N-Philes: Could you please introduce yourself and your role behind Scarface: The World is Yours?
Thomas: My name is Geoff Thomas and I’m the Producer of the Wii Edition of Scarface: The World is Yours at Radical.
N-Philes: How did you get into the gaming industry? And what other games have you worked on?
Thomas: My first job in the industry was Assistant Producer... it’s a great place to start because you get exposure to so many areas of development. The last two games I worked on are The Outfit and Company of Heroes.
N-Philes: Since Scarface: The World is Yours takes place after the end of the movie, what are some of the inspirations for the game’s story and plot come from? What are some of the things Tony Montana will have to do in the game?
Thomas: Like you said, the game begins right at the end of the movie. Bolivian drug kingpin Alejandro Sosa has sent an army of mercenaries and assassins to Miami to kill Tony. Surrounding Tony’s mansion, they move in for the kill. As anyone who has seen it will know, in the movie they’re successful, but in the game, the player as Tony, will blast his way out of the ambush and escape.
So you’ll find yourself back on the street with little more than your balls, your word, and a vow to get revenge on Sosa. But before you can do that, you’ll need to rebuild Tony’s drug empire... you’ll be buying and smuggling huge shipments of cocaine in from the Caribbean, selling it on the street, buying and upgrading fronts all over Miami to move the drugs more securely, laundering the money at banks, taking out other drug bosses, building your reputation in the city, and ultimately getting the power and respect you need to take the fight to Sosa’s doorstep.
N-Philes: Our editor-in-chief, Jared Thomas, absolutely loved Radical’s action-packed The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction ("uncontrollable laughter"-inducing he says in the review). Obviously Tony Montana isn’t a green giant, but what will the action be like in Scarface?
Thomas: In a word, ballsy. Tony is a violent, unpredictable, and charismatic guy, and we really want to reward players who think and act like he does. For example take the Balls Meter. Whenever you do something outrageous or over-the-top, you’ll earn Balls. If you get massive air over a jump, or do a reverse 180º powerslide in one of your exotic sports cars, you’ll get Balls. If you decide to shoot an enemy gang boss in the left nut or hack off his arms with a chainsaw, then taunt him about it before killing him, you’ll get Balls. And when your Balls Meter is full, you’ll have access to Blind Rage, a feature in the game that, when you activate it, temporarily turns Tony into an invincible, cuss-word spewing killing machine. Not only will you kill everything in sight, you’ll get some of your health back with each kill.
N-Philes: One of the key features that bring a sandbox game to life is the array of characters that populate it. Who are some of the key non-player characters and how do they contribute to the game?
Thomas: There are gangs all over Miami and the islands that you’ll have to deal with. You’ll also meet small-time street dealers, big-time distributors, drug lords that needs to be taken out, front owners that you can buy out and use to sell drugs, corrupt cops, and femme fatales that want to come and live with you.
In fact everyone you meet in the game plays a role. Walk up to someone at random on the street and you can strike up a conversation with them that’s over six lines deep; we have conversations like that scattered throughout the world. And as your reputation grows, people will show you more respect and speak to you differently. The world of Scarface revolves around Tony and the way that other characters interact with you as you play really reinforces that.
N-Philes: The subtitle to the game is "The World Is Yours". Could you give us some examples of some of the things that’ll be "yours" and what you can do with it?
Thomas: As you build your empire and take over enemy territory you’ll be making money hand over fist... hopefully faster than you can spend it because you’ll be spending it fast! You’ll be buying and fortifying your drug fronts, using your exotics catalogue to purchase outrageously expensive luxury cars, military-grade weapons, and hideously rare collectibles for your mansion, like the Apollo Space Capsule. And as you buy all this stuff you’re building Tony’s reputation on the street, which give you access to bigger and better things to spend your dirty cash on.
N-Philes: Obviously the Wii is known for its unique controls. How has the game adapted to the Wii Remote and Nunchuck? How does the game feel with this set-up?
