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The Getaway - Black Monday

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: December 03, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Played the original Getaway? You won't be surprised here. The camera angles are still dreadful. The swearing flies thick and fast, this is gangland London after all. And the story is a cracker. If these guys could get their script writers together with a better development team this series would be up there with the GTA series.

Again the scene is central London. It's amazingly detailed. I was astounded to spot individual shops and cafés in the game that I saw when in London last year. It's that accurate. If you've driven around London you'll know exactly what to expect around the next corner.

How does it play? In a word, easily. The driving part is still good, but the only change from the original is that now you can shoot while driving. When on foot, it's fairly easy. To shoot at the bad guys you just need to hold one button to aim (automatically) and another to shoot. Too easy. The camera angles are infuriating - you spend a lot of time looking at walls.

The story is again great. An interwoven piece with multiple playable characters and storylines. The cut-scenes are well played out too, with professional actors providing the foil for animation and the voices. I guess they don't have a swear jar in their sound studio though - this title isn't for kids, with all the "effin' and blindin'" as the Cockney's say.

Overall, it's OK. The gameplay (when on foot) really lets it down though. The driving and the story are fantastic, but it's just not enough.

Dreadful

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 10 / 19
Date: January 13, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I might feel compelled to let more slide had this not been a sequel, and had it not been on a console that's been around for years. I suppose what I'm saying is that there would be some relatively valid excuses for the problems that plague this game. But it is a sequel, and the PS2 has been around a long time, and there's no justification that can explain the horrid end result. The Getaway brought enough originality to the immersive crime/action genre that you could overlook how unpolished, awkward and spotty it was. Two years later, Black Monday can't claim to be original, rather a regurgitation of everything the first was, but it too is unpolished, awkward and spotty. Yes, they addressed some superficial problems with the first. Traffic moves faster for example. But for the most part, the most crippling and frustrating problems of the first are still here, and they're joined by some new ones.

Negatives? The controls and camera angles are terrible. I can only call the differences in play style of the three different main characters "clumsy". Mitchell has the amazing ability to instantly arrest someone, no matter what they're doing, with a single button click. Apparently they're *magic* handcuffs. So when you get tired of shooting back, just run up and handcuff them because that's far more effective. Eddie is fun for a little while, then it's reduced to just mashing the same buttons to beat people up. Sam is all stealth, which wouldn't be so bad if the enemies ever bothered to move. I guess this is compensated for by giving them telescopic vision in the one direction they perpetually face. Her section is painfully boring. Either you sneak past, or they see you. There are no stealth attacks. If they see you, either you're dead, or you hide behind something, they 'reset' and you try try again.

But I have to come back to the first two points again. The controls and the camera angles are terrible. Never before have I been so quickly turned off in the first few minutes of the game. You start by raiding one apartment. Then with nebulous direction, you're sent chasing off after criminals who are trying to escape. You end up bungling around in a pitch black apartment, trying to work around obstacles you can't see (unless they just happen to fall in the path of your narrow flashlight beam -- which, by the way, you have almost no control over because the camera angles suck)... Actually, I don't feel the need to add any more here. This game is borderline unplayable.

Positives? London is spot on.

I almost felt guilty writing these comments until I remembered what I had paid for this game. Please do yourself a favor and don't make the same mistake. I can't even recommend renting it. If you have a friend who owns it, they may well just give it to you to be rid of it, but then I'd wonder if they're a really a friend at all.

I'm giving it 2 stars, only because the city is so well recreated. Judging that aspect alone would warrant 5 stars. However, the controls deserve zero -- wait, it's my review, negative five stars (black monday holes?), the cameras negative five, the interface one, the writing/storyline a four or even five, voice acting a four, audio a two, visuals a two, replayability absolutely zero, innovation one -- I could go on, but the point is that overall, it's subpar. This isn't worth owning at half the price.

Better than San Andreas

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: January 15, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I have no idea why this is game is getting such bad reviews. In my opinion its much better than GTA San Andreas...better graphics, better storyline...better overall game play.
The story of course takes place in London, as it did before, which is meticulously detailed. You complete the story, which plays out like a movie, using 3 characters, which creates different perspectives on the events that take place.
The only issue is the shortness of the game, which can be completed in about 20 hours. Whereas GTA goes on too long with melancholy missions, which take away from the storyline, making it a bit boring at times. This leaves you wanting more.
My only advise is...get this game.

IF THIS WERE A REPORTCARD.......NEEDS IMPROVEMENT

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 3
Date: January 15, 2005
Author: Amazon User

YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THAT I WAITED FOR THIS.....I COULD HAVE BOUGHT THE OLD GETAWAY FOR ALOT CHEAPER!!!!

Not As Good As The First

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: January 16, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The reason I liked the first Getaway, other than the fact that you're operating in the realm of a real city, is the way the game flowed. The game wasn't too fast paced, the storyline was engaging and suspenseful,and the missions were original and cool and actually gave you a tourist's view of London.

The tempo of Black Monday started off so fast that I didn't get to absorb the storyline or the ambience of the game. If you are looking to buy this game you should really do it with the knowledge that you'll actually enjoy this game more once you've completed it. The game pace was too fast and I didn't understand the storyline really until the end and even then I didn't buy into it. Plus I thought the missions were either boring, unoriginal or too drawn out, except for level 17 & 18 I believe (the ones with Eddie).

