The blood filled shooter gets taken apart...
Firstly, the game takes place in London. This isn’t the London that you would think of normally. This is a London in dispute, with five gangs each warring with each other for complete control of the city. At the start of the story mode you get to choose one of the five gangs, each with their strengths and weaknesses. The idea of the game being to control all of the ‘sectors’ of London, by completing a series of missions.
The story contains over sixty missions, each of them testing driving, shooting and stealth skills. Although missions are numerous, most of them only take a couple of minutes to complete, meaning you can wade through the game fairly quickly.
The cut-scenes have a nice comic book vibe to them, which seems to suit the PSP nicely. Although the cinematic quality of the Getaway games has been lost, these clips often bring a smile to your face with some genuinely funny scenes.
The car handing in the game is fairly decent (improved vastly by turning the sensitivity down on vehicles). Although not as good as Grand Theft Auto, it is fairly easy to weave around traffic, it is just that the ability to do power slides around corners has been toned down.
The shooting is very easy to get to grips with, although it is a bit basic. The lack of being able to aim up or down takes away the satisfaction of blowing a guys head off. It is competent, but more could be done in terms of improving it.
As well as the main story mode, there are also many other game modes on offer. The first of these is the bonus strategy game. This turn based game sees you trying to control London by commanding your army to different sectors, and using bonus cards to help you out. This probably won’t be an aspect of the game you’ll remember, as games seem to take forever and the lack of an adrenaline rush will soon see you bored of it.
There are also pub games on the UMD, including Darts, Pool, Skittles and Snake. Although these are fairly easy to complete, perhaps with the exception of Snake, they provide an enjoyable distraction from the main game. Although the physics of Pool are slightly under par compared to an Archer Maclean game, it provides a decent enough mini game. The most enjoyable game is snake, featuring 32 maze variations which would make a good game in it’s own right.
The free roam mode gives you the chance to explore London in your own time. This is ideal for getting used to the terrain. There are also a number of other modes in free roam from taxi em up ‘The Knowledge’ to simplified killer ‘4 Weeks Later’, a spoof of the movie ‘28 Days Later’ which sees you going around London taking out zombies. These add a fair bit of lifespan to the game.
Overall, I would say that this is a good package. The amount on offer is good for the money, and you will get a fair bit of playtime out of it if you want to see everything. Although some aspects aren’t the best, the game with so much to do makes up for it. Well worth buying.