A very distinct game that is very underrated.
As I mentioned earlier, the premise is one of revenge, and as all revenge stories go, there is a lot of blood, bodies and carnage left in the wake of a man with nothing to lose. So the gameplay and acting are cast to convey just that; there is lots of swearing, and lots of dead bodies. Possibly a little too much considering this game was shooting for a more realistic approach. But the gameplay is kept pretty simple, you do missions to the gang leader's bidding so as you can see your son again. These can range from taking out a club full of your old gang members and friends, to starting a full on gang war between the Chinese Triads and the Jamaicans. And there is even one mission where you have a full blown gunfight between just you and a whole police station. So there is no stop in the action, save for a few sneaking and tailing missions that are few enough not to cause too much grumble.
As far as visuals and graphics look, they are pretty good for the PS2, really showing the dirty, slum-like side of London that many tend to skip on the tourist stops. But there are plenty of landmarks as well, ranging from the huge ferris wheel to Big Ben, and even Parliament as well. It is a shame that you can't explore the insides but I'm pretty sure the developers were pushing the system to the limits already. The characters also look very convincing, with pretty good voice acting in the cut scenes that gives a Hollywood movie feel to the game.
One of the big things in the game is to keep that sense of realism and drop the usual HUD that shows all of your vitals, such as health and ammo. Instead you are forced to use your senses to realize when the ammo clip is running low, and you can tell when Mark is hurt by the way he carries himself, from running like a healthy man to stumbling like one who has taken six slugs to the legs and torso. A neat concept is the way in which you heal yourself, by resting against walls for sometimes up to 20 seconds to regenerate your health. There are some pretty tense moments in the game in which you can be resting and guys are coming around the corner to blast you, which is tougher to avoid than you think.
Driving seems to be pretty on par with real life physics, in that bigger vehicles can't do turns on a dime and feel properly weighted as they would feel in real life. Crash damage feels about on par too, with one big collision you can potentially be stuck on the side of the road with your thumb stuck out or your gun if you're in a hurry which you are most of the time. One of the frustrating things in the game is that the developers thought that people would know the streets of London by now and don't need any visual aids to help them around the city. And since there is a timer that you cannot see, this becomes pretty tiresome when you have to rely on Mark selecting the turn signal button to find the correct path to the next objective. This is where realism is not the best case scenario, and it would have been nice to see an arrow pointing overhead to find your own direction. Other than that, the sounds and overall production values are very good. There is also a free roam mode, very much like GTA in that you can wreck havoc until you die. But not much more beyond that. There are actually two campaigns that you go through, one being through mark and the other a swat cop that is hot on his trail and the gang leader that is the mastermind behind all of this.
People that are fans of Guy Ritchie films or Jason Statham will be foaming at the mouth to play this well done action movie-game. Or anyone that wished GTA had just a little linearity to it, but this game is definitely worth a rent if not a purchase for any owner of the PS2 because it is one of the more unique games to come along in a while.