at 15:32 on January 24, 2007, EST.
By NEIL DAVIDSON


A car explodes in this image from the video game Scarface in this undated handout image. (CPimages/HO, Vivendi Universal)


(CP) - Some 10 years after making his screen debut in Al Pacino's "Looking for Richard," Andre Sogliuzzo found himself playing Pacino.

Actually, the New York actor won the voice role of Pacino's storied character of Tony Montana in the made-in-Vancouver video game "Scarface: The World Is Yours." Released last October, Radical Entertainment's "Scarface" has gone on to sell more than a million copies and is still flying off the shelves.

The game, rated M for mature, starts with the climactic shootout in Tony's mansion from the end of the "Scarface" film. But this time he survives and the gamer plays the Cuban-born crime boss as he tries to put his empire back together and take vengeance on his enemies.

Cam Weber, executive producer at Radical, says getting the right Tony voice actor was one of the keys to the project, given the 1983 film's loyal following.

"I think we auditioned about 75 or 80 different potential Tonys. Each one of those who auditioned had an agent saying that my guy is THE Tony Montana impersonator," Weber said from Vancouver.

"They could all pull off the key lines, like 'Say hello to my little friend.' "

But almost all stumbled when they were asked to be Tony Montana off script.

"Andre was probably the only guy that could handle just being Tony," Weber said. "You can just sit here and have a full conversation with him and he's Tony Montana and he nails it. He's quite amazing in what he does with that stuff."

Weber and Radical narrowed down the list to three voice actors before consulting Pacino.

"He's the one that actually chose Andre, but Andre was far and away our favourite as well," Weber said.

"He's someone that Al has used in the past, someone who Al trusts, and this guy is a dead ringer for Tony," he added.

Sogliuzzo, 40, is also a veteran of almost 100 video games. According to the movie database website www.imdb.com, "Andre has died a thousand deaths in titles such as 'Medal of Honor,' 'Call of Duty,' 'Destroy All Humans,' 'Spawn' and 'Doom 3.' "

Pacino, meanwhile, agreed to allow the developers use of his likeness in the game.

"He was very involved in the project," Weber said.

Pacino's contract gave him approval over more than his voice double. He also had final say on the look of the character and the game's main writer, David McKenna.

Vivendi Universal, which ended up buying Radical last March, was also closely involved as holder of the "Scarface" licence.

So game assets, voice samples and scripts went first to Universal and then Pacino for approval.

"He was really good to work with," Weber said. "Everything we did around the feedback we got from both those groups made our game better in the end."

While Pacino did not lend his voice, other actors were knocking on the door to be part of the video game project.

"I'm sure we have the largest celebrity voice cast of any game in history," Weber said proudly. "We had over 50 celebrity voice actors that contributed to this title. And we had over 100 total voice actors that contributed."

The developers went after celebrities they wanted and then found people started coming to them.

"We were actually able to secure a ton of celebrity talent for really reasonable prices, because people really wanted to be part of it. People love 'Scarface,' it was just something that they jumped on and a lot of people approached us."

Robert Loggia (Frank Lopez) and Steven Bauer (Manny Ribera) reprise their roles from the film. Other celebrities who lend their voices to the game are Ricky Gervais, Elliott Gould, Ice-T, Motorhead bass player Lemmy, Miguel Sandoval, Michael Rooker, Richard Roundtree, Michael York, James Woods, and Cheech and Chong.

"I think the guy that made me laugh the most was Anthony Anderson," Weber said. "He did one of our dealer characters and he just improvised a few lines. . . .Some of the lines are just hilarious."

The game allows you to take part in specific missions, or just lets you explore Miami and other locales as Tony Montana.

A taunt button makes the game a guilty pleasure, as Tony spouts insults as he sprays bullets.

"We probably cut about 1,200 lines when it came down to the end. They went a little too far," Weber said with a laugh.

Radical got to do the game after pitching an original project - which featured an open world with plenty of driving and combat - to Vivendi. The pitch was turned down but Vivendi liked the technology and offered the chance to do "Scarface."

Not surprisingly, Weber usually dreads telling his team about rejections.

"But this one, when I told them there's an opportunity to do 'Scarface,' they cheered all at once. It was like a standing ovation, they loved it."

There were bumps along the way and the game was delayed.

"It was just looking like we weren't going to knock this thing out of the park quality-wise," Weber explained. "We wanted extra time to really make it the game we wanted to make it, so we decided to delay the schedule, moved it from 2005 into 2006 and shipped in 2006. I think the total development time .. was almost three years."

The development team also grew to a peak of 117 people, more when you add in those involved in game testing. At the time, that represented about half of the Vancouver studio, whose staff now ranges from 200 to 300.

Radical's resume includes such hits as "Simpsons: Hit and Run," "Simpsons: Road Rage," and a pair of "Hulk" games.

The success of "Scarface" is especially impressive considering it is only available on Xbox, PlayStation 2 and PC - a PSP version by another developer is also available - and came out just before the Nintendo and PlayStation next-generation consoles.

But Weber thinks a good game and an "evergreen licence" - one that has managed to survive time and find a niche in the hip-hop world - have kept "Scarface" selling at video game stores.

"We're 'Scarface' fans. But the cross-section of people who love 'Scarface' and people who play video games, especially core gamers, there's a huge correlation between the two," he said.

"It really is just the perfect licence for a video game."


©The Canadian Press, 2007

luv4u said:

That's a party.