Getaway: Black Monday, The

Gaming Illustrated

The best feature of the game, by far, is the original script, story line, and depth the game goes into for the London Underworld and how easily it sweeps you into the whole genre.

BonusStage

Brutal, and urgently in your face, the game aims and scores often enough to recommend it highly.

Stuff

Switch on those subtitles (the cockney accents make English sound like a bloody foreign language) or else you'll potentially miss out on some of the finest dialogue in a video game. Our favorite line: "She's had more pricks than a second-hand dartboard." Oi!

Maxim Online

Fun as this game is to play, the best moments come when you just sit back and observe. Wonderfully acted, written, and directed motion-capture cut scenes play like the Snatch follow-up Guy Ritchie should have made, further evidence of the narrowing gap between video game and movie production values.

PSM Magazine

It's a snack, not a meal, but it's definitely a tasty one. [Feb 2005, p.78]

Next Level Gaming

The characters are hit and miss (especially the cop) and some of the gameplay is rather plain and leaves much more to be desired. I would love to see this game on the next generation Sony system though.

GamingTrend

It honestly has more of the feel that the original "Driver" gave on the Playstation, and that's a good thing. However, it isn't enough of an improvement to truly recommend this title as anything other than a rental or budget purchase.

Games Radar UK (Pre-2006)

Slightly improved but lacks the rugged spark of the original. Not a bad game but inoffensively reasonable to the point of disappering completely. [PSM2]

IC-Games

As it stands Black Monday just cannot compete with the truly impressive games released for the Playstation 2 this year.

Game Informer

The game is still firing blanks and driving on four flat tires. [Feb 2005, p.115]

Gamezilla!

It’s just that The Getaway: Black Monday is no better and no worse than the original, and for a sequel, that's a crippling issue.

WHAM! Gaming

It’s gritty, and unpolished in many areas (I actually had a few freezes that forced me to reset my PS2), but if you bite down and bare it, you’ll like it. That is, if you are a fan of movies like those Mr. Ritchie makes.

Gaming Age

The story and setting are interesting and involving, the gameplay is solid enough, and the visuals and audio are polished. The only real thing the game is lacking is length and replayability.

GameZone

Black Monday has a strong story, but aspects like the timed driving missions could have easily been left out, and the game would have been stronger for it.

IGN

A map complete with objective markers is a big help, as are the GPS driven turn signal indicators, but the game is just as stiff, clumsy, and unworkable as it's ever been.

GameBiz

Black Monday has a few glaring faults with control, over your character, targeting and a camera system that hurts the overall game play experience.

Game Over Online

The concept of the game itself (and of the series) is a decent one that’s hampered by a lot of AI and gameplay issues. What’s more, the inclusion of stealth play that is weakly implemented compared to other titles further sheds light on the problems of Black Monday.

GameSpot

A game so utterly devoted to the same flawed concepts as its predecessor that it might as well be the same game with a new story.

Inside Gamer Online

Its fantastic story and surprisingly good sound are just not enough to make up for missing gameplay elements and a short campaign.

AceGamez

The recreation of Soho is excellent and whilst the missions vary from driving to on-foot and are generally well-designed, both have their fair share of technical problems that can really frustrate and significantly mar the gameplay.

Electronic Gaming Monthly

You're stuck with a game of disparate modes - driving, shooting, sneaking, and cut-scene-watching - that never gels into the cohesive, cinematic product the developers were promising. [Feb 2005, p.104]

GamePro

Continually trying to properly center the cam, however, frequently places you in harm's way. Until you put some serious time into the game, you'll be blown away more often than you like from unseen foes off-screen.

GMR Magazine

Hiding an otherwise mediocre game behind story and setting doesn't work twice.

DarkStation

This is one of those games that of course tried to put the "open ended" gameplay into play, but failed to do that, and threw in some clunky controls with it.

Gamer.tv

The locations feel more spacious than the original, too, and missions are varied so drug busts move into car chases with only the slightest hint of nausea...A limited but exciting experience.

Total Video Games

Sadly the game still doesn’t address the fundamental issues over control, AI and the basic nature of the gameplay; although we still found ourselves suckers to the plot and presentation – it’s the main reason for playing through the game sadly.

Gamenikki

The most depressing thing about Black Monday is that parts of inspiration or beauty occasionally shine in the abyss of missed potential. This game is alright, but aspires—rightfully so—for much more, and misses the mark.

Gaming Target

This series shows promise, but currently lacks what it takes to be in the next echelon of its genre.

