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*shrugs*
Presentation:
Graphics are reasonable, if a little jaggy on building edges/other vehicles.
It's certainly not GTA3, but then no doubt someone will argue it's not supposed to be but c'mon...
Cut-scenes are many and you have to sit through them, which is ok the 1st time but when you reload a game after a break it gets annoying to sit through up to 2 mins of mockney swearing.
Voice acting is good, if a little "Awight darlin'" "Geeza!". Imagine Lock Stock & 2 Smoking Barrels idea of cockney London. I do have a problem with the swearing though. I'm not a prude, but it seems to be included merely as a giggly "Hehehehe, this is an 18 cert game. Let's have more swearing" and uncecessary to be honest.
The cutscenes are cinematic and done well, lots of wide-boy violence dished out and lots of no-neck gorillas saying “####” a lot.
Which is always nice.
Gameplay:
Driving is handled well, if a little strange at first. It feels like the road is turning instead of the car but you soon get used to it and it becomes un-noticeable after a couple of minutes. No in-game map, you follow the indicators to tell you where to go. Again, an unusual idea but it becomes 2nd nature after a minute or so.
My main criticism of the driving is the camera. There’s no option to look left or right, nor can you look behind. Which is a problem at intersections when a collision will result in the police giving chase. You literally just have to pull out and hope for the best. Same with high-speed chases, you can’t look behind and see how close the police/triads/other gangs are, it’s just floor it and pray.
Car destruction is handled very well, eventually after charging down the Embankment and smashing into loads of cars, yours will grind to a halt.
I was chased by 3 rozzers, flew across a stinger and had sparks flying from 2 wheels. And still I sped along like a demented Tron-bike enthusiast.
Running/Shooting.
Oh dear. This took a *lot* of getting used to, unwieldy and cumbersome. Camera is terrible for the most part, it’s hard to see what’s going on unless you stop, hit R1 and pivot like a tank turret. But one in a suit.
Foes have a nasty habit of respawning unless you go round that corner/into that room to prove to the AI that it’s empty. Which can get frustrating, especially on the Chinese Artifact level when you have 6 blokes with AK47s bearing down on you. And twice I got stuck whilst ducking behind objects, he wouldn’t stand/shoot/roll/look about – just crouched like a stupid cockney garden gnome.
However, once you adapt to the idea that your character is a robo-plegic romcock and not a lithesome athlete, then gunfights are actually good fun. Something satisfying about ducking out from the cover of a wall, blasting someone a few times and your character saying “You ####ing muppet”.
Don’t expect the fluid running/shooting of GTA3 and you’ll soon lower your expectations enough to get into the gunplay.
I just wish you could do something about the camera control, it gets annoying to have to stop and rotate in order to look about, then start running again. This is especially hard when bailing from a dying car, stop/rotate to find another car, start running to it, stop/rotate to face the door and then steal it.
Plus Points:
A large area of London, replicated down to the major roads and easily recognizable landmarks. I don’t care who you are or your “violence in video games” standpoint, you can easily enjoy bombing it around Piccadilly Circus, up Shaftesbury and then charge down Tottenham Court Road whilst being chased by police.
I ignored the 1st part of the 2nd mission and instead of driving to a rendezvous, I went up to Old Street and took the journey I do a couple of times a week from the studio to a mates house nr Battersea. And yep, bar side-roads you can’t go down, it’s picture perfect – right down to the advertising boards and traffic lights. Hell, you even get traffic jams.
Car chases are good fun, if a little unrealistic and the lack of cameras whilst driving means intersections are a 50/50 chance of getting smashed in.
Negative Points:
Camera angles in car/on foot are not changeable at all. Behind for the car, behind for the running. Don’t bother trying to use the “free look” function, because you have to stop to look about, which doesn’t help when you’re being shot at and need to locate an exit.
AI
A major, major annoyance.
The police have 2 set AI routines (tested out over 2 hrs).
You are flying down Regent Street at whatever speed (no onscreen data *at all*), there are police coming to stop you. They will either
(a)Be in front of you and swerve into your path. It doesn’t matter what speed you go or whether you hit the brakes or not, you *will* hit them broadside. There’s no just-evaded sense like in GTA3 when you dodge an oncoming psycho cop’s car. They come at you, you try everything to evade – you will hit them. Try it, try to dodge them by accelerating to one side. Or try handbraking so they skid in front of you and you can carry on. Doesn’t matter at all, no matter what you do? You’re going to plow into them, accept it.