Thomas: Weapons and camera control are handled with the Wii Remote while running, driving, and other character movement is controlled with the nunchuck. So when you want to fire a weapon (like nickel-plated pistols or machine guns), or steer Tony in a particular direction, you simply aim the Wii Remote at the screen in the direction you want to go. Melee weapons (like pipes, machetes, and the chainsaw) are controlled by holding the B button and swinging the Wii Remote around like you would if you wanted to knock someone’s head off.
Of course a huge part of the controls experience on the Wii comes down to gestures, and we’ve ensured that all of them feel natural in the Scarface universe. For example, during combat players can taunt Tony’s enemies by giving them the finger with the nunchuck. When they do this, Tony starts yelling and swearing to enrage his enemies and draw them out of cover.
Another gesture that we’re really happy with is the chainsaw. When you pull out your chainsaw and hold down the B button, you can swing the Wii Remote in specific directions to hack off specific body parts on your enemies. The coup de grace is to saw off the arms, legs and head of poor sucker who decided to get in your face. It’s damn rewarding.
N-Philes: Scarface on other platforms has been out for half a year now. Aside from the controls, what else will set the Wii version apart from the Xbox and PS2 versions? What will convince those who have played the game already to revisit this world?
Thomas: We’ve upgraded the graphics engine and rewritten most of the underlying systems to get the most out of the Wii. It’s the best looking version of the game, and the Wii control scheme makes it a completely fresh experience.
And as far as content goes, we’ve made a number of changes to our missions to ensure we maximize on the carnage and fun the new control scheme provides.
N-Philes: When did the team decide to revisit Tony’s world on Wii? What was the hardest part about bringing Scarface to the platform?
Thomas: We began working on the Wii edition as the PS2 and Xbox editions were wrapping up. The team is staffed by the same people who worked on those versions so there’s a lot of passion and expertise going into the Wii edition.
Without a doubt the biggest challenge we faced in bringing Scarface to the Wii was getting the controls right. We knew almost from the start that we wanted the Wii edition to use the Wii remote to control targeting and the camera, so getting it to a place where it felt ‘right’ for casual and hardcore gamers alike was our top priority.
We put the controls through focus test after focus test, and out of that process came our aiming preference system. It basically allows you to specify the size of the aiming area (or 'dead zone') on-screen, which is the space that you can move the targeting reticule around in without rotating the camera. We found that some preferred a very wide area and others a very small area depending on their gameplay style...so those players that want mouse-look sensitivity won’t be disappointed, and those that want a very casual and forgiving targeting system will also find combat super rewarding.
N-Philes: Was there any resistance about bringing such a mature game to a console that isn’t exactly known for that type of content?
Thomas: Quite the opposite! Every F-Bomb, decapitation, spray of blood, and lingerie-clad femme fatale from other versions of the game are present in the Wii Edition. It wouldn’t be a Scarface experience if it wasn’t every bit as gory, intense, and mature as the movie.
N-Philes: During Scarface’s development process, did you learn anything about the Wii that you didn’t already know? Anything that’s proving helpful with your next title, Crash of the Titans?
Thomas: Oh absolutely. Whenever you’re working on a new system, the whole development process ends up being a learning experience. We really enjoyed working with the Wii and I know the Crash team is having a blast as well.
N-Philes: What do you think of the Wii console overall? Has your opinion changed since it was first unveiled?
Thomas: It’s fantastic. I can’t wait for Metroid and Mario Galaxy. What continues to impress me is how effective it has been at encouraging people who don’t play games to pick up a Wii remote and have a great time with it.
N-Philes: A few more questions about Scarface... Many people noted that Al Pacino’s character and likeness was missing from The Godfather games and presume it was due to the commitment he made to Scarface. In addition to getting the real deal himself, what else will Scarface have to set itself apart from other crime-based sandbox games?
Thomas: Our goal with Scarface is to 100% deliver on the experience of being Tony Montana. Right from the start we put everything in the game through the wringer by asking ourselves "What Would Tony Montana Do?" We even put that question up on the walls of the team space to ensure that all of our design decisions came from the right place.
Tony is a complex and rewarding character and we really want this to shine through in his attitude, actions, and dialogue. He’ll cut down anyone who gets in his way and enjoy doing it, but that’s not to say Tony doesn’t have a strong moral code. He won’t kill women, children, or anyone who, in his mind at least, doesn’t have it coming. So in the game if the player tries to kill a pedestrian Tony will pull his arm back and say "What are you doing Tony? I don't need that shit in my life".
