Scarface: The World is Yours (PS2)

The lowdown:
It's hard not to think of Grand Theft Auto when you see this game, not least because Vice City ripped off most of the movie's soundtrack and key scenes. Although it features lots of automotive carnage and third person shooting, Scarface does try its best to offer some new features, as you buy fronts for your cocaine business, launder money and slowly raise your reputation with gangs across Miami. Where it falls down though is in the story missions, which require you to complete a lot of laborious sub quests and often include some fairly silly objectives. The otherwise authentic atmosphere is usually just enough to keep things ticking over though, particularly for movie fans.

Most exciting moment:
The best part of the game is definitely the combat and the one area where the game is definitely superior to Grand Theft Auto. Aiming is helped by a handy lock-on system and there's even a first-person rage mode for when Tony's maxes out his "balls" meter.

Since you ask:
Although Al Pacino's real face is used in the game, he hasn't recorded any new dialogue. However, the game does feature original cast members Steven Bauer and Robert Loggia, as well as celeb voiceovers from the likes of Ricky Gervais, James Woods and Cheech & Chong.

The bottom line:
No Grand Theft Auto beater but an interesting companion to the movie.- HARRISON DENT

This game looks like a good contender for the gta series as my title suggests some of u may know what scarface is some may not, well if you know it then you'll be happy to hear that it is built around the story line of 'what if tony montana survived'which is very exciting as the way he died i thought left it half done.This game comes out on many speculated dates and ratingsas in here it says 12 butin another place 18 when or if we order it we'll find out but i have ordered it and it looks brilliant so 5 stars from me


The New Daddy   December 14, 2006
scum (Somerset, UK)
10 out of 10 found this review helpful

This game truly is the mutt's nuts. I am a big fan of GTA, thought San Andreas set the standard for free-roaming violence and would not be beaten until the next instalment. How wrong I was. I have only completed 34% of this game so far, but wow. It has been fantastic. The whole premise is far more realistic from the start. You cannot draw weapons on the streets without attracting heat from the cops, if you wipe out gangs, you get much more heat from those remaining, making drug deals more difficult; similarly victims die in a far more convincing fashion and stay dead, so you can rob them of their weapons/ money much later, instead of the bodies vanishing after 15 seconds. And if you take a henchman on a shooting mission, he will waste many gang-members ( whereas in GTA, if a mouse farts in a field 2 miles away, your gang of 5 brothers is reduced to just you). The general flow of the game via the mobile phone, gives the feeling of being in complete control of how you build your empire. The cars handle ok, the interaction between characters realistic, the graphics good, and I am generally having a real blast. Time, where did you go? There are lots of nice touches - the taunting is a hoot, the sky-high markers make rendez-vous' and checkpoints much easier to get to, the gangs are tough and hilariously-voiced. In fact, all the voices are great. What more could you want? Most of the missions I have completed so far have not been restricted by stupid time limits, so you truly have the ability to decide where, when and how you want to strike. And if you get complacent about any of the crimes you are committing, you WILL fail; so it may appear easy when you set off, but often proves often anything but.

On the flipside, some of the missions and `side' missions can be quite tricky, especially first time out - sometimes you wonder how you will ever complete it/ them; and you are often pitched from one mission directly into the next, without a chance to save, so be prepared. I also understand that the missions get considerably more difficult after I finish this phase (Miami), so I hope I am not back here in 2 weeks moaning about impossible gameplay. We shall see.




Very dissappointed   December 2, 2006
neal (Norwich, UK)
7 out of 27 found this review helpful

Regardless of whether you are a fan of the film or not, a game like this should stand up in it's own right as a superb game. Sadly it doesn't.

It's clearly a rip off of the GTA format which has been poorly aped by numerous games for years now. Nobody does it like Rockstar North though.
The real key to the GTA series is that it's free roaming. You can drive around in any GTA city and get in your own adventures without going in to full missions. It gives you the freedom to be as manaical or sensible as you like. The environments of GTA are involving compared to the scenery just being there in Scarface.

The swearing is gratuitous and seems like the producers of scarface were just trying to go one step beyond Rockstar. It gets repetative and started to grate on me after an hour or so. The missions are weak and don't begin with a cut scene which does tend to lessen the feeling of involvement with the game. It's clear that while the game producers wanted to compete with Rockstar on some levels, they just didn't really have the guts or the sense of humour to pull it off. ie. you can't waste a pedestrian walking down the street perhaps because that would be immoral and Scarface says things like that's against my code etc. However, to progress in the game you will have to buy/steal and then sell cocaine. The words double standard spring to mind.

