The Getaway

Let's get one thing straight: You can steal cars, you perpetrate crimes and you shoot people. Lots of people. But aside from those similarities, this game bears little semblance to the GTA series. While the GTA games give you a arcade feeling, The Getaway is meant to be as real as possible. There's no screen junk like maps, health bars, ammo counter or anything. You are guided by the blinking indicators on your car and your health is gauged by the way you move and the blood on your suit. The controls are acceptable, but not as tight as they could be. Controlling the cars is much more enjoyable than GTA3 or GTA:VC. Unlike in GTA:VC and preceding games, you can only target hostile opponents, which saves ammo and frustration in a fire fight. The on foot engine has stealth. Hide against walls, pop out around corners, etc. You can take hostages and use them as a shield. Opponents may not fire if the hostage is important. Cops, however, will NEVER fire at a hostage. The weapon selection is limited, you can get pistols, a shotgun, an AK47 and MP5s. Be warned, this game definitely mature. Plenty of course language, stark violence and some other mature themes. Overall, it's a great game.

I really liked this one for starters. It was well worth the wait and well worth the attention as well.

• The graphics in the game, in my opinion, were very good. I can see how the game makers and designers at Sony Computer Entertainment America and Team Soho made the levels very unique and challenging because you have to reach your destination by following the indicators on the tail lights of your car, and then when they both flash, that means you've reached your destination. I think that this was a very nice touch because it feels so real and all the places you go to are all real as well, and not in some kind of "made-up" place that the game makers and designers thought up of.

• The controls in the game, in my opinion, are pretty good. I know that it can be a bit irritating at most times, because you never know when you're gonna run out of ammo because, again, they don't have a display for that. But, then I realized that you'll know when you're running low after you've been firing the pistol, shotgun or assault rifle a lot of times, and then you feel the controller vibrate. That's when you know it's time to reload. The driving controls for the game were also good as well.

• The voice-acting in the game, in my opinion, was very good. I can see now why it said on the back of the case, "Cast of professional actors", because every single actor and actress gave a really good performance in the entire game right up 'til the end. Just amazing.

• The dialogue in the game, in my opinion, was also very good. There's no scenes of empty dialogue anywhere throughout the entire game and I think that the dialogue was very detailed and very well-written.

• The cars in the game, in my opinion, were very good as well. Just make sure that you don't go flying at a rapid speed, then what happens is that your car would catch smoke and if a front or a rear tire is flat, then you'd be swerving around all over the place, which is kind of annoying at most times, but other than that, the cars are very good to handle and get around with.

• The gameplay in the game, lastly, in my opinion, was really good, too. I find that the idea of you having to drive to a certain place and it takes you a little while to get there and then you can shoot up different people there for a little while too, whether you were Mark Hammond or Frank Carter, it was fun, and nothing but fun.

Some action-driving players may feel unusual about the idea of a game that has no map or a bullet screen or an arrow to show you where to go next, but, I have to say that this game is definitely one of the best driving/shooting adventure games I've played in a long time, right up there with Grand Theft Auto.

I definitely would recommend this to anyone who's looking for a real fun challenge in a really fun game.

With all of that said, I give "The Getaway",

9 stars out of 10.

The Getaway, says Sony, is a perfect combination of both movie and game. You, the player, have to complete missions implemented in a storyline told by several cut-scenes. On-screen information like health bars, hints and directions simply don't exist: you have to rely on your car's turn signals to find your way through the faithfully remodeled city of London. Realism is the keyword here.

And it's the realism that makes this game hell to play. I am a big fan of the 'cartoon' approach that Rockstar uses in its brilliant GTA games. Unlike Grand Theft Auto, The Getaway wants to be taken seriously. Example: killing pedestrians in GTA is fun. You get money for doing so and if you wait a few seconds, an ambulance will arrive to undo the damage you've done. Whereas driving over pedestrians with your vehicle is ludicrous in GTA, it's a rather uncomfortable business in The Getaway. The sickening thud and the screaming of the person you just hit make this quite horrible. And you'll have to kill a few peds in this game, believe me. London folks appear to be suicidal, which means they'll regularly walk into your car. Same goes for the innocent people who get killed when they walk stupidly into your line of fire.

