I had kind of forgotten that this game was coming out this month until yesterday when I saw on a few message boards people saying that they had the game already. I went out today and picked this bad boy up, I didn't get the Coll. Ed. as I can't see myself spending $60 on a PS2 game even though I should be used to it with the 360. LOL!
Holy Sh*t is this game amazing. Scarface looks good on the PS2 running off of 480p, and can only imagine how much nicer the XBOX version looks at 720p. As I've said many times in the past, I enjoy sandbox games like this where the storyline is the central focus more than all of the GTA games and even Saint's Row. Yes, I made that comment. Games like The Godfather, Scarface, and even True Crime always win me over since the storyline of the game is the main focus over all the other monotenous activities as found in GTA. All of the side missions have to do with your character and not stupid things like GTA makes you do in the open world.
There isn't any radio stations, but you can select what music you want to play from the availble list or let the music schuffle itself. It doesn't bother me that much since there's tons of 80's tunes that I really like on here. When you exit a vehicle, music that you were listening while driving is also playing.
The navigation system is nothing like the awesome nav system in Saint's Row, but it comes in close second. You can set waypoints and even when your going on a mission, the AI sets the waypoints for you and when you need to turn down a street to get to the waypoint you get a turning signal at the top of the screen if you should turn left or right. That's very nice which some games you have to keep on looking at your map to find where your going, but I hope more of these style of games copy Saint's Row nav system.
One cool thing is that the cops will be on your @ss if you steal a vehicle or run over pedestrians. First the APB goes out for someone to find the model of the car and the plates of the person that ran over the peds. Once you leave an area (district), the cops don't really chase you anymore once you have lost them. I haven't gotten into heavy heat yet.
The combat is really nice system and I can say that it gives The Godfather a run for it's money. Godfather uses an advanced version of the Bond: Everything or Nothing combat system which is sweet. Scarface allows you to lock on your targets before shooting, which allows you to take people out much easier. When your shooting someone, you can shoot at specific body parts like the head, legs, arms, upper/lower torso.
You build up your Reputation, Exotics, Taking over 4 Turfs, Balls Meter, Drugs, and Total Cash. Some will say what the hell is the Balls Meter? Well the Balls meter is cool as you press the circle button and Montana curses up a storm at people or his enemies and once this fills up, it allows Tony to go into a rage mode for about 10 seconds. It's cool since it's not an overdone feature. You can buy drugs like Coke and then turn around and sell it on the street to make money and depending on how high you get your negotiation meter than how much money you make and how the deal goes. Taking over turfs is where you must reclaim the 4 turfs that you lost at the beginning of the game since Sosa sent his men to kill you ultimately losing everything.
You can pimp out your mansion throughout the course of the game. Another nice touch is that the mansion is still trashed and many bullet holes that makes it more life like from the raid with Sosa's men. Another nice touch is that when our getting shot at, your clothing gets littered with your own blood so when your walking around you see blood stains.
The vehicles drive very well and do take damage. Loading on the PS2 is not bad at all, it take anywhere from 3-6 seconds and sometimes there are seamless loading which things load in the background ASAP.
This is all of my impressions after 2 hours of play. Funny thing is that I wanted this game so bad for the longest time and kind of forgot about it. After watching some gameplay vids a month or two ago, I felt kind of turned off by the game, but after reading impressions I decided to buy this. So far I think it was worth the purchase and let's hope that it makes enough money for Radical Ent/Sierra that they decide to bring this over to the 360.
I'll be with more impressions later on, there has to be some negatives here. LOL!
Comment