Gameplay

After you get Tony Montana out of the mansion the game advances three months; Tony is basically where he was when he first came to the US - he’s broke, without a reputation and has to start his empire completely from scratch. His first mission is to buy his broken mansion back from some vice cops that look awfully familiar (hint, hint) by completing a quick mission for some fast cash. Once that is done, Tony goes after a former rival by going to his penthouse mansion and shooting up the place. He manages to steal an armored car filled with money during this mission which he quickly puts into a local bank.

After those first two intro missions, the game really begins as Tony begins to rebuild his crime empire with small drug deals at first. Scarface’s massive open game world of Miami is broken up into several sections, each of which has to be claimed by Tony’s empire. In our demo we started by gaining reputation by simple missions like driving a van filled with drugs to drop off points in various locations. This increased our rep and money and allowed us to go to more missions. One of the interesting things about the game is the variability on how the missions might turn out. In a feature that’s similar to something that you might see in a golf video game, Tony has to convince drug dealers and others about his deals via a meter that you have to control. If you hit the sweet spot you can get the best money for drugs, the best interest rate for your money in the bank and get the heat off you if the cops show up to question you. If you successfully use the meter to intimidate others, it actually fills up your Balls Meter. Having that kind of variable gameplay makes Scarface a different experience every time.

As you build up your crime empire, you do have to deal with various elements in the game world. You have to clean out all of the gangs in your various districts you want to control, and you also have to keep both the money and the drugs coming while also keeping the cops off your tail. Later in the game, you get access to another section of the Scarface universe as you get drugs from an island headquarters. Once that happens you have to make sure your shipments of cocaine avoid being spotted by DEA agents. If you follow the game’s single player storyline it should take you about 40 hours or so to get to the end game: revenge on the person in the movie who brought your first crime empire to its knees, Sosa.