Scarface: The World is Yours PC Review
Posted by Armando Rodriguez on 10.26.2006
Every dog has it's day.
Scarface: The World is Yours was one of the most awaited games of the year. Combine Grand Theft Auto gameplay with one of the most iconic characters in American pop culture and you have one hell of a package. However, some things hold Scarface back from being a Grand Theft Auto killer. These things should not hold you back from playing this great game at all, just don’t expect anything particularly innovative.
The story is fairly good and starts with the infamous “Say hello to my little friend!” line. From here on you control Tony and rewrite the ending to the movie by helping him escape the mansion that was overrun by goons. With Sosa back in power, Tony has to start from the very bottom and construct his empire once again, one piece at a time.
Graphics
On a PC that meets the requirements, Scarface looks as good as Grand Theft Auto San Andreas did for the PC. The model for Tony Montana looks downright awesome, but some of the other characters in the game look too cartoonish. With so many realistic details in Tony’s model, the others look bland and ripped out of a GTA game. The cars, buildings and everything else look good. My only problem is that the game has random periods of slowdown. Trust me, it is not my PC since I tried playing with a multitude of settings from the highest to the slowest and it always happens at random times. I don’t think it has to do with a lot happening on screen at once, since it rarely happens during heated gun fights or crowded places. Most of the time it happens when you are cruising around the city in a car or boat. Sometimes you might be going down a street packed with cars and people and the game runs fine, other times you are alone in the street and the slow down happens. See, it’s random and it’s the only big blunder against and otherwise solid presentation. It never bogs down to being unplayable, but it is annoying.
Gameplay
The gameplay is just like in Grand Theft Auto. You follow a plot that requires you to complete a variety of missions. The objective is to make money, which is used to buy stuff to keep the plot moving and/or increase your reputation. Missions are standard GTA fare, killing people, protecting people, driving around doing deliveries in a multitude of vehicles and even race missions.
The plot moves along at your own pace since you determine when to do the story missions and when to do side missions. The game rushes you at first, since the initial objective is to get your mansion back, which will work as a safe house for the rest of the game. Once that is out of the way, you can determine your own pace. The idea of the game is to conquer turfs around Miami. Each part of the plot belongs to a different turf. The first missions revolve around buying businesses to serve as fronts for your illicit activities. Each business has a mission for you to accomplish and once the mission is done, the owner will put a price on the store. Then you need to do side missions to get money to buy said store. Missions are done trough leads, each lead gives you a mission that ranges from killing people to protecting a VIP, delivering some goods in a vehicle to certain locations, beat some information out of people and so on. Once this mission is accomplished, the lead will provide you with a contact that will sell you “the stuff”, you know, the coke, yayo, cocaine etc. With this “stuff”, you go around selling it to dealers or some of your fronts to make money, which you need to launder in the bank to “clean” it.
Selling drugs to dealers, getting deals from dealers, laundering money and intimidating people all work with a golf style circular meter. Stop this meter at its peak to intimidate gang members or get the best prices for drugs, or get the lowest interest rate in the bank. Once you master this system, it’s very easy to succeed since the timing is usually the same. Failing at it, especially in the lowest ranges, leads to insane interest rates, high prices for lower amounts of drugs and in the worse case, a violent gun fight.
Other side activities to make money and earn reputation and turf involve street racing and eliminating gangs. Rival gangs are marked with a skull symbol in your map. Be ready for some serious fire fights in these locations since you need to eliminate every single gang member to eliminate the gang permanently and earn the turf percentage points.
Reputation is a big part of the game and the best way to do so is to spend money. The game’s Pimp my Mansion feature allows you to buy a bunch of stuff, like Plasma TV’s and even the ashes of Manny(Tony’s former associate) to décor your mansion. You can buy stuff from anywhere, but you activate the feature at your mansion and then you can run around and place stuff wherever you want. You can also spend money on cars and boats (one of my personal favorites) and henchmen like drivers and assassins. The driver is really important since stealing random cars like in GTA gets you intro trouble quickly. You can call your driver any time and he will deliver any of your vehicles and/or boats to your location. Don’t worry about damaged cars or leaving your auto behind, it will always pop back to the mansion and you can repair the damages for very small fees. Repairing a totaled car for $2,000 is a bargain.
Gun fights are more satisfying than in other similar games. The lock on system works like a charm. Weapons are your standard assortment of guns, sub machine guns, rifles, shotguns, machetes, baseball bats and chain saws. The game also tosses in the “Balls Meter” for good measure. In it you get balls for shooting people in the head, arms, legs and even left and/or right nut. You also get points for using your fists, taunting victims, intimidating gang members, completing conversations and driving like a maniac. When the meter is full, you can unleash Rage Mode that makes you invincible and gives you unlimited ammo for a brief period of time, with the added bonus that you recover health for each kill while on Rage Mode.
Finally, the game encourages you to stay away from random acts of violence. Tony refuses to shoot random pedestrians and cops since that is not his “style”. You can still do it if you please, but at least the game puts a leash on the mindless violence.
Sound
The sound is really good. Guns sound like guns, cars and boats have their own distinctive noises, the voices are awesome(the guy who does Tony sounds incredible) the city sounds and feels alive at all times and the soundtrack features at least a couple of songs from every genre imaginable.
Lifespan
This game will last you as much as you want it to. You can rush trough the missions and gain reputation levels only when necessary to continue, or you can have fun being Tony Montana and trying to buy the world. I am taking the later approach and it is really fun to have so many car choices and a pimped out mansion. The thing is, that much like GTA, missions get repetitive, since they follow similar styles. While GTA, especially San Andreas, manages to disguise the repetitiveness with plot points and gimmicks, Scarface feels very barebones in this regard. If the mission is about a delivery, it will play the same no matter which car you are given to use. If it’s about killing people, expect to see a couple of gang members hanging out and a huge firefight breaking up. This only happens with the side missions since the story missions are usually more entertaining and sometimes feel like a streamlined third person shooter and less like an open world game. Like I mentioned above, the game lasts you as much as you make it, but once it is done, I don’t think you’ll want to play trough it again for a long time.
Fun Factor
Between the killing, drug selling, cursing and funny conversations, this game is really fun. You do feel like Tony Montana at times.
Overall
If you expect a Grand Theft Auto killer, you will be disappointed. But if you want a GTA style game with a cool main character, then you will be in heaven. Minor glitches aside, this is a great game and should quench your thirst for GTA style games until Rockstar comes out with GTA IV.
Graphics
7.5
As good as GTA on the PC. Has some slowdown issues and other minor glitches.
Gameplay
8.0
It's really fun to play and draws you into being Tony Montana.
Sound
8.0
Realistic sound effetcs, really good voiceover and a huge and varied soundtrack.
Lasting Appeal
8.0
Lots of stuff to do and the open ended nature will make it last as much as you want it to.
Fun Factor
8.0
Really fun game that mixes GTA with a pop culture icon.
