Scarface: The World is Yours hands-on

We also got a look at the "distribution" missions, which are undertaken whenever Tony gets a shipment of drugs. While a timer ticks down, you'll need to drive around to corrupt businesses you own - "fronts" - to drop off the product, and then take the money they give you to a bank to be laundered (for a hefty fee). While you're doing that, however, your fronts are vulnerable to attack by rivals, so you'll want to use the empire-management screen to beef them up with surveillance and guards.

If you don't have a ride (and carjacking's not your style), you can call up your driver - one of three playable, hirable henchmen - and he'll instantly pull up in a vehicle from Tony's collection. If you need guns, too, just give your arms dealer a call and he'll magically place some in the trunk.

All of this happens to the strains of no fewer than 150 licensed songs, including the movie soundtrack, a selection of '70s and '80s music and a whole bunch of more current tunes. Players will have full control over all of it, too, able to edit the soundtrack to their liking.

Even on the PS2, Scarface: The World is Yours looks better and better every time we see it. The game is shaping up to be one of the best car-crime games - let alone movie adaptations - we've ever played, so we're really looking forward to seeing how it shapes up as its tentative October release date draws nearer.

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Mikel Reparaz
After graduating from college in 2000 with a BA in journalism, I worked for five years as a copy editor, page designer and videogame-review columnist at a couple of mid-sized newspapers you've never heard of. My column eventually got me a freelancing gig with GMR magazine, which folded a few months later. I was hired on full-time by GamesRadar in late 2005, and have since been paid actual money to write silly articles about lovable blobs.