The Getaway Comments by Kristan Reed

Certainly not.

No it's PS2 exclusive as UncleLou says, it's a Sony first party title so it has about as much chance appearing on the PC as Saddam Hussein winning GQ's Man Of The Year...

Worryingly this game does grow on you, doesn't it! I'm about 8 missions in and it's getting better...you learn to ignore the glitches. You just wanna see what happens..!

Peej

Yes, it does. :-)

Come over to the dark side, son.

Right, last level - impossible. Surely it can't be done. Anyone..?

I'm beginning to think the replay value might be a little low - does anything actually happen in free roaming mode?

Last level? Did it on about the 10th attempt - Just make sure you don't faff about too long is the best advice. You can avoid certain enemies, such as some of the ones when you enter the warehouse. Shoot the barrels too when you can. Make sure you use pistols as much as possible, as they seem to be more accurate for some reason (and it goes without saying that auto targeting is essential).

UncleLou is right - all of you bitching about flaws are missing the point. The point being that it is hugely enjoyable once you get into it - and he's also right in saying it's one of the best games on the PS2 to date...
Controversial, and only my opinion also, but if you can forgive the flaws, there lies a damned fine game.

If I'd have reviewed it halfway through level 3 I would have probably given it a 5 or a 6...with much whinging and moaning. after about level 14 I was tempted to give it a 9, but the lack of replayability means an 8 is fair. The free roam mode, while a novelty, isn't something you'll come back to very often.

Right, last level - impossible. Surely it can't be done. Anyone..?

It is possible, it's very tricky and towards the very end just keep moving rather than shoot your way out, once the "hurry up" music starts you really need to be pretty close to the end. You can do it resting a bit once, anymore than that and you haven't a prayer.

I'm beginning to think the replay value might be a little low - does anything actually happen in free roaming mode?

There's no tasks to complete in free-roam other than driving around, causing trouble and finding the hidden cars. There's a lot less police though and the gangs still appear, so you've got something to shoot at but you won't have to obey the road rules or have cops on you so quickly. All interior locations I've seen are completely closed though, pity really having another bash at Snowhill could have been fun.

One thing I realised from playing free-roam is the fact that the police will never shoot at you if you have a hostage, pity I hadn't tried it during the story mode...

Oh and another thing in free-roam I noticed is that L1 and L2 control your indicators! Not much use really but at least they do cancel when you turn the wheel straight again.

I'm getting there with it. I think my initial reaction was one of huge disappointment after playing GTA Vice City..and seeing what they'd achieved there. But there's something about the familiarity of The Getaway that gives it the appeal. That and it really is a "proper grown up" game too...

Tell you what though, if Rockstar ever do GTA London with the same 60s theme it had before, but with a nice 3D makeover in a new engine I think that would be the better game..but I don't think they will...will they?

Peej

Did you play Mafia peej? The Getaway reminds me a lot more of that than GTA and TG is better than Mafia (which is still one of my favourite PC games this year). Mafia's Freeride and Freeride Extreme modes offer a bit more longevity though.

Never played Mafia...I ought to give it a go though cos a lot of people have said it plays like a 1930s version of The Getaway...

Peej

I've played only the demo of Mafia unfortunately, but was absolutely blown away. Brilliant graphics, cool cut-scenes, intense shootouts etc. Is there a reason why so many people seem to bash it?

I've no idea why it's bashed so much. It's true that the cars are pretty slow and handle poorly, however that's more the fact that they're slow, poor handling cars than the game! The race is annoying (not as annoying as Charlie's Mansion is in TG) but it didn't take more than about half a dozen tries for me to do it, you're given some practice driving the car in the previous level too.

It has pretty high system requirements and I had severe frame rate problems until I ditched using my Nforce sound (crappy drivers) but it certainly looked good and played pretty well in my opinion.

Not sure if this has beeen covered here or in the forums but there are more than three weapons in the game.

There are three more that I have used and I reckon on about another 2/3 at least.

Bonus points to anyone who can tell me what they are.

pistol/double pistol
Ak 47
Uzi/double UZI
shotgun
crowbar (used only by enemies, can't pick it up,can you?)

Any more???

Generic pistol (probably a Glock 17 as that's what SO19 uses).
I think there's three types of shotgun, including the sawn-off you see in cutscenes but never actually use.
AK47 assault rifle
H&K MP5 (should be the carbine version but doesn't appear to be here as it goes full auto)
Baseball bat. (don't pickup)
Meat Cleaver. (don't pickup)
Truncheon/night stick, not the telescopic version. (don't pickup)
Smoke grenades, I thought they were tear gas at first but you don't seem to suffer any ill-effects. (don't pickup)
Crowbar (don't pickup)
Cars, easily the most dangerous weapons in the game! :-)
C4 plastic explosives (can't use only in cutscenes)
Fertiliser filled barrels (bang!)

another edit : slight cheat, forgot about the crowbar, (thanks UncleLou!) and the explosives.

And the winner is...

...UncleLou (Edit: you too Whizzo ;-)

and the prize is....

...not a lot, smugness?

pistol/double pistol
Ak 47
Uzi/double UZI
shotgun
crowbar (used only by enemies, can't pick it up,can you?)

Any more???


I wasn't counting double weapons as extras but the rest are right.

