Introduction

“The world, Chico, and everything in it”

That quote from Tony Montana neatly sums up not only the 1983 movie Scarface but the upcoming open world action game Scarface: The World is Yours. In development for three years at Vancouver based Radical Entertainment, the PC-PS2-Xbox title is getting ready to ship to stores next week and FiringSquad got a chance to travel to Radical’s studios to get a few hours to play the game itself at a recent press event.

The movie itself has become a cult classic and has been especially embraced by the hip-hop crowd and it’s easy to see why. Al Pacino’s over-the-top performance of displaced Cuban criminal Montana trying to build his Miami crime empire is one of the most well known and most imitated in modern movie history. The film itself, written by Oliver Stone and directed by Brian De Palma, is also exaggerated to the extreme with other larger than life characters, massive sets, violent set pieces and an overall sense that the movie takes place in an alternate world where you may be a criminal but you can look good doing it.

The game itself starts just before the movie ends, with Montana facing off against his final attackers at his mansion. Of course, Tony isn’t supposed to die in the game or it would be the shortest open world game in history. Instead you are supposed to shoot everyone you can, escape through a back door, circle around the mansion and make it to your car where your few remaining pals help you get out before the police arrive.

The opening of the game neatly demonstrates a couple of Scarface’s interesting gameplay feature. First up is the Balls Meter (yep, it’s called that), which you fill up by killing your opponents. Extra balls points are given if you shoot them in the right areas of the body. Head shots are instant kills and there are also special points for shooting people in other more sensitive parts of the body. You also get extra points via taunting opponents after you shoot them via pushing a simple button on the controller. Once your Balls Meter is full, you can activate Blind Rage, a brief period where the game switches to a first person perspective and you become invulnerable. Shoot your enemies and you also regenerate your health under Blind Rage. You can free look while shooting which gives you extra points on the Balls Meter, but if you want an easier time with it you can auto-lock your enemies to target them via a click on one of the triggers on your controller. Incidentally, we played both the PS2 and Xbox versions but not the PC version so we can’t comment on how the controls are handled for the PC port.