The Getaway

"Is it good enough to take over GTA?"

The Getaway is a game that took a long time for Team Soho to release. It is finally here and was
well worth the wait. People have compared it to the Grand Theft Auto games, but the question is, is it a GTA beater?

Graphics
Amazing. Everything looks really realistic. The characters and the city of London all look amazing. There are times where if you just walked in the room and The Getaway was on you would think there was a film on they are so realistic. The cars on the game are also real, you can get in anything from a BMW to a Porsche. There is blood on the game, sometimes you might on a mission that involves guns, if you get shot too many times you will notice blood coming through your clothes, it looks great.

Sound
The sound on the game is also very good. All of the characters speak with a London accent. Even people in the street who you nearly run over because of a police chase have London accents, it is very realistic and makes the game feel like you are in London even more. Sometimes when you crash your car too much, the engine starts to judder. This can become annoying at times but it is realistic, you would expect this to happen in real life so who am I to complain?

Gameplay
The gameplay is very good, the controls are simple and easy to get used to. You will find that you don't have too many buttons to press. On foot all you really need to do is move the left analog stick around to move. R1 is aim and square is shoot. If you press R2 you get a free aim, you use the left analog stick to chose where you want to aim the gun. When your in the car, square is break, triangle is reverse and x is accelerate. If you are going fast and need to break quickly then press R1. There are no maps or health bars on the game, I think this is a good thing because on some games the health bar or the map get in my way and I can't see where I am going properly. Even though there are no maps you cannot get lost when your on a mission because when you need to go left or right your indicators will come on. If you come to a turning and your indicators don't come on it means you need to go straight on. You will sometimes find both of your indicators are flashing, don't worry, this means you are in the area you need to be in. Sometimes you need to get out of the car and you will get to the next part of the mission or sometimes as soon as you get there the next part loads up.

With no health bars you know you are about to die when you see blood on your clothes and you are walking around holding your chest, you can stop this by finding a wall and leaning up it. Every breath your character takes the blood will go down, when your health is back up again your character will stand up normally.

Story
You start the game as Mark Hammond. You have just been released out of prison for bank robbing. You will watch a movie at the start of the game where a gang of people approach your wife and kid. They murder your wife and kidnap your kid. You go after them and you find out that is Charlie Jolson behind this. He tells you if you want your kid back you have do do what he wants, when he wants, where he wants and if you don't the kid dies.

Reliability
Well the game will last quite a long time and you don't get bored of it, but after you have done all the missions and completed the game you will unlock free roam mode. This just lets you drive around London and look at the scenery that you didn't see during the game, this is fun for a while but you might find that you get bored after a bit.

Buy or Rent?
IT isn't quite as good as Grand Theft Auto: Vice City but I would definitely buy this game. The realism is amazing and the story itself is very good. This game is definitely one to add to your collection.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/06/03, Updated 04/06/03