When they thought Montana was dead, he returns to get you to "say hello to my little friend!"
Mostly all the roles in the movie died before the mansion stake-out, so sierra had to make up a lot of characters to accomplish this, such as Felix who you meet right of the bat when you start the game, he's kind of Tony's lead to Coke suppliers and helps you spread your Empire Miami wide. And Sheffield who is Tony's lawyer and you start demanding Sosas death. But right on the get-go you have to pay the Vice to release your mansion, a simple $10,000 fine is needed. And from there you can purchase things for your mansion, like putting in the remains on your former best friend Manny and your little sister Gina, and by doing this, your using a mode called "Pimp My Mansion" which, doesn't fit in with the Scarface world in anyway shape or form but it's there. It's also a bit twitchy because you move Tony around, and you see the outline of the piece you want to place in the mansion, it's tricky and the whole "pimping" your mansion is jus pointless, but, it's essential to proceed the game further.
Another thing about Scarface is earning a solid reputation, and how you do this is not tagging "Tony M" on the walls, Mark Ecko style, no, your buying fronts, selling Coke and buying "Exotics". When you go into your SAT Phone menu with L2, you see a menu appear, EMPIRE, DRIVER, WEAPONS, EXOTICS and MUSIC. Music let's you look at the tracks, and there's a bunch of them, switch which music you like, put it in playlists and you go from there. Exotics, are where you can buy Cars, Boats, stuff for your mansion and henchmen. Weapons only becomes available when you purchase the Arms Dealer in Exotics menu, but you click on Weapons, and you choose what weapons you'd like to store in your trunk of your car and case in your mansion. Driver is a very useful feature, you choose what car you'd like delivered to you, if you've already bought that car you'd like delivered or paid reparations for it's repair if need be. And Empire, this is something you'll be using a lot of the time, whether it's looking at the map, checking leads of Coke Suplliers or seeing what Turf is available, or paying down gang and police heat so you haven't got shots firing past your ear every 20 seconds. All of these are required to advance through the game, you may even thank it for saving your ass every now and then, because it does.
Also, exposing your guns in the street is what attracts the police, in other games of this type, attracting the police is something to be avoided at all time, you'll notice a white line circling the map, when this fills up, you'll hear and listen to police radios warning the police about your acts and will come fishing around your vincinity. If it fills to it's capacity, you have to make a quick exit, if you don't make yourself scarce before the timer drains empty, it pops saying "you effed up" and then you die. But, if you put your weapon away fast enough just before the cops arrive, providing your cop meter isn't full, the cops will arrive, an officer will approach you, he'll question you, you have to fast talk him by using a feature that is also used in dealing Coke and intimidating gang and civilians. Succeed, your cop meter called Visivility expires, fail, your dirty cash and drugs are swiped.
Dirty Cash? Yes, cash you nab off nailed perps and other people becomes dirty cash, if you trot along to a bank, you can launder the dirty cash into Clean cash, meaning it's yours and if you die or get nabbed, it stays with you. So, if you make bundles of cash by selling grams of drugs to dealers or nab it off the dead, you'll need ti launder it so it's safe and clean. Dirty Cash and Clean Cash can be used and combined to make totals. Say you want to buy a front, bussiness etc, your too lazy and knackered to go to a bank, just use it in totals to get your share, Providing it totals up to the required price that is.
As you'd expect a lot of what you'll be doing is shooting, you have a wide range of guns, you start off with simple pistol, Mac-10s, Tec-9s, Shotguns and Ak-74s, 47s and M4s which you use right at the start. You can manual aim and you can also lock-on. Locking on is easiar, but only concentrates on 1 guy when 2 could be blasting you with shotguns, manual aim is better for taking out several goons at once, line it up at the head hieght and start blasting, prepare for the bloodshed, theres a lot. Also killing thugs with manual aim is what earns you "balls".
Balls you say? Yeah, Balls. Balls is a rage meter that fills when you taunt your enemies and perform skillfull shots and dismemberments, when it fills up you have a Rage Meter ready to be unleashed, push the O button for a few seconds and you go into a blind rage. The game shifts into First-Person-View for about 20 or 10 seconds, you auto-lock-on enemies and kill them really easily even with pistols and you gain back lost health from the perps you've wasted. So it's a useful feature to have.
Driving is another main part of the game, your not going to be walking to every place, take a car off the streets, off civilians and call for cars in your garage via your SAT Phone, driving works pretty good, each car has signature handling and strengths and weaknesses but all are driveable. Boats are also available, they are very easy to use, you can purchase Boats with your handy SAT Phone and call for them in your Boathouse. There's also docks where you can aqquire purchased boats, and steal them. There's Car Washes and Boat Garages spread through Miami so your boat or car are in tip top condition before you venture again. Swimming is also included, it's near pointless unless you like going late night swimming out in the ocean and getting nabbed by a shark, yes, it happens.
Visually Scarface looks pretty good, you can't help to compare to GTA: Vice City, since it was basically Scarface before Scarface was Scarface the game, it looks great on Xbox compared to other Xbox games, the PS2 Version, looks pretty nice but some spots are pretty grungy.
Overall, Scarface: The World Is Yours is a solid GTA Clone, does well by bringing Tony Montana back to life, the whole rebuilding process takes time, but if you stick with it you should get a good solid 30-40 hours with this game, thats if you do everything in the game, and if you can handle the content. It's a good thing to rent it first, because theres a lot to do, and some people may not like the whole idea or rebuilding a drugs Empire, it takes time but it's a rental, if your satisfied, go for it, Purchase it.