courtesy of ign
Late last year, Sierra surprised the hell out of gamers everywhere with its videogame continuation of the cult 80s Al Pacino flick Scarface. The design, handled by Canadian development studio Radical Entertainment, worked its way across the PlayStation, Xbox and PC systems in an open world, Grand Theft Auto-style production that picked up as a "what if" sequel to the original film's story. Sierra will offer Nintendo Wii owners the ability to experience this over-the-top action game, as Radical has moved the product over to the Nintendo console complete with specific elements that utilize the system's controller functions.
In case you missed last year's original release, Scarface: The World is Yours picks up right at the famous climax of the original film, when Al Pacino's drug-lord anti-hero Tony Montana gets gunned down. Players will now change the outcome with an escape opportunity, ducking into the underground and leaving his created empire and fortune behind. This opens up an entire world for the player as they help Tony along to rebuild what he once lost...and get some sweet revenge in the process.
There's no avoiding the comparison: Scarface: The World is Yours is a Grand Theft Auto-inspired design. The game has a set progression that can be strayed from if you're just looking to have a bit of fun in the Miami area. Jack cars, gun-down cops, run over pedestrians...sound familiar? But this experience is all done to the tune of the film's established style and theme -- gamers play out the fun with the familiarity of one of the 1980s most recognizable movies.
The action takes place almost exclusively in a third-person, behind-the-character perspective, with the camera floating independently around Tony as players control him with the Nunchuk's analog stick. The game offers different control settings for novice and skilled players, which essentially alters the bounding box of the game's camera control; the player uses the Wii Remote's pointing function to control an on-screen reticule that's used for both weapon targeting as well as adjusting the camera within 3D world. Stay within the invisible "box" and the camera won't budge, but drift outwards and the camera will flow around Tony as if players were using the PlayStation 2/Xbox's right analog stick. In our hands-on, we stuck with the "expert" setting which kept the center bounding box extremely small.
The pointing function works really well in Scarface. Just like the PC version's mouse control, players now have near pin-point weapon precision that makes it easier and more intuitive to gun down the opposition with the huge assortment of firepower within the experience. You can still target individuals to tighten up your aim using the Z button on the nunchuk, but because the Wii Remote's pointer already does a great job with its precision it's rare that we found ourselves using it. Players also get a bonus for shooting without the help of the auto aim, so we were enjoying the hell out of gunning down bad guys without the assistance.
Driving is handled in the more traditional analog stick fashion: acceleration is used on the remote's A button, with the steering handled via the nunchuk's stick. Power braking and reverse are assigned to the nunchuk's Z trigger. While driving through the streets, players can (and will) blast away at moving targets with the Wii Remote's aiming and the B trigger. Pushing down on the D-pad will shift the camera to a "look behind" view, so players will need to rest their thumb's heel on the A button to hit the D-pad at the same time. It's not hard to do, but it definitely took a bit of adjusting.
So where does motion come into play? When players gun down enemies, they can build up their balls meter with taunts. Thrusting the nunchuk will make Tony spout off some aggressive one-liners just like in the film. When the balls meter maxes out, shaking the nunchuk will activate the Rage mode where the world is seen from the eyes of an adrenaline-pumped Tony. The game kicks into an over-contrasted slow motion, first person perspective where players can gun down enemies with more precision due to auto-targetting. Apart from the taunt and Rage mode activation, the Wii motion really isn't used in Scarface: The World is Yours.
According to the team, Scarface -- on a visual and technical level -- is on par with the original Xbox version. In our hands-on play, we can believe it. The flow of the game stays a consistent 30 frames per second a good portion of the time, only dipping when the action gets particularly intense when tons of on-screen enemies, vehicles, and impressively over-the-top explosions fill the player's view. Widescreen and progressive modes are fully supported in the Wii version.
Nothing's been cut out of the original PlayStation/Xbox game in the move to the Wii, so you'll still get all the completely unnecessary (but entirely welcome) spurting blood gushing out of enemy wounds, as well as the thousands of F-bombs casually rolling off of Tony Montana's tongue. When the game ships for a late spring release, it will easily be the raunchiest and most violent game available on the Wii system to date.
What has been changed is more due to design choices than limitations; players won't have a freeflowing camera when driving around in vehicles, for example -- a decision made when testers were getting motion sick trying to keep the camera straight while driving and shooting.
The version we played at today's event was as close to finished as you can get, and it was looking great. Sierra expects to have the Wii version of Scarface: The World is Yours on shelves by mid-June.
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