The Getaway: Black Monday Preview

The initial orders are simple – “Clear rooms, make arrests.” But where Mitchell is concerning, things are never that simple. He is a rough-and-tumble special units police officer, sent in to tackle the tough jobs. That he is doing so as part of a new crew, many of which don’t really trust him, makes it all the more difficult.

Sony and Team Soho are presenting The Getaway: Black Monday, a PlayStation 2 title that plays out like a shooter, for the most part, but also throws in other elements of action gaming in an effort to present a robust experience.

After a great cinematic intro, reminiscent of the Pinewood Studios flicks of the 70s, the game begins with the unit taking down a drug dealer and associates in a second-floor flat in a tenement area. This is easily accomplished and serves more as a warm-up to the game’s real action than anything else.

Black Monday is the sequel to the 2003 title, but the developers have refined the control scheme for both the driving and on-foot aspects of the game. This preview build arrived without a manual and yet the controls were simple to figure out and the learning curve was incidental.

However, this is a British-based game, and that means a little adapting is necessary when it comes to driving – as in, driving on the other side of the road from what is normally thought of in North America.

The game centers on organized crime in London. When the local constabulary needs help, or back-up, they call on Mitchell and the crew he rides with. The game actually takes place two years after the original game, with a small bank job that goes sour.

Language and dynamic lighting effects attempt to paint a grim and often gritty reality for the game. Mitchell is the officer players control from the third-person perspective. The camera is locked into follow most of the time and in this build it got sluggish at times. But the animation was smooth and flowed easily, whether Mitchell was hugging a wall, or rolling in the controlled direction to avoid gunfire. The reason that the character animations look so good is a simple one, more than 20 actors were employed and motion-captured for the game.

The environments were also somewhat interactive, sporting bullet holes, and with furniture elements getting kicked around. The game also seems to adapt to the player’s ability somewhat. The game starts off quite easy, but the challenge steps up as you move into the world more and more.

The game’s sound is full and solid, from the background music to the voice acting. Some of the dialogue is cliché and almost the norm for games, and movies for that matter, of this style – the misunderstood cop who lives on the edge, mistrusted and/or envied but used by the system to achieve what others can not.

The Getaway: Black Monday plays well and looks solid. The action moves from point-to-point with small load times. The game does not release until early January, but this may be a pleasant way to start the new year.