"Me, I want what's coming to me. The world, Chico...and everything in it."

In 1983, powerhouse director Brian De Palma released his most controversial- and violent- movie to date with Scarface, chronicling the rise and fall of drug kingpin Tony "Scarface" Montana. The movie worked wonders not only because of the gutsiness of the script (the chainsaw scene is insane), but also because of a young actor named Al Pacino who brought the role to excruciating life. The film's a contemporary classic, even to this day, where it's constantly referred to in references and quotes. "Say hello to my little friend!" sound familiar?

So there's a big risk involved in the game conversion- even bigger than the risk EA took with the Godfather license. Not only is Vivendi trying to fit the license onto a free-roaming Grand Theft Auto environment, but the company revealed that it was actually rewriting the tale itself. Oh, no, I thought. See, in the movie, (spoiler alert), Tony's rule comes to a crashing halt with a shotgun blast to the back. But in the game, he survives the fateful gun battle, only to have lost everything in the process. And he vows to get it all back. EA took the easy way out by tip-toeing around history already in place. Vivendi is doing a continuation off of something already set in stone.

And yet, Radical Entertainment has done it. Some slight uneasiness aside at first, I found a lot to like with Scarface: The World Is Yours- even more than I could find with The Godfather. A lot of that has to do with being more involved with the story. In Godfather, you were a nameless henchman trying to work your way into Don-hood. With Scarface, you're automatically put into the shoes of Montana himself as he goes off his trail of revenge, like a forest fire out of control.

Kudos to Radical for paying attention to the character. Everything about Montana's attitude is present and accounted for, including his brazen machismo, his incredibly wild temper and his cocky swagger as he taunts enemies. When he gets into a violent rage, you actually feel like him and not some nameless thug. And even though the voice acting itself wasn't handled by Pacino, his fill-in nails the role perfectly, spouting out profanities and little pieces of logic that could only come from the likes of a drug kingpin. It's one thing to just slap the character into a game and consider it a conversion- it's another to actually provide essence.

The world surrounding Montana is done just about right as well. There are certain locations that will seem familiar to those who have seen the film, as well as new ones that Tony visits as he completes missions and slowly reclaims what is his. The open-ended world doesn't look as great as those in Grand Theft Auto and Saint's Row, but it's serviceable. The 80's coast town of Miami is recreated in a seedy light, complete with neon-lit signs and glimmering oceans to skim your boat across. The roads could've been laid out a little better for the in-game driving (there are times you can get lost), but overall it's a pretty solid engine. The animation is solid (particularly Montana- I mentioned his movement style), and the explosions provide some spark when you make things go boom.

Of course, a game can look like 80's Miami, but it needs the sound to really nail it down. No sense trying to look like something out of the old Miami Vice show and sounding like something out of the new Miami Vice movie, right? Radical has done its homework in this department, filling the game with a widely varied soundtrack that fits the bill. Judas Priest's "Breaking the Law" has never been so appropriately placed into a game as it is here. I also admit I had a good time driving around to "Don't Believe the Hype" by Public Enemy. The soundtrack is just awesome. The sound effects are alright, nothing amazing but serviceable considering the content.

And then there's the voice acting, in a league by itself. That's because the cast list reads like a mile long, with a couple of actors returning from the film and new ones implemented into this story. Steven Bauer and Robert Loggia refill their film roles, and the cast list also includes James Woods (sharp as always), Richard Roundtree (SHAFT!), and a variety of others. I'm still trying to figure out how some rap stars got thrown in here, including B. Real and Sen Dog from Cypress Hill and N.O.R.E., and I'll never figure out how Jackass' Bam Margera made the cut. Regardless, most of the cast does their work well, blending into the storyline without really overdoing themselves. Still, I can't help but feel that Montana's still stands head and shoulders above everyone else. I suppose that's what the development team intended. It is HIS game after all, meng.

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