Scarface manages to come off as more than a GTA clone, and pushes a compelling game at the same time, just excellent.
Scarface begins where the movie left off, or to be correct, around five minutes before the film left off. For those who haven't seen the movie, and don't wish for me to spoil, avoid reading the next sentence. Instead of having his guts blown out from behind from the double-barreled shotgun of some sneaky bastard, Tony Montana survives, what follows is an intense shoot-out scene that sets the pace for the game perfectly, throwing you into the action instantly. There's also an optional boot camp level detailing the controls and such for you. At the end of the mansion shootout, you've lost your entire empire, the police have taken control of your mansion, and you've lost all your money, drugs, and turf.
Three months later, you've come back to take the entire city of Miami back over.
Combat is handled Godfather style, you have the option to lock on to enemies, although shooting thugs manually will give you an added benefit (detailed later) the lock on works as such, instead of simple just bringing a radial confirmation circle or such nonsense around the enemy you wish to lock onto, a white box is shown around the enemy, and you can move your crosshair around with this box, allowing you to shoot different body parts for maximum efficiency. There's also a hand to hand combat system, although it isn't half as well done as using guns, it has a nice counter-attack system, which brings for some pretty cool submissions, but otherwise, it's there for last ditch effort encounters. You can't mention firefights with the crudely named "Balls" meter. The Balls meter will probably be one of the most important aspects in your crusade for your kindom as Tony. Everything influences this meter, driving on the wrong side of the road, just nearly missing vehicles, taunting drivers, taunting victims during combat, doing jumps in a vehicle, intimidating people, the list goes on and on. The meter fortunatly, is very important to your survival, and Tony's strength and stamina. When the meter fills up, you can enter "Blind Rage" mode, which will switch to a slow motion first person camera perspective with a red tinted screen, load you up with unlimited ammo and invincibility and lets you rip on enemies like a monster for a limited time. Since Tony is so fragile, taking cover and taunting enemies to get your Balls to the needed level for Blind Rage brings strategy into combat.
Included in the frenzy of battle is the ability to take cover by walls, which actually works quite well, since you can see what you're going to shoot at behind a wall before you actually do it (you can place your cursor on an enemy THEN come out and shoot at that direct spot).
The driving physics in Scarface feel real enough, and while there isn't a very large variety of vehicles (you'll only be getting boats and cars, planes and the such only transport you around town, you can't control them) Radical certainly spent a lot of time on the existing vehicles. Boats feel great, and since you can use ANY weapon from inside a vehicle (not limiting you to Uzis or such, say like... Grand Theft Auto) combat is a since, and using a car is actually beneficial at times.
What sets Scarface apart from most free roaming games is the engaging Empire system, which more or less lets you control everything that happens in your, well, Empire. From a simple to access menu, you can gather details on fronts (purchasable stores or such that give you an income and can trade in coke for you) and improve them by adding surveilance and security and such. You can also control several henchman, and do jobs with them, giving a bit of fresh air for the average player. Missions are easily accessed via the menu system, allowing you to easily persue whatever you wish in a push of a button, and the map system is very detailed and easy to follow.
What sets Scarface apart even more is the awesome menu system (as mentioned before) by pressing L2, you can bring up a menu that contains your Music, Exotics, Weapons, your Driver, and as detailed before, your Empire. Music allows you to choose from a large library of songs that you can listen to at any time, which means in a car, on foot, or in a firefight. Exotics allow you to purchase vehicles, henchman, decorations, or boats (and more) which increase your Reputation as well (Rep is required for later missions, better reactions from people, and just pushing along your empire) Weapons will have your goons drop off weapons at the spot (you can purchase them as well) and your Driver, as titled, will bring along any car you've purchased instantly (giving those purchasable cars an actual use, unlike several other games).
While you can still jack vehicles from pedestrians, Scarface's unique "Heat" system will have you thinking twice, and giving the Driver system even more of a use. Since every crime you commit increases your "Visibility" cops will easily be able to spot you. As your Visibility increases, cops will notice you more and more, and at a certain point, they'll begin to persue and attempt to kill you at the same time.
