Becoming the longest alternate ending in the history of the film, Scarface - The World is Yours starts at the end of the movie. As venerable Tony Montana, players break out of the drug lord's mansion instead of falling face first into a puddle of blood. Losing everything, Tony starts over from the bottom rung of the Miami drug scene, and it's up to the player to gain it all back.
This creates an interesting scenario for a movie based game. Besides rewriting film history and completely changing the point of the movie, Scarface has a lot riding on it to deliver as far as the story is concerned. Sadly, that's the one area the game misses out on entirely.
Scattered between countless drug runs, murder, escort missions and other various side missions is a story struggling to keep pace with the rest of the game. By the time the next plot point arises, you've forgotten the previous cinematic.
Thankfully, the game play is engrossing enough to keep things interesting through an extensive array of missions. An obligatory third person Grand Theft Auto knock-off, Scarface doesn't manipulate the formula enough to feel fresh. What it does is build on that same concept, and in the end, it's a better game for it.
At the heart of the game is targeting, a multi-tiered system that allows for locking on and manual firing. Keeping the cursor locked on allows for precise shots that can lead to a number of gruesome injuries. Decapitations are plentiful, and other appendages end up on the ground with a few pinpoint shots. Manually targeting can produce the same effects, though it's far more difficult.
To give a purpose to the manual targeting, doing so increases Tony's "Balls" meter. Yes, it means exactly what it says, and can also be filled by spewing vulgar taunts, risky driving or carrying on full conversations with civilians. When filled, Tony can enter a rage mode, making him a dead-on shot from a first person view and regaining life with each kill.
The system works nicely to keep the difficulty fair. It takes a second to activate the rage, and a life can be taken in that time. It's well balanced to make the player feel both powerful and challenging at the same time.
Not all of Tony's work is gunplay though. The game's concept is to rebuild Tony's empire, and this needs to be done the only way Montana knows how. Dealing crack is critical to earn cash and respect on the streets.
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