(b) Be behind you and be inches from your bumper. You’re on a straight and things are looking dicey. There’s a corner coming up. You can’t look about so you stick your foot down and just barrel across and pray. You make it, the sirens are still screaming. Here comes a sweeping corner now. Just as you start to turn? The police obtain a surge of speed and come alongside you, forcing you into the wall.
Wow, that seemed hardly fair- I’ll retry that level and go a different route.
Straight road, they aint catching me.
Here comes a corner aaaaaaaaaand…..WHAM, they get level and force you into a lamppost.
I may not have been doing something right, but level after level after level? Police straight at you means you’re hitting those piggies, regardless of your choice of action. Police behind means you’re getting slammed on a bend into the wall/lamppost/traffic light
The Getaway. 2 years in development, screens released and features written about the next generation of it all.
Merited?
Not really.
The streets look very good and London has been replicated to an extent. But it feels like they spent all this time mapping out an area, then sat round a table and said “Alright, now what?”
“A game. With swearing”
“And car stealing. And some more swearing”
“Cool.”
“Er…Grand Theft Auto 3 has just been released”
“B****r. Let’s leave it a year and wait for the fuss to die down then, release some screenshots of London”
“Cool”
*flash forward a year*
”Ok, the GTA3 thing has died down. Let’s release it”
“Er…Vice City has been released”
“Oh for fu…right, release it in December then. Add more swearing”
“Yep”
----
It's an alright game,just nothing special bar the London-mapped thing.
I'll play it, but it's nowhere near as special as I was thinking.
Murdered by hype?
*shrugs*
Presentation:
Graphics are reasonable, if a little jaggy on building edges/other vehicles.
It's certainly not GTA3, but then no doubt someone will argue it's not supposed to be but c'mon...
Cut-scenes are many and you have to sit through them, which is ok the 1st time but when you reload a game after a break it gets annoying to sit through up to 2 mins of mockney swearing.
Voice acting is good, if a little "Awight darlin'" "Geeza!". Imagine Lock Stock & 2 Smoking Barrels idea of cockney London. I do have a problem with the swearing though. I'm not a prude, but it seems to be included merely as a giggly "Hehehehe, this is an 18 cert game. Let's have more swearing" and uncecessary to be honest.
The cutscenes are cinematic and done well, lots of wide-boy violence dished out and lots of no-neck gorillas saying “####” a lot.
Which is always nice.
Gameplay:
Driving is handled well, if a little strange at first. It feels like the road is turning instead of the car but you soon get used to it and it becomes un-noticeable after a couple of minutes. No in-game map, you follow the indicators to tell you where to go. Again, an unusual idea but it becomes 2nd nature after a minute or so.
My main criticism of the driving is the camera. There’s no option to look left or right, nor can you look behind. Which is a problem at intersections when a collision will result in the police giving chase. You literally just have to pull out and hope for the best. Same with high-speed chases, you can’t look behind and see how close the police/triads/other gangs are, it’s just floor it and pray.
Car destruction is handled very well, eventually after charging down the Embankment and smashing into loads of cars, yours will grind to a halt.
I was chased by 3 rozzers, flew across a stinger and had sparks flying from 2 wheels. And still I sped along like a demented Tron-bike enthusiast.
Running/Shooting.
Oh dear. This took a *lot* of getting used to, unwieldy and cumbersome. Camera is terrible for the most part, it’s hard to see what’s going on unless you stop, hit R1 and pivot like a tank turret. But one in a suit.
Foes have a nasty habit of respawning unless you go round that corner/into that room to prove to the AI that it’s empty. Which can get frustrating, especially on the Chinese Artifact level when you have 6 blokes with AK47s bearing down on you. And twice I got stuck whilst ducking behind objects, he wouldn’t stand/shoot/roll/look about – just crouched like a stupid cockney garden gnome.
However, once you adapt to the idea that your character is a robo-plegic romcock and not a lithesome athlete, then gunfights are actually good fun. Something satisfying about ducking out from the cover of a wall, blasting someone a few times and your character saying “You ####ing muppet”.
Don’t expect the fluid running/shooting of GTA3 and you’ll soon lower your expectations enough to get into the gunplay.
I just wish you could do something about the camera control, it gets annoying to have to stop and rotate in order to look about, then start running again. This is especially hard when bailing from a dying car, stop/rotate to find another car, start running to it, stop/rotate to face the door and then steal it.
Plus Points:
A large area of London, replicated down to the major roads and easily recognizable landmarks. I don’t care who you are or your “violence in video games” standpoint, you can easily enjoy bombing it around Piccadilly Circus, up Shaftesbury and then charge down Tottenham Court Road whilst being chased by police.