The first Getaway was a little better because there were more high speed driving missions, stealth missions, major gang shoot-outs in places like an art museum, a hospital, a multi level car park, and a huge ship. There were cool objective missions like setting fire to a building, dropping off a dead body, asassinating the police chief inside the police HQ, going into different gang hide-outs and searching a booby trapped house. You also knew what the main characters were about, and the difficulty level was a little higher. The originality and methodical pace is absent in Black Monday I believe. But the movement of the characters and visuals were slightly improved from the first one.

There are also annoyances with camera problems, movement, AI, and glitches. There is also no "London experience" like there was in the first game. The other thing about this game is that it is full of huge glitches! There was one mission where Levi was somehow stuck in the top subway car in the junk pile where I couldn't arrest him, and I had to restart the mission. In the next mission, where I was chasing Levi by car, he hit a car and got jammed in between the car and a street pole and was unable to get to the building I was supposed to follow him to! Also, in the subway level the other cop on the mission with me was standing at the top of some stairs and a bad guy was standing a few feet next to him and neither of them started shooting at each other until I reached the top of the stairs.

But, on the positive side, the great thing in this game is the free roaming mode and I don't think some people understand why.

I played the free roaming mode for about 2 hours before I realized that there are actually cool hidden side streets behind wooden planks and objects where cool cars are and there are car ramps also. And these are for each character in each section of the city. So once you find these hidden areas you can go from alley to alley for about 20 minutes (for each character) discovering these new cars. And you can store a car in hidden garages all over the city, only one car though.

At first I was annoyed by the fact that the cops are on your tail for everything in free roaming, but after a while I thought it was cool because it takes away the monotonous aspect of just driving around, and the cops can't really do much to you or chase you, unless you start hijacking a lot of cars, then beware!

Also you can venture into the buildings that were featured in the storyline but there is no real point to it and you don't have access to the entire building. The motorcycles are cool too especially when they hit another car at high speed and the bike and passenger go flying...sweet! There are more sweet cars in this game also. The hand to hand combat part comes handy when you don't have a gun and have to get one from a cop. But no gangs to beware of in free roaming mode. Also if you play as Mitch the cop you can subdue and arrest people. I'd like to figure out if you can get into the subway somehow also. If they ever make a third rendition maybe they can make use of the tower of london and other points of interest. I wish the taxi mission part was longer also.

Much Better than the GTA Series

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: January 16, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The Getaway Black Monday is an improvement over the original Getaway, and both games are better than any of the GTA series. Both of the Getaway games are intelligent games with brilliant detail. Don't believe what the GTA SA fans are saying - this new Getaway game is much better and has a great replay value. My copy of Vice City has gotten dusty on the shelf since I got the original Getaway and from what I've seen of GTA SA it doesn't hold a candle to the Getaway Black Monday. It's a must have game.

Decent but Problematic

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: January 17, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I have to admit that I really enjoyed playing this game. But, having said that, I have to admit that it is way way to short. If they had added a few more missions, I would have been much happier. I don't know if they didn't have the time or the space on the disc, or what. The game just flew by. To give you an idea, it took me about the same amount of time to beat this game as it did to beat Katamari Damacy. Maybe that means I was really bad at Katamari, I don't know. On the city, it's amazing. Sure, they made a few mistakes. I can point out that the pub and the Oddbins on the Seven Dials have been flipped. And they got rid of a street off Soho Square. But, by and large, its a great rendition of London. You could use it to plan out a trip, if you really wanted to. Just don't expect to find the Tate Modern gallery, they blocked off the bridge. I am going to stop mentioning mistakes in geography now. The addition of taxi mode is a nice touch, as well as race and chase mode. They definitely add to the value of this title. In free roam, where you can just ride around and site see, the police have have a weird way of coming after you if, say, you ride your bicycle (yes, bicycle!) into a lamp post. But they can't knock you off the bike very easily, and if you get off it and walk around a corner they lose you. I had the experience of hearing the police say "We found the car, he's nowhere to be seen," while I was standing right next to the car and shooting at the police. Having said all that, I really did enjoy playing the game, I just wish I hadn't paid full price for it. Better AI and a longer story, and I probably wouldn't be so disappointed.

Better than the first!!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: January 18, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I don't know what these people are talking about. This is a great game but is a little short like my review.

Decent, but didn't live up to expectations

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: January 19, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I loved the first Getaway and was very skeptical of all the bad reviews I'd been seeing. Unfortunately, many of them are correct. I just got Black Monday a few days ago and its already quickly losing much of my interest. While the first Getaway was gritty and griping, the sequel is comparably bland. The story in the first was simple and made sense without getting too complicated, but in Black Monday I often don't know or don't care why the characters are being asked to do certain missions (much of this has to do with the fact that the interlude movies are annoyingly long). There are a few upgrades - you can ride a motorcycle, etc - but these really seem like minor issues. The game is also too easy. Its too bad - I was looking forward to Black Monday. My advice: if you really want to play it wait a few wait a few months until you can buy a cheap used version. At least you won't feel too let down this way.

Great Game if you liked the original...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 2
Date: January 28, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Graphics are awesome, and London is very well done (if you've ever been there). The problem with this game is in the difficulty setting...the "combat" portions are VERY easy, IF you can drive to get there...once again, no maps..vehicles handle very poorly, with lots of obstacles. This game could have been great with the addition of difficulty setting, or a some adjustments in the driving aspect...fun game, but not the next Grand Theft Auto.

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