Looking at this game makes me feel as if i am really in London, it's really that realistic looking, infact it's unbelievably god damn crazily good!

I think after that opening line i should calm down the sentences from now on. Any way this game has been in the making for a long while now. It started life out as being originally planned for the PSone (The Original Playstation) but when the word came out that Sony were going to bring the PS2 they decided to scrap the old plans and start from scratch using the new power of Playstation2.

When work started out on this game one of the first things that was done was to sign up real actors to do the voice overs for the characters. In the final game there is to be over 90minutes of spoken dialogue which when you think about it is rather alot. After these things were sorted out many photos of London were taken so that the developers at Team Soho could start to re-create the London city. The first images of the recreated 3D London were amazing and along with these came the first character models of which are photo realistic graphics. The thing that makes this games characters so impressive through the realistic physics is also how the characters are going to beable to move all features of the face smoothly amd impressivly which is a forst using photo realistic graphics.

Team Soho spent 3 years on taking digital photos of London to create the whole virtual London. It is believe that it will take 10minutes to get from one side of London to the otehr, just like in real life. Not only is it accurate in size but in surroundings as well, almost every, if not all shops, restaurants, and buildings have been recreated as if they were real. This measn that everything in the game is fully licensed which is great meaning all cars will be like real life.

Looking at the screenshots from the game you can see the detail that has gone into this game, it is looking to be a truly immense game.
Game Screenshots;

This game takes the type of role that Grand Theft Auto 3 has done already on the PS2 and now PC. But this game has a more in depth storyline and plot. It is based around 2 different men each on the other side of the law. So think of it as if one part of the game you are the runner from the police and the other side you are the police chasing down the runner. That is obviously a brief idea but complete details on the storyline are still not 100% clear. Whatever the final plot is to be i'm sure it will be a gripping one of that.

Unlike in Rockstars GTA3, you are not likely to beable to run around like a maniac with a gun without getting stopped, you are going to have to hide from your enemies and literally dive out of the way of explosions. A little bit like Max Payne in a way. This game also takes the style in the way of the film 'Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" which i remember being a superb film. Now if that was captured in a game like this it would be the best ever.

As people first thought, this game is not like Driver where you are stuck in a car all the while, you can have the great car chases but also get out and fight face-to-face and go into shops and store rooms.

This game is also split with how it is played, not only to you have to work alone on solo missions but also you have to work with groups of people to pull off say maybe a bank job. The prospect of doing this type of thing makes me tingle inside. Also small things like being able to grab a person in the street who may be near an enemy (or the police!) and then pulling a gun to the side of there head adds another level of detail to it.

The game also takes into account a superb level of detail into the cars using phot realistic physics and the handling of the each individual car is accounted for. You can expect to over stear and under stear as you try and burn rubber from the police. With there being at least 60 licensed cars in the game all of which will have realtime damage that is accurate, this game is looking all to real, it's great.

The game is to be rated an 'M' which means that there is a very large amount of violence and bad language. You remember how bad you thought the voilence and language was in the 18 rated GTA3, well if you double that and add 3 you will be closer to what The Getaway is like. As the game is based around an organised crime in London, you can expect during conversations that every other word is an F, C, or an S.

Each character in the game as i meantioned earlier is graphically superior, this is due to on average each character is made up of 2'000 polygons, and with this there faces are able to do no less than 12 different expressions. Some of the things that these people are doing to create this game have never been done in gaming history before making this game so good.

I am looking forward to this game so much that i can't put it into words. When this game finally, after so many years hits the shop shelves at the fall of this year, you can expect me and many, many people to have this game and i will do a full review on the game. That reminds me, i know why it's so good, it;s because Team Soho is part of the Sony Europe company and the game is produced by SCEA, they obviously want to make the best game for there own console. It's all very clear now.

Anticipation Rating

HIGH

Article Written by Ryan - KENTs
ryan.kent71@btopenworld.com