UZI's
- are they the ones that the Police special forces use? If so that was one of them if not, one more to look for.

Crowbar
- was one I was thinking of, though haven't actually bothered picking it up. I assume it falls into the same category as the

Meat Cleaver/Baseball Bat/Truncheon/Cosh - the first two of which I have used. Put your guns away and walk over them.

-> Whizzo: lol! 0wnage.

Ok, I tried to be fast, not thorough. ;-)

->Another Martin: nice of you to call me the winner :-)

Meat Cleaver/Baseball Bat/Truncheon/Cosh - the first two of which I have used. Put your guns away and walk over them.
Oh didn't realise that, I'll have to try it, although you may as well just hit people with a gun I suppose it gives you something to use when you're out of ammo.

->Another Martin: nice of you to call me the winner :-)

I saw your's first and then by the time I did my reply Whizzo snuck one in before me. I must admit his substantial offering almost swayed it but you did get there first!

Is the tank rumour true? 'spose that could/should be classed.

Found the Golf cart on free roam last night, also one of those little 'Van with the back missing to become a little truck' things aswell.

oh, and the Lotus rocks!!

Yes my lengthy reply took some time to type up! Apparently the tank is somewhere near Buck' Palace but I haven't found it, I'm rather enjoying jsut driving around, although it would have been nice if the taxi mode had been implemented. It might appear on the Japanese version, you have to deliberately drive a circuitous route as an unscrupulous cabbie to screw more money out of your clueless customers! Perhaps some at Team Soho have bad experiences... ;-)

"The point being that it is hugely enjoyable once you get into it.."

Have you considered that the multitude of flaws may prevent one from getting into it?

Good thing is the game's definitely good enough to shine despite all its obvious flaws. Now if that doesn't speak fo the quality of the game, I don't know what does. :-)

I thnk the enjoyment of this depends on how harcore a gamer you consider yourself...take something like Mario Sunshine f'r instance. Applauded left right and centre when it first game out because it did the whole mario thing a lot prettier/bigger etc...now, I can't even bear to load the thing even though the flaws in it are minimal. With The Getaway, something keeps making me want to play it. Don't know what, but I just want to finish it and get a free roam around London for my troubles. So I will keep plugging away at it until I do...The flaws are glaring but if you can see past them you will get something out of the game, even if it's just a dire need to play a polished up sequel to it.

Peej

Did anyoine notice how the game becomes more buggy as you get closer to the end? Speech scripting is all over the place to a point where it becomes comical and removes any sense of "movie-ness" from it. The frame rate seems to have dropped by 25%.
As a conusmer who has had to put up with years of hype, I expect a title with a little more polish (well, a title form a big developer).
And the most childish thing is the maunal credits where they say "bollocks to all those who thought it couldn't be done". Pathetic

I judge a game on how it plays rather than how it was hyped before hand. I liked the game it could have been better and strictly speaking should have been but it's still one of the best games I've played this year.

I'd liken The Getaway to a band's album. You listen to it, and initially it sounds like a loads of crap - and you're even happy to admit that it's got lots of things wrong with it. But somehow, with repeated listens, it grows on you. It may have shoddy playing, bad production, or whatever, but the songs shine through. It's a bit like this with TG - it's almost more than the sum of its parts. It succeeds despite having so much wrong with it.
I predicted after playing the preview build that TG would be the easiest game in the world to rubbish, and I stand by that. But somehow I still love it...Very weird.

And Scientist - no, I can't say I did notice it being buggy toward the end. Trouble is, I seemed to breeze through so many of the final missions, I probably didn't play them enough to trip things up. Luck of the draw it seems...

It's what's known as an earworm with music:-)
I'd really like to play the sequel. Damn it, I might even apply to work there as a designer!

Cheers for the 'yes the last level is possible' advice - I'll have a go in a bit.

Still thinking it's great - once i worked out you could hold auto target and walk at the same time the on-foot sections seemed to gain a new dimension, and I defy anyone not to have smiled the first time they hid behind a wall and shot someone just by poking the gun round.

I've seen a few criticisms of the driving model but I actually quite like it - having to press the analogue buttons quite hard means you can reasonably emulate realistic driving, braking for corners and accelerating off. One of my favourites parts of the game is trying to 'subtle-drive' from one place to another. And the traffic following actual driving rules is funny (although they'll have to update shoreditch) - is this the first game with roundabouts?

I used the right analogue stick for accelerate/brake/reverse it allows you to be a lot more subtle with the amount of speed and stops your thumb getting sore!

I went back to playing about with GTA:VC and wondered why I wasn't going anywhere! Tommy jumping all over the place instead of shooting was rather silly too! :-)

When they are too low or there are too many to use "roll", you can always sneak past them somewhere (press x to lean against the wall, then walk sideways).

....and even if you set off the gas, if you do a couple of rolls and get out of the room quick enough, maybe run down the stairs, you can survive.

No, it doesn't, iirc, but this shouldn't influence your decision...get it, it's great.

edit: if you failed the mission, you can' drive aound anymore

The hidden cars are behind the donit shop.

Peej

/confused at above comments.

There's definitely a 60hz option, right next to the widescreen option. Perhaps I'm playing the "stop being a bastard to BT" later version?

I like being a bastard to BT

Peej