[Redpyramidhead]

This is a Pre-review, not to be confused with a Preview or Review. It's like a review made way too early, but it's still informative. I will create a full Review later. PLus I haven't even included all of the aspects of a normal review due to time. Hope it helps, nonetheless.

OK...got The Getaway on friday along with a strategy guide. I don't usually get a strategy guide with my games cuz u can usually look stuff up online and games are so expensive, but I figured why the hell not since I was savin money with the game being 40 bucks and all.
Some Cool Features in the game:
-Awesome cutscenes with movie quality cutscenes with voice acting that just might make you gasp
-Approximately 40 sq. kilometers of London recreated
-Strong concentration on detailed on-foot missions and the involved gunfights in detailed warehouses and buildings with really cool stealth moves and dodging moves
-over 30 real cars, 10 secret cars including a couple pimped out NIssan Skylines and 3 different Lotus's including the Esprit
-Free Roam mode available upon completion of the missions where you get to drive all over London causing mayhem
-Gangsters and cops will try to run you off the road and shoot atyour car until it's no longer usable just like in the movies!


Let me get my complaints out of the way along with everything else because I really think this game has the potential to get nothing but better as it goes along:
Anyways...First impressions where "Whoa this has a definate coolness and attitude factor!" but also "Man there are seemingly so many obvious flaws in gameplay that you would think would just be plain common sense to include or have different!(I will mention these)" but then again "BUt it's still cool!" and finally "Nope! this is not like Vice City at all." which was ok because I was not expecting it to be, but I also wondered how much like Driver it would be.
Well, its not much like Driver either (so far atleast that I know of) which is mainly because the car physics aren't as realistic and the cops aren't as relentless and utterly and totally insane (well atleast so far as I'm only on the third mission.) Finding out right away that a Free Roam mode in which you get to drive all over London (adding a Driver-esque feel later on perhaps) and do whatever you want is not available until the end of the missions was kind of a drag, but it gives you more incentive to do them. (Honestly, I haven't finished the missions in Vice City yet because I've spent so much time running around town causing endless possibilities of mayhem.) And I think another flaw here is the complete absence of a map of any kind with your current location on it and street names, etc. What the hell?! Would you go to London for the first time without a map much less in an action videogame? Luckily, during the missions your car's rear blinkers tell you which way to go to get to your next destination and blink simultaneously when you are there. Unfortunately, it's easy to miss a turn, but that doesn't leave you completely lost or anything as it continues to direct you back on course. IM hoping that in the Free Roam mode at the end of the game some kind of map is provided. We can dream, right? Also, the British posters in this forum may laugh at me, but I'm having trouble getting used to driving on the left side of the road, which is especially a pain in intersections. Luckily I won't be driving for real in London anytime soon.
As for the on foot part of the missions (which seem to actually be more important in this game then actually driving so far,) they seem to be more detailed than those in Vice City and are remniscent of Max Payne in the types of buildings and warehouses you must storm and get in gun shoot -out matches with enemies at. The first problem here though is it is no where near as fast paced as Max Payne or as easy to control. THese are the most utterly impossible controls I could have possibley imagined having to deal with in a game that spent so long in production and after so much hype! First of all, your character jogs like a senior citizen rather than runs when all these bullets are whizzing at you and going up stairs is just plain hilarious! Luckily, you have a rather nifty rolling maneuver which you can use to dodge oncoming fire more or less and roll straight into a stealth position up against a wall or low down behind a crate or something. You can lean out around these objects and doorways to exchange fire with enemies which I think is one of the coolest features in the game.
Anyways, before you get all dissapointed by hearing these problems wiht the controls I should probably tell you to try practicing the same level over and over again (ideally the first one) as kind of a training mode to get these moves down because they are not completely impossible. They just happen to have a long learning curve, but I promise you once you get the moves down the game quickly becomes a blast.
This game, despite it's flaws control-wise and a few other strange and almost comical problems (when not frustrating) is definately a must have. Like the box says and implies, it is a cinematic masterpiece and brings even more movie like qualities permenantly to videogames as the standard in story-telling and presentation in a game continues to become more and more important and even mandatory for certain types of games. The voice-acting and cutscenes are just plain magical, telling one of the best gangster stories any professional movie producer could bring you.
Anywayz...I am not totally happy with this post I've made here so when I've completed a much greater portion of the game I will rewrite it and include everything else anyone might want to know. In the meantime, everybody else please post more interesting details about the game below.
Oh yeah, so far over-all I give the game an 7.5 out of 10... mostly held back by tough to learn controls. I suspect it will get higher. After browsing through the strategy guide quickly (just browsing as not to spoilt the game yet for myself) it became apparent that it could only get better.
BTW, pardon me not editing this post much.


_RED_ stuff