Unlike other freeroaming games, the cops in Scarface will actually pull you over, whereupon you can fast talk them to lose heat (and upon failing, lose all your drugs and dirty money, explained later). Fast Talking can be used in several occasions, and is controlled by pressing and holding O to get to a certain spot on a meter, if you go too far, you'll fail, if you got too little, the same will happen, some Fast Talk situations have varying levels of success.
Your Cop Heat will just dictate how fast your visiblity increases, and the ferocity at which the Police respond. Smashing into other vehicles, running people over, or pulling out a weapon in public, will all bring up your visibilty.
If you do get to the point where the cops pursue you, the surrounding area turns red on the minimap, marking the area the cops are actively locking down to apprehend you. You have a limited amount of time to leave the red area (which is also dictated by your Cop Heat) and to escape the police. During this time, commiting any crime will add to your Cop Heat instead of your visibility, definitely giving you more motivation to leave. Fortunatly, you won't be forever crippled by a high Cop Heat, since you can easily pay it all off in the empire menu. To mirror this, you also have Gang Heat, which decides how gangs in areas react to you, the selling price for cocaine, and how many thugs you'll have to take down to take over turf. Like Cop Heat, this can be payed off, and also brings a bit of strategy, since high Gang Heat will lower the amount you can sell cocaine for, asking if you should spend a wad of cash in lowering your Gang Heat in order to get more cash from the sale.
Speaking of cocaine, drug dealing is how you'll make a large portion of your cash in Scarface. You can follow "Felix Leads" which hook you up to small suppliers, where you can purchase large amounts of cocaine for a fee. After you've done that, you can visit any dealer in town, and fast talk them to make anywhere from absolutely no money (which usually brings down a gang upon you) to as high as 10k. Scarface's missions are varied pretty well, and are quite interesting. The cinematics setting up these scenes are very well acted, choreographed, and Tony Montana's movements are as accurate as they could possibly be. The presentation in Scarface is astounding, while the graphics are good at best, the sound is just amazing, from loud gunshots, the the random pedestrians on the road.
The soundtrack is great, featuring everything from the Scarface soundtrack, to numerous hip-hop hits and catchy Latino tunes.
With the subject of pedestrians, Scarface just brings life into those once soulless beings wandering endlessly on the sidewalks of random cities. You can actually TALK to these pedestrians, and have literally hundreds of different conversations with them, which range from being quite humorous, to infinitely bizarre. You can also intimidate anyone on the streets, and depending on your Reputation, you can talk someone out into giving you their vehicle, without any bad circumstances from Cops. Saving in Scarface is controlled by visiting banks, which allow you to launder dirty money and saving. Dirty Money is all the cash you get from the street, be it from dealing drugs, finishing missions, shooting gang members up, or extorting people. While laundering money won't seem so important early on, once you get to the point where you'll be carrying literally millions of dirty dollars on your hands, you'll be wanting to launder your cash as soon as possible. Why? Because if you're shot up, apprehended by the cops, or just f**k up really bad in general, you'll lose ALL of your dirty money, which can be a horrible loss in a certain situations. Fortunatly, several banks are scattered around town, and transactions are easy and painless (although you do have to Fast Talk the clerk to dictate what what rate will be subtracted from your overall cash). Navigating the city is easy, (including a nice arrow system when driving around town during missions) combat is tight and fun, the story is well executed and interesting, and all the stuff you can do is just plain fun. If there was ever a game that had a numerous amount of ideas, and executed them flawlessy, Scarface would be that game.
Unfortunatly, it does have its share of problems. Some missions are quite tough, the limitation of vehicles is irritating at times, and the map is not as large as the sprawlin bridges and such make it out to be. Other than that, Scarface doesn't have much wrong with it, aside from the occasional glitch or frustrating mission. The learning curve is also a bit steeper than the usual action game, although it isn't that much to complain about.
On the side of content, the violence and such should be noted. Scarface has a high level of cursing (more than San Andreas) the violence is quite extreme (execution manuevers, dismemberments, etc.) and the drug dealing, are all not very suitable for younger players.
If you've been thirsting for a good licensed game, or just wanted a really good Scarface game, it has been delivered. It's definitely worth the price, and thanks to all the great features, excellent missions, and just the near flawless execution of the game, I challenge you to find nothing you'll like in this game, as there's something for nearly every genre fan.