The Getaway: Black Monday Screenshots   The Final Say! Gameplay 5.0 Graphics 7.9 Sound 7.0 Value 5.0 The Getaway: Black Monday  - reviewed by Tory Favro  Review Date: December 2004 Review Score 5/10 Not Based on an Average  Distributed By: Sony

Well once again we are back in merry old England with the Getaway Black Monday. For those of you who played the original title, you would know how much detail is packed into the game by Team Soho, the developers. Almost lifelike (and would be if not for the limitations of the hardware), London lives and breathes around you as a entity in it's own right. Unfortunately I still have to slam this title due to the unwieldy nature of the camera and general movement when in third person mode as it leaves a hell of a lot to be desired. You can utilise the targeting system that is in place, however it just leads to disappointment as far as we were concerned with poor control and absolutely useless response from Mitch who is the lead character. I groaned when in the very first part of the game when you are going in to deal with the drug dealers that I was in trouble when I ran past the rest of my team in a very lopsided fashion and noticed that they'd already taken out three of the bad guys. Great for me. Two of the three had fully clipped through a concrete stairwell and were just dangling there dead, half in and out of the concrete. Very sloppy. You do get a variety of weapons to use but for the most part they are not a great deal of fun to use with the cranky aiming. I was standing point blank near one of my targets who had a machine gun and he was missing me and even with auto targeting on I was missing him. I actually had to move Mitch right up on top of him and then it reverted to the melee attack finally, enabling the targeting to then work and take the bad guy out. It's funny but even the driving in the game has a lot to be desired and really irked me. There's nothing worse than driving through amazing environments with shoddy controls and also the snails pace at which the game travels. The cars seem to be able to handle a bit more damage than previously which is good and you'll need it considering some of the chases you'll be on. Once again players are faced with a bad experiences with essentially being forced into a linear gameplaying experience. There were so many things to see and do in London which you simply cannot that it's frustration central and at one point I simply gave up in disgust. Playing the game on foot or in a vehicle feels like you are trapped in a tunnel and the missions don't bring a lot to the party in terms of story and even motivation for you to get through to find out what happens next. The first Getaway was one of those titles that blew you away with the level of detail and general labour of love that the team put into creating a viable city to travel and fight in. You had a real reason for making your way through the story and a general strength of storyline that made you want to see what was going to happen with a great brief of characters, plot and audio. The audio in this title is pretty shabby with weapons fire not being very convincing and the output from vehicles not being much better. I feel bad for giving it so much stick but I can tell you now that it's simply not enjoyable, however much I'd hoped that they'd improve from the first game which was actually enjoyable and we scored it accordingly. The idea of games sequels is that they really should move the whole experience forward and bring the gameplay to a new level. This title doesn't. Rent it before you buy it.