Here is a game where you get to challenge hapless passers-by on the way they carry themselves (“Hey, man. Why the fock you walkin’ like that?”). Not a good idea in certain sections of Detroit, say, but here open hostility to random strangers is encouraged – and rewarded.
That’s because this is Tony Fockin’ Montana, see. And, given the lack of basic vocabulary or subtle interpersonal diplomacy, his word and his balls are going to have to suffice. That, and a quivering great hard-on for automatic weapons.
Sure, it’s Grand Theft Auto Lite (mini missions, bits of driving, lot of swearing, disturbingly satisfying violence). But the producers have dodged the lazy, conceptual tracing-paper approach of previous clones – particularly the True Crime series – by bonding TWIY up close and cosy to its cinematic inspiration. Unusually, for what’s essentially a game shamelessly piggy-backing off a movie brand, there’s a fierce sense of affection and affinity for the source. Better still, the affection is both cosmetic and practical. Not only is the trash-talk true to Pacino’s original, it boosts Nu-Tony’s 'balls’ meter, setting him up for blazing, red-misted rampages through mini-armies of fockin’ cock-a-roaches. Not to be. Sniffed at.
