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italian job

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 8
Date: April 28, 2002
Author: Amazon User

italian job is superb the car's old style and how u have fun and enjoy is really cool.I think everyone should play this game

Not A Great Game, But Not A Bad Game Either

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: April 07, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This is a review of this product: The Italian Job (PlayStation video game). Amazon may display this review on the page of another version of this product, for which this review may not apply. After reading this review, please click on the link so that you can be assured that the product this review applies to is the same one you thought it was for.

(This is a review that I originally wrote on 07/27/2002)
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The Italian Job is based on the 1969 movie starring Michael Caine (as Charlie Croker), Noel Coward (as Mr. Bridger), and Benny Hill (as Professor Simon Peach). Interestingly, the movie is being remade for a 2003 release with Mark Wahlberg (in the Michael Caine role), Edward Norton, Charlize Theron, Seth Green, and Donald Sutherland.

The plot of the movie and the game is very simple: A gang of crooks steal four million dollars through a traffic jam, while avoiding the police and mafia. HOW they do it is the fun part!

The game contain 16 missions across three different locales. Eight are in London, six are in Turin, and the final two are in the Alps.

I'd like to preface these next few paragraphs by telling you that I saw the film in it's original widescreen format (aka letterbox) on the Speedvision cable channel. Although this is a commercial channel, I presume the film was not edited. If it WAS edited, some of what I'm about to write may be incorrect.

Out of the eight London missions, only two are directly based on the film: "The Ambassador's Car" is implied in the film (they don't explicitly show you driving from the prison directly to the garage to pick up your car). "Peaches For Peaches" is also implied in the film (we see the h-o-o-k-e-r-s outside in Charlie's car while at Peach's place, but we never see him actually pick them up and take them there). The other six missions are completely made up using characters from the film.

The first mission in Turin is completely made up. It's just there to help you locate the places that you'll be visiting in later missions. I don't know why they make you visit the police station, since it is never visited in the game (or the film). The other five missions are directly based on the film (although the game maker's had to take a few minor liberties to make them work in the context of the game). Both Alps missions come directly from the film.

This is the only game that I can think of based on a film (or TV) license that makes PERFECT use of that license. To have a game this faithful to it's license is extremely rare.

GAMEPLAY

Before you even get to play any missions you have to deal with an extremely long loading time of about 30 seconds for each mission. This could be enough to turn some people off, and make them turn off the game, but I had enough patience to wait out each of these loadings.

Some of the missions are extremely fun, some are downright annoying, and one or two are hard as heck. Since I couldn't pass a few of the missions, I had to use the in-game cheat code to unlock all of the missions. This was great because it allowed me to play all of the missions (or at least attempt all of them) and I could keep playing my favorite ones.

"The Getaway" mission in Turin is one of my favorites even though I could never pass it. The reason why I couldn't pass it is one of the game's few faults: the cops. They are completely annoying, but are a lot better than the cops in Driver 2. As you get their attention, they (of course) pursue you. The only way to get the cops off your butt is to drive fast enough and take enough turns so as to lose them. When you have a timer counting down and a mission objective to take care of, this is a major annoyance. As if that wasn't bad enough, while they're chasing you, the cops are trying to write down your license plate number. If they get your whole number, you're busted (or "nicked" as the game calls it). Although this is a major improvement over the way the cops deal with you in Driver 2, it has one major flaw. Logically, and in real life, even when the cops get your entire license plate number, you can still drive away and have them chase you. For the game to simply have your mission end because the cops got your entire license plate number is ridiculous. Most often the cops are the reason why you'll fail missions (such as why I couldn't pass "The Getaway").

Using a walkthrough found at GameFaqs, I went into Free Ride mode and tried to recreate the path of "The Getaway." Although it didn't have the thrill and excitement of the actual mission, for the most part, I was able get a sense of what that mission is like ... and that was a lot of fun. It was because of that that I got interested in seeing the film (I first played the game without having seen the film). I wanted to see if the cool getaway in the game was just as cool in the movie. I never thought I'd say this about a game based based on a film, but the game's getaway was BETTER! The film cuts back and forth between the getaway chase and scenes that take place elsewhere at the same time. This completely throws off the continuity and excitement of the getaway. Still, a game that will make you want to see the movie it's based on is a good thing indeed (especially for the studio that owns the film and the license).

AUDIO/VIDEO

The music is a top-notch mixing of an instrumental of Quincy Jones' "Get A Bloomin' Move On" (aka The Self Preservation Society theme) from the film, bits of "Rule Britannia" (a traditional song also used in the film), and quirky background music that fits the setting perfectly. I enjoyed the Quincy Jones theme so much that I put the game CD in my computer's CD-Rom drive and extracted the short song to my hard drive for later recording onto a music CD so that I could listed to it with my regular music collection. How often do you want to do that with video game music?!?

The graphics are standard Playstation 1 graphics, though they're actually pretty good. There's nothing graphics-wise that stood out as being really bad or exceptionally good, so there's not much to say.

REPLAYABILITY

After finishing the main game ("The Italian Job" mode) you will have access to the Challenge mode, which consists of short missions with tough times where you will test your skills in braking, turning and jumping. There are five jump tests, but since all five use the same course, this gets boring real fast. There is one break test, but it isn't as hard as it initially seems. A checkpoint race on an icy road, a survival lap around the city, and two destructor races (one on an icy road and another viewed from overhead) round out the rest of the challenges.