If the producers/ level designers had the guts to really let rip with Scarface, it probably would have been better than San Andreas. It was really let down by the inhibitions of the game designers (the lead designers have to carry the can for that one!). You can't go being moral about in game violence when it is the basis for the story of that game.

The scenery design is excellent but ceases to be a "world" because of the lame way the game plays. The conversation idea is a good one and quite amusing for a while.

Basically, it's dissappointing and repetative and no matter how much praise people may give it, I'd give Scarface a 1/10 in comparison to GTA San Andreas' 10/10.


"I'm Tony Montana, baby"   October 22, 2006
C. Haydon (London, UK)
6 out of 8 found this review helpful

Tragically, I've never seen the Scarface movie. Now, before you dismiss this review because you yourself are an avid fan of the flick, and you can't bring yourself to trust my opinion, give me a chance.
The likenesses with GTA in this game are obvious (although anything these days that is free roam is automatically labelled as a "GTA copier/beater/underling). Essentially, you are free to cruise the streets of Miami, and whilst the map is no where near as vast as GTA: SA, it's big enough. People who simply draw the comparisons between the two games, and decide that GTA is better have clearly either not played the game fully, or are just plain refusing to see the truth. Scarface may not have the size of GTA's map, but it makes up for it with a brilliant drugs distribution network.
Very basically, you complete missions to unlock a supplier, these can range from small suppliers, to massive ones (which we'll get to later). Early on, you'll just be getting small suppliers that will give you a small amount of coke. However, you simply cannot just "click X to buy coke!". Instead, it involves a mini-game. You have to hold down circle up to a point on a meter. If you hit the end, you get the best deal. If you hit the middle, it'll on be average. And if you go over the top and go past the end of the meter, you'll have a little trouble on your hands, as your supplier won't be best pleased that you aren't paying. This coke can now be sold for money, either by using street dealers (selling coke uses the same mini game as the suppliers), or by providing your purchased fronts with the white stuff.
So we move onto the fronts; the drug area of the game is most likely the most fun, and it also makes most of your cash, but in order to progress in the game, you need to take over Miami, and to do this, you need fronts. At the beginning of the game, after the movie's story is rewritten, and you survive the mansion attack, you have nothing. Therefore, you need to start making money and buying up fronts to expand your business. There are a set number of fronts in each area of Miami (four areas in total), and you have to buy each one before you can progress onto the next area. Once you have all the fronts, you will need to "acquire" the storehouse. From this storehouse, using the large suppliers you will unlock, you can distribute "keys" (very large amounts of cocaine), to your fronts.
Story missions kick in when you achieve necessary "Reputation" points. These missions can be fun, but there is also a HUGE difficulty curve once you conquer the first area of Miami. I haven't played the whole game yet, but when you get onto some of the missions around that point, they can be incredibly hard. With few checkpoints, and tough enemies, without the right guns and the necessary skill, you'll be dead before you know it.
To make things easier, as your reputation as a druglord increases, you'll unlock new weapons and "exotics". These exotics range from new cars, boats and henchmen, to new styles for your mansion, investments, and furniture to pimp your home. Undoubtedly, some of the coolest exotics are the henchmen. You can purchase a Driver, Boat Pilot, Enforcer, Assassin, and Weapons Dealer. I won't spoil all the things that these guys do, but you can probably guess. If you are a fan of the movies, you'll love being able to call up your driver after a couple of drinks at the Babylon club, and have your sexy sleek sports car pull up in front of you.
I don't know about the PC version, but the PS2's graphics are just fine. They surpass GTA's blocky hands and etc, and the Miami's buildings and exteriors look good. Interiors (such as your fronts, which incidently you don't need loading times to get into), look just good too. So the graphics are nothing to be awed at, but nor are they generations behind as someone suggested before.
So the negatives are simply the steep difficulty curve, and sometimes the cars handling, which can feel heavy and make cornering with power slides tough. However the positives run far too long for me to list, and I wouldn't want to spoil half of them for you. Great game, and with it's huge drug dealing lifespan, great gameplay, and music not only from modern era's, but also the origian Scarface OST, whether or not you have seen or are a fan of the movie, this is a great purchase.

Graphics - 7. Good, but not superb
Gameplay - 9. Great drug dealing, amongst other things.
Sound - 9. Brilliant music. Scarface OST included.
Lifespan - 9. What did you do when GTA got boring? Shoot gangsters? Why not distribute drugs instead?