The World Is Yours, a game many of you reading have likely never heard of. It’s an absurd, bizarre take on the Scarface story. What if Tony Montana didn’t die at the end of the movie? What if his story didn’t end in bloodshed? What if he survived and vowed to take revenge on those who set out to destroy him?
Upon starting the game, you find yourself taking control of Tony Montana in the final moments of the Scarface movie. Fighting off rival gang members, you escape your mansion, with the help of your pet tiger, and discover that your empire is gone. The goal is simple: rebuild it, regain your power and use that empire to destroy the people who tried to destroy you.
GAMEPLAY
You start off by taking over gang territory and buying businesses in Miami. Businesses do not provide passive income; rather, they become vehicles for your drug distribution network. Once you secure a supply of cocaine, you distribute it through your businesses. That distribution keeps the ball rolling, allowing for more money, more control, more Ferraris and more cocaine.
The flip side to that loop is the heat system. As you distribute more cocaine across a wider swath of territory, rival gangs take notice. Let your heat rise too high and they will attack you while distributing your product. If they successfully best you, you lose the cash and cocaine you were carrying. They will similarly attack businesses while you are distributing, offering an interesting conundrum: try to defend your business and risk the millions of dollars in cash and cocaine you’re carrying, or continue and let the business be destroyed in order to try to stop the bleeding later?
The police system is similarly tied to the profile you make for yourself. Get into shootouts with the police too often and their response gets quicker and more aggressive, with more officers showing up each time. Stay in a shootout too long and the DEA gets involved. Unlike local police, you can’t simply run from them. Once they arrive, the chase ends when Tony dies.
That might frustrate players used to more forgiving police systems in games like Grand Theft Auto, but I think it gives law enforcement escalation an interesting edge. Push your luck too far and eventually the game just stops giving you an easy way out.
In order to complete a chapter of the game, you must first reach a certain reputation level. While reputation can be earned through completing missions or finishing distribution runs without failure, the third way to do it is through purchasing “exotics.” One exotic may be a Ferrari, another might be a speedboat, another might be an upgrade to Tony himself, or it could even take the form of a solid-gold tiger. Is this a mechanic that aged well? Debatable. However, I find the absurdity of buying a tiger made of solid gold to progress through the game hilarious and very Tony Montana.
RETROSPECTIVE
Is this one of the greatest games of all time? Absolutely not. Even by 2006 standards, the driving mechanics are too arcade-y, the pathing and camera are janky at best, the AI can be braindead, the checkpoints are horrendous, and the missions themselves can become repetitive.
That being said, it’s a fantastic game. In my eyes, what started off as a licensed Scarface GTA clone turned into a joke that someone loved enough to bring to life. It’s ambitious, forgotten, and genuinely has some excellent moments and mechanics that are rarely seen in modern games. It’s unabashed, unashamed, and very Tony Montana.
It’s a classic.