While watching the intro cinematics you could say that this game is a good commercial for the digitally version of the original movie Scarface. It takes you on a short trip through the key moments of the movie, to make you remember the characters and what exactly happened. While in the movie Tony is killed in his mansion by an assassin, the game gives you the opportunity to escape the mansion. This represents the first mission which might become real difficult for somebody that is expecting a progressive beginnings. The reason to this aggressive beginning is that Scarface is a GTA clone. So being a clone of this brutal and explicit game, in Scarface you will encounter almost all the same elements that made GTA so infamous but also so loved by a lot of fans. Besides other GTA clones, this game was created on powerful character from a movie, so it should be more glamorous than others. We will see if this is true.

"I'm Tony Montana a political prisoner from Cuba"

So the game, like the movie was created around this controversial character. From his graphical appereance to his voice, everything suites Al Pacino's character. Although the voice is not Al Pacino's one, it sounds great and realistic. Adding the fast cursing pace, this game revives again Tony. But the developers used repeatedly this cursing phrases, so after one hour of playing and hearing the same crap (cockaroach, loco pinga, balls, f***), the character becomes hilarious.

So Tony was a Cuban refugee in the US and became very fast the king of drugs. In the movie he dies, but in the game he escapes the ambush and flees. He loses all his empire, so after three months he must start dealing again in the hood.

"The World is yours chico, you just got to take it by the balls."

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This is helpful for defending your properties from the local gangs attacks. The map of the game shows you the location of this gangs, so you can eliminate them and gain there territories. Again this job resumes in killing all their members and collecting their money and drugs. Each region of the city contains a number of properties and one storehouse. There you can store your drugs and then distribute them in huge quantities. This will help you in earning lots of money. But don't be scared. There are a lot of objects investments to spend the money on them. Like in GTA series, after your character dies, you will be respawned to the nearest point you were last time. But you will lose all your money and drugs that you had on you. The best way to save your 'dirty' money is to 'laundry' them on the bank.

Whenever you go to the bank you have to play a minigame in order to obtain a lower rate. A meter will appear with different percentages. You have to fill this meter to a success zone. This can be done by pushing and holding the T button. If you don't release it in time you will obtain a higher rate and lose some money. The same minigame is used also when you want to buy or sell drugs to a supplier, disarm bombs and when you have to fast-talk your way past the police. If this is a clever implementation is up to you. Anyway is challenging when you want to sell your drugs with a higher price.

Heat

The most important factor to be taken in consideration is the heat. This factor influences your relations with the gangs or with the police. The heat related to the gangs will increase by every member that you kill. The heat related to the police will increase by every killed pedestrian or by every destroyed car. The heat with the local gangs will influence how much money you will get for selling drugs to dealers. The heat with the police will affect the percentage taken by the bank in exchange of your depository. After some time the heat meter can become full, and the gangs or the police will take major solutions against you. So you have to do something in order to decrease these meters. Either you buy and sell drugs to the gangs, or bribe them. The only solution against the police is to bribe them. Be careful that this might become really expensive.

" All I have in this world is my balls and my word and I don't break them for no one."

Scarface is the only game that has 'balls' meter.

This meter actually shows you how much rage you have gained after every mission. Besides missions, you can increase this meter by doing stunts with your car, or by driving aggressively. In the middle of a fight, if the gauge of this meter is full, then you can perform a special attack from a first person view. This attack will help you kill any enemy from a single shot. This attack is useful when you get surrounded by dozens of enemies. Taking in consideration also the fact that the aiming is getting worse in such situations, I advise you to use this ability as much as you can. After you have bought some henchmen, you can use them do secondary missions instead of Tony. But instead of being a solution for saving your money, the only person that can deposit them to the bank is Tony, so you will have to change you character in order to save your money.

Conclusion

Although the console versions of this game are a really success, the PC version is suffering from a bad convertion. The developers tried to create a much more cooler game than any GTA, but using Tony Montana was not a solution in achieving this.

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Gameplay: 72

The main missions are not very different, and everything resumes in killing more and more enemies. The place where you fight against a gang will turn right away into a blood pool. That's because you can dismember or even decapitate the enemy, by shooting him, but the way it is shown is far from reality. It gives the impression that you shoot puppets instead of real people. Being a convertion, the game suffers a lot. The mouse aiming method is far from being smooth causing you troubles in killing the enemy while you use an AK47. Even the menu is the same as in the console version and when you want to enter the cheat code you have to scroll through the letters to spell it out. Driving a car around the city is far from being fun as in GTA series, because of its handling. Though the handling should be arcade in such games, the movement of the car should look much more realistic than in this game. Forget about a real damage system implemented to the car, or high jumps above buildings. Even when you destroy the entire car, its explosion will not impress you.

Graphics: 68

Looks even uglier than the old Vice City. Except Tony, all the other characters are looking edgy and lifeless. The design of the city is similar to Vice City but too fragmented.

There are no loading areas but you have to drive too much to get from one district to another. The districts are more like islands connected through bridges. There are not so many type of cars, so don't think that you will encounter some unique models.

Multiplayer: N/A

Sound: 78

To my surprise, the game has a good sound. With a 5.1 system with THX support, you will get a good atmosphere of the game. The soundtrack contains songs from the movie but also some new ones, like Cypress Hill. Real actors were used to give life to the characters like Bam Margera, Ice T. or Jason Mewes. Even the voice of Tony sounds like Al Pacino although, they didn't use him for this game.

Hardware: 74

Although the game looks old, you will have problems while driving around the city. I had moments when the framerate was under 20 fps, although it was tested with 2,0 GB RAM memory.