TotalPlayStation

Great storyline told through an engagingly interwoven approach with some solid acting can't offset clunky controls and overly-linear gameplay that haven't improved since the first game.

G4 TV

More about the story it presents than the game play used to advance the plot. Luckily, said story is so compelling that it largely makes up for the sins committed in other aspects of the title, keeping the game interesting despite the trial-and-error mission setup and sometimes-confusing objectives.

Gaming Nexus

Plagued by the exact same issues that hampered its predecessor. There's a huge difference though, it’s the year 2005 now and people expect more out of their videogames.

Armchair Empire

It’s no "GTA," but I’ve played worst games recently.

RealGamer

A sub-par gameplay experience with awkward controls, an annoying camera and very basic driving experiences. The original game got away with it but now there is no excuse.

DailyGame

A stylized game that unfortunately lacks any substance. It’s just not a very fun game to play, due to the temperamental camera and barely average gameplay.

Game Chronicles

It really is a shame that The Getaway: Black Monday is so little fun to play. Aesthetically, it’s a beautiful title, and utterly loaded with potential.

Warcry

A badly designed, downright disappointing attempt at a story-driven shooter.

Detroit Free Press

The underworld figures are colorful, and the language they use has a life of its own. But the game's design is bollocks.

Sydney Morning Herald

The artificial intelligence of other characters is often dim. Enemies are often oblivious to your nearby presence, while colleagues provide little genuine assistance.

Eurogamer

Maybe if any of the significant flaws of the original had been ironed out, and the missions were actually compelling, we wouldn't mind, but the excitement and thirst for vengeance of the original has been replaced by exceptionally ordinary shoot-'em-up missions, one on-rails shooting section, and a few awful stealth encounters.

Game Power Australia

An incredibly disappointing game that may drive a nail into the coffin of this once-promising franchise.

Yahoo! Games

Most levels feel more like a carnival duck shoot than a gritty peek into London police work. Enemies stand still no matter how close Mitch is to them and it's often child's play to dive-roll under a gun barrel to slap on the cuffs. This isn't merely unrealistic AI -- it's bad.

GameSpy

At worst, though, it embodies one of the more unfortunate trends our industry is prone to follow: putting style and presentation over substantive interactive experience.

PALGN

Full of glitches, boring modes and a poor frame-rate at times. We have given it exactly the same score as "DRIV3R" and who actually enjoyed that game? Avoid it and you’ll be happy, and we’ll be happy.

TotalGames.net

Still, at least you get to get out and enjoy easily the worst thirst-person controls devised.

netjak

Between the silly design flaws, lack of challenge, and short length, Black Monday would be better off being called an expansion pack for a Grand Theft Auto game - and even that would be over-praising the game. While the story flow is incredibly clever, the lousy characters are a deterrent to it.

RewiredMind

We didn't expect that once we had been given our orders by the Sergeant, we would find so many bugs, glitches and plain annoyances to hinder our progress through the seedy underbelly of old London Town.

Cheat Code Central

Unfortunately Black Monday works as neither a game nor an interactive movie. The enemies and the situations are far too unbelievable. There is no sense of accomplishment since you don't really have to work very hard.

Official U.S. Playstation Magazine

Oversimplified controls and an atrocious camera. If it were a movie, you'd leave the theater halfway through and not care about the conclusion. [Feb 2005, p.86]

Play Magazine

It's almost like they picked parts of the first that worked really well, and then broke them. [Feb 2005, p.67]

GameCritics

Just inexcusably bad. How can a sequel suffer from the exact same problems as the first title?

Edge Magazine

Six 'f*cks' in the opening cut-scene set the tone for a game that's desperate to appear edgy, uniquely British and grown up... Ironically, the script is so desperate to be adult that it ends up sounding as mature as a teenager rebelling against school uniform. [Christmas 2004, p.85]

games(TM)

It’s an immense letdown – so much so that the first few hours of play are filled with disbelief, as players are forced to lower their expectations with each new disappointment...The Getaway: Black Monday should be avoided by all but the most fervent lovers of mediocrity. [Christmas 2004, p.112]

Game Revolution

British culture is certainly responsible for some fine works, like Shakespeare, David Bowie and Elizabeth Hurley. But as The Getaway: Black Monday proves, it’s also capable of some very bad ones, like the Spice Girls, blood sausage, Prince Harry's Nazi costume, and now Black Monday. Despite the name, we're pretty sure this game sucks every day of the week.