Along with "The Italian Job," there are other modes that are unlocked from the start. They are:

-- Checkpoint - You have to reach all of the checkpoints in the allotted time. Each checkpoint you reach gives you a little extra time to make it to the next one.

-- Destructor - Here your mission is to destroy the line of cones in the sequence before the
time runs out.

-- Party Play - This is the multiplayer mode in which you can play with up to 8 people in different Checkpoint, Destructor and Challenge mode stages.

-- Free Ride - Here you can cruise around London and (if you unlocked it) Turin in any car (you start off with one unlocked). You can use this mode to familiarize yourself with the cities, but be aware of the cops. You'll even find some secrets within this mode. Check the walkthrough here are GameFaqs for more info.

As you complete the missions in "The Italian Job" mode, you will unlock extra cars and tracks for these other modes.

The problem with all these extras is that they get boring after a while because it's just the same thing over and over again. At first it's fun, then it's just tedious.

TO BUY OR TO RENT?

Rent. The game is just too darn short to have as a permanent part of your collection, even with the unlockable extras.

Pretty Good

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: May 09, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This game has thrills and action, and is perfect for people of all ages. A few of the missions they send you on are kind of hard, but it still is a great game. Please buy it.

Really,I'm sorry for you people :( :( :( :(

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 5
Date: April 28, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Well american it seem like you're very late on this game i got it 2 weeks ago ja,ja,ja,ja.......
Now to the point this is an amazing work you get to drive in London,turin,..... there are amazing graphics and there's a very good detail in each of the parts the lights changes and all the cars respect that,if you go too fast the police will try to catch you, and believe me its really hard to get rid of them.the city has its own rules and there's always this jerk who dont respect the way and try to make you miss your little time,because to go for example to King Cross in London (its amazingly made) you only have like 4 minutes.You can always do a little sight seeing in the free ride mode, but nevertheless you wil have those annoying cops trying to get you if you go to fast.the only little problem is saving because its very hard to find the option the first time,by the way its in the options menu,but apart from that its all righty.
The main fact,this is an amazing game its qvery well-made and you will have to be very strongh to turn of your PSX after so much fun.This game and Final Fantasy IX are the games that you must have or buy.

its not better then driver2 and any of the gta games but ok

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 5
Date: July 02, 2002
Author: Amazon User

this game is cool but driver2 is a little better than this game well i guess you wont tha reasons why well heres goes

1. driver2 has more big cites such as chicago,las vagas,havana,and rio.and for tha grand theft auto games for tha playstation1 tha cites are big and there's but with three cites is problely enough.and for tha the italian jobtha cites are bigger but compared to tha others like GTAs and driver2 games i still cant why this copy cat game is working its way up to platnum.

2.graphics is ok still like driver1 and just like driver2 graphics but on that stage GRAND THEFT AUTO 2and 1
ok too. now back too the italian job between 1 and 10
i give tha graphics a bitter 7

3. THA GAMEPLAY... now TOONAMI ON CARTOONETWORK gave this game a 7 out of 10 i give it 8 out of 10 i must admit this is a must have though...

Well worth [the money]

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: March 26, 2002
Author: Amazon User

The Italian Job is a great title for [the price]. The game follows the film through London, Turin and the Alps with full cities to drive round in the game and freeride modes

Tha car handling is spot on and the selection of diferently handling cars refreshing.

The London missions start the game off but the escape level in Turin has been described in UK press as the best driving game level to grace the PSX1 and it certainly is very, very good

SO for [the price] you get several game modes, full cities to drive around and the superb getaway scene making the game superb value and an excellent purchase

best ps1

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 5
Date: August 31, 2002
Author: Amazon User

great fun even for people who have a ps2.

An ok game

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: August 07, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Sure, this game is only $$$, and I did have fun playing it, but it was greatly disappointing. You aren't able to look behind you, which really hurts the game play, the graphics aren't very great either. It may only be $$$, but it could have been done way better even though it is selling for just that. For a cheap game where you get to run from the cops, I might recomend it, but I'd stick with driver any day.

Actually, more fun than Driver

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: March 24, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I don't know what "it's actually great fun - was no. 1 in the UK for quite a while... and theres good reason why. While the graphics may not be amazing, the game is a great laugh (surely that's what counts), and its well worth double what you guys from the US are going to be paying for it!

For [the cost], you simply can't lose. What an awesome deal!

good but not great

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 17, 2003
Author: Amazon User

i just rented this game to see how it is since it is coming out on ps2 in one month but it is worth it. this game is very enjoyable and fun to play. it has an awsome choice of game modes including: free ride, story mode, checkpoint mode, and option mode. this game is great but every game,of course, has its flaws. the controling is just sometimes fustrating. for example: say the cops are on ur tale, and u run into a moving car on the street. well first you would go flying and another is after u hit them u cant just back up, it takes a couple seconds for u to just back up!(this may not sound too frustrating but if u have played gta 3 or gta vice city and this is ur 1st time playing u will understand wut i mean) another flaw is that the graphics. the graphics just suck and after getting used to gta vice city, it is hard to adjust to the ps1 graphics. if those 2 little flaws could be fixed this game would rule. if u have a ps1 get this! but if u have a ps2 i would rent first or wait till the ps2 version is!

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