The Getaway: Black Monday has once again been beaten out by Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but most people who like crime games would have already picked up San Andreas. The Getaway: Black Monday is once again set in a living breathing London, with some extra landmarks added for good measure, including the Underground subway and the Thames river.
The: Getaway Black Monday is set two years after the events on the Sol Vita. London has moved on. It's Sergeant Mitchell's first day back on the Met's (Metropolitan Police) firearms squad, and it's going to be one to remember; a dawn raid on a council estate turns nasty. But that's just the beginning...the next 48 hours will see him come up against the most powerful man in London.
Meanwhile on the other side of the City Boxer Eddie O'Connor is getting a severe beating; the bank job went horribly wrong, his crew are decimated. Bodies are continuing to drop left, right and centre. His only ally in this whole mess is Sam, a lightweight thief more comfortable with nicking laptops than extreme violence. He knows he's way out of his depth - now his friends are dead and somebody is going to have to pay.
The game does something very unique, it tells three stories in the span of 48 hours, all these stories overlap and add a bit of variety to the game, no longer does the story just focus on the one story of Mark Hammond. All three characters play different to each other, but mastering their moves is relatively easy.
Team SOHO have added in extra vehicles so add a bit more variety to the game and to make the free-roaming mode a little more enthralling. These new vehicles include motorbikes, vans, buses and taxis. The upgraded driving physics also ensure that the vehicles are a lot easier to handle, and more of a pleasure to drive rather than a deterrence. There have also been more weapons added to the roster, (still nowhere near San Andrea’s weapon count though) including pistols, automatic weapons, shotguns and melee weapons.
One of the biggest complaints about this games predecessor was that aside from the story mode there was nothing else to keep gamers entertained. Team SOHO have added in “special features” to the game including a race mode, black cab mode, chase mode and free-roam mode.
The race mode is exactly as we expected, a quick race through London with barriers guiding you through, a lack of a map certainly makes the challenge a little harder than it should be. Although the indicators on the cars do direct the gamer where to go.
The Black Cab challenge plays exactly like Crazy Taxi but without the fun. The city is very somber and even the London residents aren’t very enthusiastic, this mode will last about ten minutes before the gamer gets bored.
Chase is pretty self explanatory as well, Gamers step in the role of a police car and try and chase down the opposition car. This game helps to showcase just how bad the collision detection is when cars smash into each other.
Free roam mode makes a return this time, except it doesn’t need to be unlocked which makes for a welcome change. It’s still not a very exciting mode though and the extra vehicles do little to improve this, even though this was obviously Team SOHO’s intention.
So, the biggest asset of the game lies in the story mode, which is significantly easier than the original Getaway. There are twenty two missions and most players of moderate skill should be able to complete the game without too many hassles, that is if they have the patience to sit through the game at all.
We admit that the inclusions to The Getaway: Black Monday sound good. However, there are many things which bring down the score of the game, for starters, the new inclusions to the game are boring, at least in San Andreas there was enough to keep gamers entertained. In The Getaway: Black Monday their just isn’t enough. I seriously doubt we’d see Mitch playing basketball anytime soon.
The three characters are good and the storyline is better than the first, however the ending is a cataclysmic failure. We don’t want to give it away, but those who have managed to get to the end of the game will be really disappointed. A good ending could have finished this game with a bang.
The game play itself is a mixed bag, the driving physics are noticeably better and the controls are improved upon but the camera angles are still bad, if not worse than its predecessor. This can often make playing the game a chore, rather than entertaining.
We also understand that most games have some glitches of some kind, however, we doubt we’ve ever come across as many as we did in Black Monday. Sometimes while driving along the gamer will hit a pedestrian and they will just go straight through them. At one point while I was racing I accidently went through one of the barriers blocking the road (may I add they weren’t doing a very good job) two other A.I cars were behind me and ploughed straight into the barrier as well, they stayed stuck in between the course and the barrier for the entire race. All of a sudden the barriers start working again and I was stuck outside the course. Race over. These kinds of glitches happen so often in this game that as soon as you begin enjoying the game another problem will occur.
There also aren’t many other things to keep the gamer entertained. There are keychains to collect through the game and the Black Cab, Chase, Free-roaming and Race modes, but as we mentioned above, none of them are terribly exciting. This game won’t last to long, and when there are other offerings such as San Andreas we question why anyone would both with this title.
The graphics haven’t been upgraded too much since two years ago either. London still looks stunning, and we can tell the Playstation 2 really is being put through its paces while running this game. We feel that Team Soho may have actually pushed the Playstation 2 too far as there are consistant frame-rate problems, especially during the race mode where the action is fast paced. However, at times the characters can still look a little blocky.
Over twenty characters have been motion captured for this game and have also lent their voices to the game. The voice work is to be commended as it is pretty good and sounds really authentic. The rest of the sound in the game is weak and dull though.
With so many decent games being released in the last three months we began to feel how it felt to play a bad game, The Getaway: Black Monday is a poor game who we would not recommend to even the most die-hard Getaway fans, this would have been better suited as an expansion pack, as the full price recommend retail for this game is extremely rich. Black Monday is full of glitches, boring modes and a poor frame-rate at times. We have given it exactly the same score as DRIV3R and who actually enjoyed that game? Avoid it and you’ll be happy, and we’ll be happy.
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