Ever since GTA hit I've seen Rockstar as the company with the most violent games, but my opinion has recently shifted, as Vivendi Universal's 2005 lineup is so full of wanton destruction and gore that the company should seriously knock out its logo and replace it with a giant M. VU is working on some top notch games including the gory Cold Winter and the supernatural thriller F.E.A.R., but Scarface is clearly the centerpiece of its 2005 catalogue. A sequel of sorts to the beloved 1983 film about a Cuban drug lord, Scarface lets you to step into Tony Montana's expensive shoes and basically run his operation, but it also lets you show your enemies that you mean business through the use of brute force. After seeing this ambitious shooter in action, I'm convinced that developer Radical Games is on the right track.

Scarface is one of several gangster (or gangsta, whichever you prefer) games coming out this year but it's by far the most highly anticipated. With a story pegged by screenwriter David McKenna (whose credentials include the films American History X and Blow), the game begins during the movie's final scene with Tony in his office. You basically need to shoot your way out of the mansion, and if he survives he must now deal with the fact that he's lost everything. His sister is dead, his empire has crumbled, and the DEA is on his @$$, so he leaves Miami for a while, lays low for a bit and then returns, intent upon reclaiming what is rightfully his, and that's basically the premise behind the game. Not only will you rebuild his drug cartel by performing missions and slaughtering king pins, but also exact revenge on Alejandro Sosa. You're able to wield a wide array of weapons (Tony can enter a Blind Rage mode where he basically tears bad guys to shreds), but he will still follow his moral code of the streets, so you won't be able to harm women and children.

When talking to NPCs, there will be opportunities to be nice and then not so nice, so how you obtain information from people seems to be entirely up to you. You'll be able to take advantage of passive and aggressive modes that'll allow you to negotiate business deals or intimidate your enemies, and while Vivendi doesn't have a final number at this time, it's already recorded over 30,000 lines of dialogue, so to say that Scarface will feature tons of talking is an understatement. Whether this means Al Pacino will reprise his role as Tony Montana is unknown at this point, though I'm going to say that Vivendi will make a major E3 announcement pertaining to this subject.

Taking a page from GTA's book, the game's developers have done a marvelous job recreating 1983 Miami, or more importantly, Scarface Miami. The environments are these enormous living, breathing worlds where pedestrians walk about and there's traffic to contend with, but the game actually goes far beyond this city. There are eleven islands in the game that you can get to by boat and they include the Florida Keys as well as the Bahamas, and at some point you may even make it to Bolivia, and the cool thing is all of these locations will be populated by NPCs and feature missions to complete.

Thankfully, traveling isn't going to involve you staring at the screen for ten minutes while nothing cool is going on. The game comes loaded with lots of vehicular combat though I'm not sure whether you'll be able to pilot a speed boat and fire an M203 at the same time. As for how you acquire these vehicles, while you can basically take whatever you want, you're encouraged to purchase high-class cars and store them in your mansion, and once you have henchman you can actually have them go pick them up for you.

The Scarface footage that I had the privilege of seeing still looks early, so while the graphics are certainly passable there's still a lot of work that can be done. The city itself is a little drab looking and lacks the detail that I associate with a 2005 Xbox title, but by and large the game is coming along nicely. The gunplay, explosions, and environments (which include famous places from the film) look impressive, and by the time the game releases, its graphics should be top notch.

Since Scarface is such a beloved film, I highly doubt it'll get swept up in the gangster videogame swarm that's going to blow through 2005, so all Radical Games needs to do is make it half-way decent and it'll sell. Thus far I like what I've seen, but I'm concerned that Scarface will degenerate into a GTA/True Crime spin-off and I'll become bored, but with all of the island hopping and references to the film, I don't think that'll happen, and because it's best to end this preview with a pathetically cheesy line, be sure to "say hello" to Scarface when its blasts its way onto retail shelves at the end of this year.