An utter disappointment of a game that is missing nearly everything that might do justice to the Scarface name

User Rating: 3 | Scarface: Money. Power. Respect. PSP
By gautam3 | Review Date:
With the release of Scarface – The World is Yours for PS2, there have been high hopes for the PSP version, which bears a different title. Scarface Money, Power, Respect is the PSP edition that has you play across Miami’s turf: annexing territory, dealing drugs, fighting cartels, and defending your territory. This gameplay bears a curious similarity to Mob Wars, an addendum to the recent Godfather PSP port. In fact, the similarity is unbelievably close. Unfortunately, this game is a severe disappointment, to say the least. The main gameplay area looks somewhat like the map from Miami Vice for PSP. Your objective, between cutscenes from the classic Scarface movie, is to produce and sell drugs while dominating Miami’s cartel-mob run environment. Turn based gameplay means that you actually never ‘play’ at all. Your entire business is manipulating the market and sending thugs out to occupy more territory. In all the sameness of the tasks, there are loose goals meant to followed, which are bad replacement for mission objectives. Because of all this, controls are not an issue for the portable format, since you are not doing anything more than making business decisions. You do not get to actually fight in the battles, but instead you watch the fight as a bystander.

I cannot emphasize how disappointing that last aspect is. The battle scenes are poorly rendered and look like cutscenes from the early 90’s. Scarface the game, of course, takes place in the 80’s but shouldn’t look like it was made at the same time. There is no excuse for the rushed look and feel of the game. The music is nothing worth mentioning aside from the fact that it is synthesized, but the voice acting seeks to resemble characters from the Scarface film. However, in order to fill the UMD, there are other things to do. There is a multiplayer mode, but it is not worth pursuing due to the quality of this game. Other modes include “challenge” sections, which are just various re-hashes of the normal gameplay, which was bad enough. These additions are certainly a benefit if a player enjoys the repeated tasks of the campaign mode, but I scarcely think that any self-respecting gamer would think that. Luckily, there are clips from the great movie this game is based on, which might ease the frustration of the inevitable boredom. GRAPHICS: 3/10 (Most depressing; the game doesn’t need “graphics” except for the Scarface movie clips.)

SOUND: 1/10 (Nothing except for voice acting is worth mentioning)

CONTROLS: 9/10 (No control issues as the game is completely turn-based.)

DIFFICULTY: 3/10 (If you play your cards right, so to speak, it is just repetitive work.)

VALUE: 4/10 (Tremendous value as far as the Scarface movie clips and replay value is infinite since there are a lot of ways to accomplish various tasks.)

LOAD TIMES: VERY LOW (Poor graphics are gameplay go hand in hand with low load times.)

OVERALL: 3/10 (A very poorly done, rushed game that seeks to satisfy the player with repetitive tasks and micromanagement. This is not a game to be recommended.)

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