for things such as drug deals and when you intimidate other gangs. For drug dealers, if you succeed, you will earn more money. If you don't, you will earn less or sometimes, the drug dealer will attack you. This is challenging. Picture this: You've just distributed a high amount of drugs to your fronts and need to place the money in your bank and save your game. The pressure is on to get as low interest as possible. For example if you earn ten million, if the interest is high the bank may take about 2 million of that, maybe more.

Fronts are included in the game. These are independent businesses which you can invest in to gain more turf control of the place where the business is located. These consist of a mission to complete for the owner (unique missions with its own cutscenes, all for different businesses - so it isn't boring and dull), and then you have to buy the business itself. Of course, hotels are going to cost a lot more than your local donut place. The more fronts you own the more drugs you can distribute to these businesses, which means more bucks. As I described earlier, the fronts are all original and very interesting places to explore. Usually there's a rival gang situated near the business so it might be wise to take them out. When you take over a front the Montana logo will appear on a part of the business' structure. That's pretty cool. It really does look like you actually own the place.

To keep up with the realism, you cannot get away with everything, even if you're Tony Montana. GTA has the wanted levels, whereas Scarface operates on 'heat'. You have police heat and gang heat. Of course, the higher your police heat the more cops will come after you, and the higher your gang heat the more gangs will come after you. You can lower these by paying money. It usually costs about $500,000 to lower them completely if they are full. It is wise to do this when your on an important distribution mission or something. When your gang heat is to the max, all rival gangs will attack you on sight no matter what. This is frustrating. When your gang heat is lower you can actually talk (rather, intimidate) the gang to prevent a full scale war. When you're distributing drugs and travelling from the Islands to Miami, sea pirate attacks will be more often if your gang heat is high.

Depending on your actions, your "balls" statistic will rise. When you attack somebody, you can taunt them in typical Tony Montana fashion and gain more "balls". If you drive on the wrong side of the road for a long while this will increase the stat also, or if you are a lunatic on the road and get some near misses of other vehicles, it will rise. The more you taunt and gain "balls" you can enter a mode called Blind Rage. This is particularly useful when you're surrounded by many enemies, and is like the end of the movie when Tony takes on Sosa's mercenaries. This enables some quick kills and also increases your health. That isn't all. As you gain more "balls" this will improve your stature with the ladies and more of them will want to work for you in your mansion. They don't really do anything except stand around, which I thought was pretty disappointing. Would have made more sense to include these in your private bar area or something such as that.

You can also take part in street races and also gambling. The street races can be particularly difficult because you have a time limit to complete the races in. Usually a few seconds can cost you the race. True, this can be highly frustrating, but it certainly adds a challenge to the game. Like in GTA, there is also a Stats option in the main menu. From here you can obviously see your stats for the game, including percent completed, gangs eliminated, time spent playing, total "balls", things purchased - among other things. A cheats menu is included, although I wouldn't really call them "cheats" per se. From here you can replay missions and change Tony's clothes as well as other things.

Replayability
When you complete a mission you can replay them again through the Cheats option in the main menu. These missions are pretty fun and you can definitely replay them again. If you're a big Scarface fan, you will want to play the game through multiple times. Trust me, that's how I feel. There's also the challenge of purchasing everything possible in the game. No small feat, some things are highly costly. If you want to gain complete control over Miami, it will sure take some playing time.

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I think people expected this to be yet another low-par, GTA wannabe. I certainly did, I admit. This definitely isn't the case. I would go as far as saying Scarface possesses a strong challenge to the GTA empire. It's money well spent buying Scarface. Fans of the movie will be in awe at the alternative ending and direction of the storyline, whereas action and adventure fans will love the gameplay that Scarface brings to the table. From what I first expected of this game, I must say Radical has totally proved me wrong and I'm in love with Scarface yet again. Scarface: The World is Yours isn't a game that you should miss out on. If you do, it's your fault.
Say hello to my little friend!
Overall: 9/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/12/06