Scarface Review

I like to find positives in everything I review. In most cases, it's not that hard to do as mostly everything offers some element of fun. I'm struggling with Scarface, though.

It's a fantastic license to use given the movie's fame as one of the greatest gangster flicks of all time. It's the kind of movie that's very quotable and memorable. This free to play game version is neither of those.

Using the license, Scarface implements authentic voices and images from the film. This is one of the few nice touches, although some voices begin to grate after a while with their repetition.

Playing the game otherwise is extraordinarily similar to other social games such as Farmville. Players are given missions to complete then it's just a matter of tapping on the relevant building or person. It's tedious stuff in very little time at all. Some of these missions just involve placing buildings while others involve threatening people or killing them.

That sounds potentially exciting but it's just a matter of tapping buildings or people without any real interaction. Shooting someone invokes the same action as going into a building to buy a new shirt. It's very uninspired and jars awkwardly with the potentially eventful world of gangsterdom.

As is the case with so many other freemium games, Scarface restricts players and their actions through the use of action points. Once the points have run out, players have to wait it out to be able to do more activities or they can use real money to speed things up. Purchases are quite expensive with the cheapest in-app purchase weighing in at $4.99 and the most expensive at an eye watering $99.99. In a fun game, this may have felt worth it for some players but it's not the case here.

There is that perverse sense of satisfaction completing tasks and watching the experience bar increase, kind of like in an MMO, but it's just not interesting enough to keep playing. After the first time the action bar is depleted, there's no real urge to go back as it's just more of the same.

There's a fantastic license within but Scarface is really very disappointing and gangster fans won't be impressed at all.