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Getaway: Black Monday
Well once
again we are back in merry old England with the Getaway Black Monday.
For those of you who played the original title, you would know how much
detail is packed into the game by Team Soho, the developers. Almost
lifelike (and would be if not for the limitations of the hardware),
London lives and breathes around you as a entity in it's own right.
Unfortunately I still have to slam this title due to the unwieldy nature
of the camera and general movement when in third person mode as it
leaves a hell of a lot to be desired. You can utilise the targeting
system that is in place, however it just leads to disappointment as far
as we were concerned with poor control and absolutely useless response
from Mitch who is the lead character.
I groaned when in the very first part of the game when you are going in
to deal with the drug dealers that I was in trouble when I ran past the
rest of my team in a very lopsided fashion and noticed that they'd
already taken out three of the bad guys. Great for me. Two of the three
had fully clipped through a concrete stairwell and were just dangling
there dead, half in and out of the concrete. Very sloppy.
You do get
a variety of weapons to use but for the most part they are not a great
deal of fun to use with the cranky aiming. I was standing point blank
near one of my targets who had a machine gun and he was missing me and
even with auto targeting on I was missing him. I actually had to move
Mitch right up on top of him and then it reverted to the melee attack
finally, enabling the targeting to then work and take the bad guy out.
It's funny
but even the driving in the game has a lot to be desired and really
irked me. There's nothing worse than driving through amazing
environments with shoddy controls and also the snails pace at which the
game travels. The cars seem to be able to handle a bit more damage than
previously which is good and you'll need it
considering some of the chases you'll be on.
Once again
players are faced with a bad experiences with essentially being forced
into a linear gameplaying experience. There were so many things to see
and do in London which you simply cannot that it's frustration central
and at one point I simply gave up in disgust. Playing the game on foot
or in a vehicle feels like you are trapped in a tunnel and the missions
don't bring a lot to the party in terms of story and even motivation for
you to get through to find out what happens next. The first Getaway was
one of those titles that blew you away with the level of detail and
general labour of love that the team put into creating a viable city to
travel and fight in. You had a real reason for making your way through
the story and a general strength of storyline that made you want to see
what was going to happen with a great brief of characters, plot and
audio.
The audio
in this title is pretty shabby with weapons fire not being very
convincing and the output from vehicles not being much better. I feel
bad for giving it so much stick but I can tell you now that it's simply
not enjoyable, however much I'd hoped that they'd improve from the first
game which was actually enjoyable and we scored it accordingly. The idea
of games sequels is that they really should move the whole experience
forward and bring the gameplay to a new level. This title doesn't.
Rent it
before you buy it.
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