N-Philes: If you were a bad guy, how would you try to kill Tony? And if you were Tony, what would be your favorite weapon, your favorite car, your favorite boat, and your favorite femme fatale?
Thomas: I’d do whatever it takes to make sure Tony couldn’t tie it back to me, because like he says, he don’t die so easy.
Favorite car is the Lakota Fastback... fast and heavy with lots of style and a nice big grille to grind enemies up in.
Favorite boat is without question the Cigarette Gun Boat, as sexy as you remember seeing on Miami Vice, but with the added benefit of fixed dual machine guns on the front.
As for favorite Femme Fatale, I like them all so I’ll defer to the Spike TV Video Game Awards and pick Vida Guerra, who won Best Performance by a Human Female for her role in the game.
N-Philes: Radical Entertainment is based in Vancouver, quite a different setting compared to Tony Montana’s Miami. What did you do to get the feel of Miami and to ensure its authentic reproduction, both physically and atmosphere-wise, in the game? Were you lucky enough to go on any sun-filled fact-finding research trips?
Thomas: When you’re making a game in a setting as beautiful and tropical and Miami, you make sure that reference trips are plentiful! All kidding aside, we sent our artists and designers down to Miami on massive reference trips to immerse them in the sights, sounds, culture, and attitude of the city.
But beyond simply reproducing the city of Miami, we’ve rebuilt the Miami you see in Scarface. So players will visit Tony’s Mansion, the Babylon Club, the Sun Ray Hotel... all of the pivotal locations from the movie are there and play a role in the game.
N-Philes: Did you get a chance to work with or meet Al Pacino during the game’s creation? What about any other stars from the movie?
Thomas: Al was involved in the creative process during development, including approving Tony’s likeness and the script.
Many of the other stars of the film play roles in the game. For example Steven Bauer, who played Manny, and Robert Loggia, who played Frank Lopez, play characters in Scarface: The World is Yours. They play new characters of course, as both Manny and Frank didn’t survive the events of the film.
Beyond that, we have dozens of celebrity voice talent in the game. You’ll meet characters voiced by James Woods, Jason Mewes, Daniel Dae Kim, Ricky Gervais, Cheech and Chong, and many others during the course of the game.
N-Philes: Licensed games have a huge stigma in the gaming world, especially for gamers – largely because they’re bad games. Radical Entertainment, bucking this trend, has a done a great job of making well-known franchises such as The Simpsons and The Hulk into videogames. What’s different about how Radical handles licenses or approaches their development from most other developers?
Thomas: At Radical we don’t make any decisions about the game that don’t feel right and come from a place of total respect for the license. Part of that stems from the fact that we don’t work on a license that we’re not already fanatics about, but beyond that we also realize that the core audience for a game based on a franchise is made up of people who are huge fanboys just like us.
So we always work to ensure that our games ‘get it’, and that doesn’t always mean carbon-copying the content we’re basing them on. Scarface provides a perfect example... we made the decision to change the end of the film because we felt strongly that people cared more about being Tony Montana than just playing a rehash of the movie. The theme of rising from nothing, of making the world yours and all of the difficult decisions that go with it, is at the core of the Scarface experience. We knew it would be unsatisfying to simply re-do the movie. Everyone would already know how it ended.
N-Philes: What else would you like to turn into a videogame? What about any thoughts or plans for original games?
Thomas: Haha, no comment!
N-Philes: Violent videogames and legislation aimed to curb the sale of them to minors has been making a lot of news recently. What’s your opinion on this political trend?
Thomas: Games like Scarface are rated mature for a reason. Many of the people who worked on Scarface have kids of their own so we perfectly understand and endorse the restriction of mature-rated content from younger gamers.
As far as legislation moving forward that supports that, it would be difficult for anyone to disagree that it’s a good thing.
N-Philes: One last question, Which three games of all time are your favorite?
Thomas: Too many to choose from! But the first three that come to mind are Diablo, Zelda: The Wind Waker, and World of Warcraft.
