A rich man's Max Payne
Written: Feb 28 '03
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Graphics while driving of the cars and the city.
Cons: Everything else. Few options, few views, no strafing, etc.
The Bottom Line: For me, the excellence of the graphics while driving, and the terrible controls while walking about shooting even out the game and it's overall score.
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| MerlinSteele's Full Review: The Getaway for PlayStation 2 |
A lot of hype has been made about this game, and will be for months to come. I almost made the mistake of buying it myself, but I got a raincheck for a free game, so I finally found out what it was really like.
You play two different characters, first as a 'trying to come clean' criminal whose wife has been accidentally killed and son has been kidnapped by an up and coming crime lord. The second half of the game you play a cop on the wrong side of the law after the same crime boss.
This game could have been really great, and this is the main tragedy of this whole deal. It is the main letdown. Like someone else has said whose review I've read, it's almost as if much has been done to perfect a certain part of the game, and then the rest was rushed to finish it off, leaving part of the game to come off cheap and flimsy.
This game is bragged to be part driving missions and walking/shooting missions, and it is almost exactly that. First you drive, then you shoot. Then you drive, then you shoot.
When you drive, the graphics of the city and of the automobiles are awesome. This is where the game shines its brightest. So many cars you'll recognize are here, like the BMW, a very sporty Lexus, Mercedes, Land Rover, and they're so real looking. The graphics of places that look so close the their real life counter parts are breath-taking. This game made me want to live in London, so that I could imagine driving all over this place I knew so well.
One thing that irked me about the driving is there are no other views than the one you see in front of you! There's no way to look behind at the cops chasing you, or to look to the side as you drive down the street at the stores or pedestrians walking around. What a waste! I'd have had so much fun cruising around, checking my rear view, or looking from one side to the other! Why make a driving game without these options? Would it have been that much trouble to have added them? My only other gripe is the difficulty of driving with so much traffic, and if you're on the run, it's tough to keep going. You have no real idea as to how much longer your car, or the one you've stolen anyway, will hold out!
After your first chase, of course you come to your first shooting mission. Oh yeah, just get out of the car and start killing people. Oh man! There's cursing and talking involved. Certain people threatening the main character, as you try to kill them instead. What fun! (He says sarcastically)
The controls during this exciting part of the game are pitiful. I can handle a game where you can use say, L3 to look around, and R3 to move back and forth side to side, which would give you the ability to strafe, or move while shooting. But with this game, you either move, shoot, move, shoot, or rather, move, get shot, shoot, move, get shot, shoot. Or you can use the auto-aim. I've never liked the auto-aim system in a game, because to me that's almost like cheating. However in this game, even it doesn't work that well. It seems to work too slowly for it to do any good, most of the time. Even Max Payne had better controls than this!
The story line is, well, it's a story line. Let's come up with an excuse to make a 'good guy' have to shoot up a bunch of people in shoot-em-up missions! Okay, so his wife get's killed and his son is kidnapped, so now it's all fixed; he'll kill everyone he knows,even supposedly his friends from his old hangout!
Maybe it would be easier if I made a plea as to what might be done to make a game like this better in the future;
1) Make different views for the driver of the cars, such as sides and rear-view, such as in the great PS game, Driver.
2) Add different cities to the mix if possible. This may be too much trouble, but I'd love to be able to drive in a city I'm familiar with!
3) Allow the driver to go into certain parts of buildings or garages, not just limiting them to the city streets.
4) In walking and shooting mode, allow both to be done at once. Let's put those other buttons on the controls to good use! Use L3 AND R3 for moving and strafing.
5) Make the moving and looking about easier to handle, faster for the gamer to check out their surroundings with.
6) Show the amount of ammo left, so that the gamer can plan ahead, getting ready to grab another weapon or ammo elsewhere.
7) Fix it where you don't have to watch the cut-scenes all the way through every time! That gets old quick!
These are all of the ideas I've thought of so far, but the difference I believe they'd have made in the game would have made all the difference in the value of the game played. I hope game designers will play this game and get a feel for what is needed in the games to come.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
MerlinSteele
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Location: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Reviews written: 75
Trusted by: 8 members
About Me:
Hey! Lighten up! It's just my epinion after all. *sticks tongue out*
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