Telling the entire world that your game is ultra-realistic sheds expectations. People don't expect crappy animation, cheesy controls and abysmally behaving cars in a 'realistic' game, and neither did I. This game should have set a benchmark, and it did: The Getaway is the world's first ánd worst movie-game combo ever! A brilliant idea, good storyline and seedy atmosphere are worth nothing thanks to the ruddy gameplay. Games shouldn't be realistic, they should be fun. Ironically, The Getaway is neither realistic nor entertaining. A lousy 5.5/10 is even more than they actually deserve.

this game is very fun to play. the game is stylish. the story is good too. real cars are included like saab, BMW etc. First you play mark hammond whose's son is kidnapped by the jolsons after you have completed the game then you play the policeman frank carter who is also with in the story and you play with his point of view. when you have completed the game, you play play free roam where you can explore London but not whole. the game is not like other games that when you're wounded, you need to find a heart and you can carry many weapons as you like, in this game you can rest against a wall to recover yourself and you can have max two pistols and a two-hand weapon. but still the crew should have put abit more effort in it but overall: 8/10

I'm not going to fool around, i'll get right into the review.

Story: 9/10

Mark Hammond, a retired Collins gangster from Soho, has recently been released from prison and is now managing his own night club in central London. He has a wife (Suzie) and one son (Alex). His life is brilliant and he is in a great position. But one day his life turns from brilliant to horrid. Early one morning an old rival of the Bethnal Green Mob, Charlie Jolson, kills his wife and kidnaps his son. Mark immediately hears the gun shots and rushes to the street to find Suzie dying. As on lookers scream, Mark rushes to his car to chase after the Bethnal Green Mob through an early rush hour in London. This starts the longest day Mark will ever remember. The story advances with excellent twists which i won't spoil for you. There's also D.C. Frank Carter, a detective working at Snow Hill for D.C.I McCormack. He's been working on a case to bring Charlie and Jake Jolson into prison. You can play as both characters.What can i say? The story is supreme, however a bit unoriginal. Still, it definitely creates enough tension to keep you playing through the game from the first level to the 24th level.

Graphics: 9/10

Wow. The graphics are amazing and compete along side 'Metal Gear Solid 2' and 'Rachet and Clank'. Just look at the screen shots. The characters details are amazing and the streets look real. If that's not enough, you just have to switch on Progressive Scan Mode (Only on certain TVs - I haven't seen the results) which i can only imagine make the graphics 10 out of 10 quality. So why 9? Of course, with over 500,000 digital photos put in the game as textures the quality of the buildings had to be dimmed down. Also, often the graphics are slow to appear or just lag in certain areas of London. To sum it up - The game uses every ounce of power the Playstation 2 gives away.

Gameplay: 8/10

There's a hell of a lot of things to mention, but the most clear thing is that's there's no on screen details. Team Soho have very cleverly worked around this to give it more of a realistic/movie feel. There's no on screen map which will be noticed first. This has brilliantly been worked around and you navigate your way around London by using the vehicle's indicators which will automatically flash telling you what to do. Great, huh? Another obvious loss is the health bar. Now this one is amazing. Each time the character is injured, bloodstains will appear on his clothes and he will be visually crippled, limping around or dragging himself. This is a huge step up in games. On most other games you can be on 1% of health and the character will look the same as it does at 100%. There's also no ammunition notification. The only sign of this is the controller vibration when you have no ammo left. All this does make the game a lot harder than it would be if there was on screen detail, however, you get used to it very, very quickly.

Some of you may be disappointed with the skinny weapon range. This includes a Baseball Bat, Police Baton, a Crowbar, a Knife, Pistols (Also dual pistols), Shotguns, an AK-47 and some nice MP5s (Also available as dual). Yes, it's skinny, but i guarantee you won't notice with the amazing gun fights and gang wars going on. To make up for the small range of weapons there's a massive range of movements to do with stealth. The most important in the game has to be the wall lean which leads to the jump out movement, blind gun shot movement, jump out shots and wall to wall stealth. You can also do all this behind small boxes while crouching too. But that's not all. There's rolling and hostage taking (Which leads to immediate shot, neck breaking, pistols whip and arrests) which are really fun. Add this to the game detail, the gun range and such, and you can shoot gas cannisters underneath stairs to make the stairs collapse and poison gas in the hospitals which can poison enemies. Awesome, huh?I can only find a few flaws in the game. The major one is the camera. It's quite awful, you have to manually move it often, unfortunately. However, i got over this quickly but i realized many other people haven't. This one flaw prevented this game from getting 10/10 in the Official Playstation 2 Magazine UK. Just to show off more, there's around 50 fully licensed vehicles in the game (Like Mazdas, Rovers and even TVRs and Lotus')! There's also 10 great hidden cars. There's a hell of a lot more in depth things, like in the car chases.. But if you buy 'The Getaway', you'll find out.

Rent or Buy?

I noticed that on some of the games forums that some people love the game and some people hate the game. This is why i'll call it 'The Marmite Of Video Games'. The reason for this is because they expect a copy of 'Grand Theft Auto'. Well, you're all wrong, as you hopefully just noticed. The two games shouldn't even be in the same category. Try and catch a demo, if you can. Failing that, rent it, and decide for yourself.

• Luke Hudson