The Getaway: Black Monday - Playstation 2 (PS2) Reviews


	Platform Playstation 2 Genre Action Publisher SCEA Developer SCEE ESRB M (Mature) Released January 2005

- Great voice acting - Decent graphics - Pretty good story

- Sloppy gameplay - The game’s stealth elements are crap - On-foot missions are easy - Not a very satisfying experience

Review: The Getaway (PS2) Review: Max Payne 2 - The Fall of Max Payne (PS2) Review: Grand Theft Auto - San Andreas (PS2)
Newsletter
Be notified of site updates. Sign-up for the Newsletter sent out twice weekly. Enter E-Mail Address Below: Subscribe \| Unsubscribe

The Getaway: Black Monday

Score: 6.0 / 10

Two years ago, SCEE Studios released their first Grand Theft Auto clone, The Getaway. Gameplay wasn’t exactly on par with Grand Theft Auto, but the game had an entertaining storyline. Now SCEE Studios brings us The Getaway: Black Monday. I was expecting Black Monday to be more polished and refined than its predecessor, but SCEE didn’t seem to be thinking the same thing. If anything, it’s weaker than the first game.

In Black Monday, you control three different people. You first play as a cop named Ben Mitchell, who has recently made his return to the police force after a two-year suspension. He’s supposed to be kind of a badass in a way because he is a troubled fellow, but personally, his story and character doesn’t appeal to me very much, especially compared to other videogame characters in recent memory. Next we have Eddie who could be considered to be on the opposite side of the law from the police. You see, not only is he a boxer, but he’s also a bank robber. I find Eddie to be a more entertaining character then Ben, but that is just my opinion. Finally, we have the stealthy Sam who obviously relies on stealth rather than taking everyone head on. Usually stealthy characters have some cool sneak attacks, but I’ll get to that later.

As already mentioned, you start the game as Ben Mitchell. Unfortunately, you have a very low variety of weapons and the controls feel a bit clunky at first, but you will eventually get used to it. Ben has the ability to arrest baddies, which may sound kind of cool, if the baddies’ buddies didn’t just stand there and watch. Eddie has some melee attacks and, like Ben, it could’ve been cool, if it was done right that is. While fist fighting an enemy, his comrades would just watch and leave you alone until your done pounding their buddy down. (Nice friends.) The AI is utterly ridiculous!

When you’re in control of Eddie, things start to pick up a bit, particularly the storyline. The game is still a mess though. What really kills the experience is controlling Sam. There are some really good stealth elements in games like the Metal Gear series and Splinter Cell, however; Black Monday doesn’t share the same caliber of those two games and SCEE Studios should more than reconsider implementing stealth in future games. Everything with Sam is a maze full of stupid guards who don’t even move. It’s all trial and error.

Advertisement

- Playstation 2 Game Reviews

- Action Game Reviews

- Reviews of Games from Sony Computer Entertainment

Throughout the game you will go through several missions like finding somebody etc. Some missions are even timed. In between all the action and stealth is where driving comes in. I found the missions that involved driving to be better than the majority of foot missions to tell you the truth. With Mitch, you will have some police vehicles at your disposal and a bigger variety with Eddie. There are some slow crappy vehicles in the game like the Vauxhall Corsa and of course there are some better ones like the Mercedes. You can also

Advertisement

ride bikes, which is what I actually prefer. Handling vehicles isn’t as good as games like GTA, but they’re not that bad either. As far as being fun, driving has its own sense of charm even if it does get quite tedious after a while. What I didn’t like was driving as Mitch. I know cops can get away with a lot of things and that Mitch is not a saint, but having the freedom to run over people (including cops) without even being questioned or getting in trouble (never mind not even getting arrested), is just impudence! Eddie, on the other hand, can’t get away with such things and will have trouble if he speeds up too much, passes a red light etc. If you want to take a little detour from the main story, there are some other modes you can check out like racing. But all the side features are boring like the main game. Getting back to the main game, the missions are broken up from action to stealth with a lot driving at the side. In the end it doesn’t balance very well. I would like to entirely blame this on the stealth missions, but that wouldn’t be fair.

Graphics are a mixed bag here. Character models look nice and realistic, but they there is a lot of stiff animation. The environments are impressive but not spectacular. What I really loved about it is that it gave the feel of being in London.

I found that the audio was really strong. If I was rating this game on just audio alone I would give it a 10 out of 10. The tunes and exceptional voice acting really helped bring out some life. The excellent dialogue also made the story enjoyable. All the voice actors were great like David Legeno who played Eddie. They really made the scenes come out strong.

Fans of the original may love this game, but casual gamers should be warned. It’s no GTA, but I’ve played worst games recently. This is a definite rent before buying.

-J’Tonello

(February 15, 2005)