I've played it for 15 hours now and I'm around 58% done. Whereas GTA has overthetop humour, Scarface has deliciously excessive violence with limbs and heads flying everywhere in showers of blood while swear words spew in at least every other sentence. Beautiful.
In many ways, it's gameplay mechanics are superior to GTA: San Andreas. It has random missions along with the large number of story missionsthat can change the pace a bit, 4 playable characters (including Tony) that each have slightly distinct missions to do, and the gun fights are much more enjoyable due to the third person shooter-like controls (free movement while firing, easy to strafe and fire) and the moderate gore. Overall, it is a much less forgiving and often very difficult game, mainly because the enemy weapons deal as much damage to you as you do to them, thus one (maybe two)shot(s) to the face with a shotgun will be the death of you and perhaps 4-6 shots from a carbine, thus tactical play is required, often using vehicles as miniature fortresses of doom to shield you from getting hit.
On the topic of vehicles, what really shines in Scarface are the controls. Free aiming while driving. Glorious. It's not perfect since you can't rotate your view while driving (you can only look forward or backwards, thus you cannot shoot sideways unless you lock-on aim) but it's highly satisfying to not have to, as in GTA, drive up beside an enemy car to shoot him. Free aim is great with 4 different sensitivity/bounding-box levels. Dual analog is for chumps.
There aren't too many motion controls, but the ones that are there are good. Taunting enemies is done by flicking the nunchuck which I do by pulling up, simulating an arm-raising, insulting gesture. Much more satisfying to do than a button press when you smash into a civilian car and want to mouth off to him. Chainsaw controls are a little wonky when it comes to the type of swing you want but it is definitely possible to get all 3 swing motions to fully dismember enemies.
Blind rage mode is initiated by really shaking the nunchuck when your balls meter is full. In a first person mode, you aim and move like a better form of Red Steel, thus it is far more responsive and easier to aim. It also doesn't hurt that, as you fire in this mode with unlimited ammo and invincibility, Tony mouths off everytime you shoot.
The graphics and sound are great. The shadows are done well, the voice acting is great, and the textures are actually pretty detailed as opposed to some of the muddy junk we've seen.
Overall, Scarface is a great game that I recommend to anyone wanting a serious, mature, and challenging game.
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