Scarface: Last Stand

I’m not convinced the Scarface movie has aged all that well, so it’s something of a surprise to see it suddenly resurrected in a mobile game. But the small amount of camp value that’s now attached to the film actually benefits the all-action gameplay of this unique third-person Pacino shooter.

Say hello to my little friend

Shooters seldom pan out on the mobile, simply because a keypad doesn’t lend itself to crosshair accuracy. This often means the game either has to do the work for you, or send you into a debilitating frustration spiral.

Scarface: Last Stand, however, has come up with a brilliantly simple gameplay mechanic that not only gets around the keypad control problem, but makes a feature of it.

As the name suggests, the game is set around Tony Montana’s final blood-soaked shootout around his mansion with a machine gun.

Since these are weapons that substitute accuracy for sheer volume of bullets, careful aim isn’t much of an issue. The screen is divided into a three-by-three grid that mimics the handset’s keypad, following the example of 2007's excellent Urban Attack.

Hitting button ‘1’ sprays bullets around the top left section of the grid, while hitting ‘5’ shoots wildly around the middle of the screen.

Nine buttons suddenly isn’t a lot of controls to cope with, and your thumb slides easily around the keypad almost as if it were a laptop touchpad. A remarkably simple idea that’s twice as effective as it deserves to be.

The only other control is hitting '0' to take cover. This is an essential aspect of the gameplay, as it allows Tony to recover a bit of health, gets him out of the way of return fire (though not grenades, be warned), and automatically reloads the machine gun.

Ducking behind a tacky marble statue or a pretend Corinthian column at just the right moment, then coming out with wild eyes and a machine gun blazing, is tremendous fun, and the non-stop action doesn’t give you much opportunity for boredom.

Which is just as well, as Scarface: Last Stand couldn’t easily be considered a deep gaming experience, but as mobile shooters go the mechanics of its gameplay are perfectly suited. Action fans will be manic about this one, though anyone who favours a cerebral challenge should probably keep their distance.