I ignored the 1st part of the 2nd mission and instead of driving to a rendezvous, I went up to Old Street and took the journey I do a couple of times a week from the studio to a mates house nr Battersea. And yep, bar side-roads you can’t go down, it’s picture perfect – right down to the advertising boards and traffic lights. Hell, you even get traffic jams.
Car chases are good fun, if a little unrealistic and the lack of cameras whilst driving means intersections are a 50/50 chance of getting smashed in.
Negative Points:
Camera angles in car/on foot are not changeable at all. Behind for the car, behind for the running. Don’t bother trying to use the “free look” function, because you have to stop to look about, which doesn’t help when you’re being shot at and need to locate an exit.
AI
A major, major annoyance.
The police have 2 set AI routines (tested out over 2 hrs).
You are flying down Regent Street at whatever speed (no onscreen data *at all*), there are police coming to stop you. They will either
(a)Be in front of you and swerve into your path. It doesn’t matter what speed you go or whether you hit the brakes or not, you *will* hit them broadside. There’s no just-evaded sense like in GTA3 when you dodge an oncoming psycho cop’s car. They come at you, you try everything to evade – you will hit them. Try it, try to dodge them by accelerating to one side. Or try handbraking so they skid in front of you and you can carry on. Doesn’t matter at all, no matter what you do? You’re going to plow into them, accept it.
(b) Be behind you and be inches from your bumper. You’re on a straight and things are looking dicey. There’s a corner coming up. You can’t look about so you stick your foot down and just barrel across and pray. You make it, the sirens are still screaming. Here comes a sweeping corner now. Just as you start to turn? The police obtain a surge of speed and come alongside you, forcing you into the wall.
Wow, that seemed hardly fair- I’ll retry that level and go a different route.
Straight road, they aint catching me.
Here comes a corner aaaaaaaaaand…..WHAM, they get level and force you into a lamppost.
I may not have been doing something right, but level after level after level? Police straight at you means you’re hitting those piggies, regardless of your choice of action. Police behind means you’re getting slammed on a bend into the wall/lamppost/traffic light
The Getaway. 2 years in development, screens released and features written about the next generation of it all.
Merited?
Not really.
The streets look very good and London has been replicated to an extent. But it feels like they spent all this time mapping out an area, then sat round a table and said “Alright, now what?”
“A game. With swearing”
“And car stealing. And some more swearing”
“Cool.”
“Er…Grand Theft Auto 3 has just been released”
“B****r. Let’s leave it a year and wait for the fuss to die down then, release some screenshots of London”
“Cool”
*flash forward a year*
”Ok, the GTA3 thing has died down. Let’s release it”
“Er…Vice City has been released”
“Oh for fu…right, release it in December then. Add more swearing”
“Yep”
----
It's an alright game,just nothing special bar the London-mapped thing.
I'll play it, but it's nowhere near as special as I was thinking.
Murdered by hype?
Camera angles...ok how have they NOT managed to include the option of being able to look behind you when running/driving etc, this is a fundamental part of any game of this kind of genre? 500 years in development (well seems like it) and they've forgotten this....duh!
Quick question, are all the buttons utilised on the controller because if they aren't then the option to look behind you should definitely been included in there?
Garden gnome made me chuckle :D
Button usage - On foot
X is action. Roll/Choke Hold/Duck/Back against wall
Square is get guns out
Triangle is...get guns out
Circle is steal car (have to be facing door)
L1 - reload
R1 - auto-aim
R2 - Free aim/Free look
In car:
X - acclerate
Triangle - reverse
Square - Brake
Circle - Get out
R1 - Handbrake
L3 - Horn
Jeez if I was one of the testers I'd be throwing it back in their face and saying get on with it. I wonder what excuse the developers will come up with for not including it.
Hopefully SR will post this out early and it will be sat at home tonight to have a play around with, if not then it's either going to be Wed or Thu :-(
It was enjoyable enough to keep me playing from 9pm to about 2am this morning, can't see a lot of replay value though.
There's an option called "Extra Features" on the menu - but you highlight it and nothing happens.
Maybe stuff unlocked later on?
Cut N Paste loveliness?
> but is it bad enough to make all the "p"reviews of the
> Getaway posted on SR before the games was released look incredibly
> ill-informed?
And the worst thing is these reviews often win.
As for the game, i noticed playing the demo that the lack of ability to look around the car as in Driver ect really hampered your chances on the road. They have had 2 years at the game, and many games have come out before hand using this method, surely it would not have took the bods too much trouble to put this in.
Still looking forward to the game, but it seems that many of the minor problems are really going to blight the game.