The Italian Job

The Italian Job for Playstation 2 follows the events of the recently released movie: The Italian Job. The game follows Charlie as he exacts his revenge on his former partner Steve. Throughout The Italian Job you play some of the movie’s biggest chases, while also doing some of the driving the movie didn’t show you.

The Italian Job has four different modes. The first on the list is Story Mode, which follows the story of The Italian Job and is narrated by Charlie. The next one is Circuit Racing and places you against other racers on a closed course through a certain area of the city. You must race against the other cars to the finish. Stunt Driving has you navigating through complex and challenging courses that involve a lot of balancing and quick turning. In my opinion Stunt Driving is the best part of the whole game, but there are only five courses. Free Roam is the final option and allows you to roam the streets free of time limits or objectives.

In Story Mode you take on the role of the characters from The Italian Job and do the driving for them. Some of the chases and missions are straight out of the movie, and it’s kind of fun to relive them in the game while adding your own twists since now you’re behind the wheel. Between each mission, Charlie (the star of the The Italian Job, but unfortunately they didn’t get Mark Wahlberg to do the voice) keeps you informed on the current events. Whoever did the voice for Charlie has a very monotone, boring voice. After a few of the little narrations I couldn’t take much more of it. I mean, there aren’t even cut scenes. You just listen to Charlie talk as the camera pans around the city.

Each mission gives you an objective to complete. Objectives range from driving to a certain point within a time limit, driving to a certain point within a time limit while running from cops, or race someone to a certain point within a time limit. Oh, and there are some missions where you have to follow another car. Not much variety or creativity there. After each mission you’re graded on your performance. Grade C or above moves you on to the next mission and an A even unlocks a car or new track. Overall you can have a whopping total of 11 cars! Wow.

The graphics really need some work. The cars that you drive are acceptable, but everything else looks so plain. Textures are boring, there are absolutely no pedestrians, and slowdown lurks around every corner. Even though your car takes damage, it doesn’t show at all. Other cars don’t show damage either.

The sound is very unrealistic. Collisions sound slightly realistic, but the engine noises get pretty annoying. The voice acting gets really boring and almost painful to listen to, as well.

As far as unlockables go, The Italian Job has got plenty. From movie stills to concept art to extra vehicles, it’s all there. It’s kind of cool to see all the behind-the-scenes stuff like concept art. The new cars are fun to mess around with, and the stunt and circuit racing courses add a bit more replay.

In the end, I really hate to see a game with such high potential fall short. The Italian Job is a great license for driving games and Climax studios just rushed this one out. Too many things were left out, like bigger levels, damage modeling, better textures, etc. The driving engine is great, and it’s a breeze to get used to the controls, but all the other factors drug it down.

Gameplay: 6.5
Driving around is great fun. The driving controls are very easy to get used to, but with so little to explore it gets boring fast. The cities have no depth; they’re very small with few (yet very obvious) shortcuts. The missions get old after awhile too, due to little variation in goals. However, some missions can put you in exciting and entertaining situations.

Graphics: 4 
The models of the cars you drive are pretty good, but all the other cars are so plain. The environments are plain as well, with plenty of slowdown to boot. No damage modeling on the cars is also a huge drawback with almost every racing game these days having very detailed and realistic car damage. I’ve seen worse graphics before, but not on a driving game on the PS2.

Sound: 5.5
Aside from the bad voice acting, the sound effects aren’t terrible. The engine sounds can get annoying at times, but other sounds like cars honking, skids, peel-outs, and collisions sound pretty good.

Difficulty: Easy
The cars handle very easily, and most of the missions are a piece of cake and require very little skill. Even the circuit races are easy, but the stunt courses can be tricky. After a bit of practice, though, anyone can master them all.

Concept: 5.8 
Well, first of all The Italian Job has already been done as a movie and a game. The first game was on the original Playstation and was a pretty good game considering its value and the system it was on. Making a game chronicling the events straight from the movie is a pretty good idea, but for those of us who have already seen the movie it’s not that exciting.

Multiplayer: 5.5
The same issues you find with the solo game are in multiplayer too. Slowdown will make frequent visits, which by the time I played multiplayer it was to be expected. Multiplayer doesn’t add too much, but I always find games a bit more fun with friends.

Overall: 5.0
Instead of trying to add something to the driving genre, they take away from it. The Italian Job is a step down from all driving games on the recent systems, and even some from the older ones. The driving engine is good, but sadly, that’s about it.