Lilliputian, the site had serious problems that lasted for over a year which meant it was meaningless to approve manuals for download. Now that the site is running properly again we will just have to wait to see if any of the editors return.

The Getaway: Black Monday is an action-adventurevideo game developed by SCE London Studio for the PlayStation 2. It is a sequel to 2002's The Getaway. The Getaway: Black Monday is set in London, with new characters.^[1]

Gameplay[edit]

The game features about 130 playable vehicles, including those licensed from Rover, Brabus, PSA Peugeot Citroën and Renault.^{[citation needed]}

Plot[edit]

The game begins with a flashback sequence: Sergeant Ben 'Mitch' Mitchell is chasing down an armed teenage robber. The teen robber stops running, instead aiming his gun at Mitch. Mitch orders him to drop his weapon. However, the teen then chooses to try to turn around and escape. Mitch fires his weapon, which makes it seem like he purposely shot the teen in the back. One year later, Mitch is on his first day back on the team. The team heads towards an East London housing estate, where they believe the Collins Crew is storing drugs in a flat.

The team breaks into the flat, but finds it empty (with only two Collins members), but PC Harvey and another SO19 officer find a door that leads to the flat next door, and find tons of drugs. They soon chase them down in the apartment complex and PC Harvey is injured in the leg. Mitch single-handedly hunts down the remaining suspects, who take an old woman hostage in the roof. Back at the station, Mitch is taunted about the teenager shooting incident and almost loses his temper. Inspector Munroe then informs them of a shooting at a boxing club in Shoreditch. After arriving at the scene, Mitch chases Jimmer Collins, who manages to escape.

Munroe suspects a Latvian gang is responsible and assigns Mitch and Stoppard to join a unit of SO19, who are preparing to raid a scrapyard in Lambeth to detain the suspect, Levi Stratov (Paul Kaye). Stratov is immediately bailed out and leads Mitch to Jackie Philips. She informs them of a deal going down at Holborn Tube Station on Platform 4. Mitchell attempts to arrest the trader, but he escapes and is arrested afterwards. Jackie makes a phone call, saying she knows the leader, as the phone goes dead. When they arrive, a man shoots Munroe and leaves him in Jackie's apartment, which explodes, killing him. Jackie left a note saying 'Skobel,' while the police know a gun trade is going down. Mitch beats the trader and extracts the info, which leads the team to a warehouse.

The game shifts to Eddie's story. Nick and Jimmer Collins had originally planned to steal credit card codes and print their own cards. When Danny West owes a gambling debt to Collins, he forces West to get people to steal the credit card codes from the Skobel Group, and steal the Icon (a small religious artifact, which in the end is revealed to be a case in which diamonds are hidden), so that no one realizes the card codes were stolen. Eddie O'Connor (Dave Legeno), along with others, raid the Skobel Group's bank to retrieve the Icon, but everyone is killed, except Eddie, who is tortured; Sam, who escapes through a vent; and John, who double-crosses and runs off with the Icon. Eddie and Sam escape; they find John dead at a bar, but Eddie manages to retrieve the icon.

They return to the boxing club and see Mitch enter. Sam sneaks in and sees Danny and a young boy, presumably Errol's son, dead, as well as Liam Spencer from the first game. Sam left a laptop at the bank and wants to return. If Eddie says 'yes', they shoot their way in, but if 'no', Eddie leaves her and she sneaks in. Sam retrieves the laptop. If Eddie escorts her, she doesn't get caught, but if he doesn't, she gets caught. Eddie tracks down Collins, who mentions that Viktor Skobel (Robert Jezek), the CEO of the Skobel Group, killed West. Yuri shoots Collins' right hand three times before finishing him with a shot in the head. Eddie follows Yuri to lead to Skobel. He is ambushed by Nadya Prushnatova, who has Jackie. Sergeant Mitch raids the warehouse (this is where his story ended off) and Eddie kills Yuri.

He then either saves Jackie Philips or lets her fall to her death. Either way, Eddie escapes and chases Viktor to his house, where he kills Nadya, and if the player chooses to, Zara. If Sam hasn't been captured, she sneaks into Alexei's car. Eddie chases Viktor to his yacht and kills Alexei. There are four different endings that depend on the player's actions throughout the game. The final scene shows the outside of the pumping station. The police are standing by, and Sam and Mitch stand there, if they are alive.

Reception[edit]

Black Monday received a 'Platinum' sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA).^[17] According to Mike Rouse a former Sony developer who worked on The Getaway Black Monday the game sold just over 2 million copies. ^[18][19][20]

The Getaway: Black Monday was met with 'mixed' reception upon release.^[2] In Japan, Famitsu gave it a score of two eights and two sevens for a total of 30 out of 40.^[6]

Maxim gave the game a score of four stars out of five and said, '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.'^[21] However, Detroit Free Press gave it a score of two stars out of four and stated, 'The underworld figures are colorful, and the language [the characters] use has a life of its own. But the game's design is bollocks.'^[15]The Sydney Morning Herald also gave it a similar score of two-and-a-half stars out of five and said, 'The artificial intelligence of other characters is often dim. Enemies are often oblivious to your nearby presence, while colleagues provide little genuine assistance.'^[16]

References[edit]

1. ^http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/r_thegetaway2_ps2
2. ^ ^ab'The Getaway: Black Monday for PlayStation 2 Reviews'. Metacritic. Retrieved August 23, 2011.
3. ^Edge staff (December 25, 2004). 'The Getaway: Black Monday'. Edge. No. 144. p. 85.
4. ^EGM staff (February 2005). 'The Getaway: Black Monday'. Electronic Gaming Monthly. No. 188. p. 104. Archived from the original on 24 April 2016. Retrieved 23 July 2015.
5. ^Kristan Reed (November 11, 2004). 'The Getaway: Black Monday'. Eurogamer. Retrieved July 23, 2015.
6. ^ ^ab'Famitsu Scores: Mario Party 7, Touch! Golf, NBA Live '06, Psi Ops, Getaway'. Nerd Mentality. November 2, 2005. Retrieved May 22, 2016.
7. ^Andrew Reiner (February 2005). 'The Getaway 2 [sic]: Black Monday'. Game Informer. No. 142. p. 115. Archived from the original on November 6, 2005. Retrieved July 22, 2015.
8. ^The Man in Black (January 11, 2005). 'The Getaway: Black Monday Review for PS2 on GamePro.com'. GamePro. Archived from the original on February 7, 2005. Retrieved July 23, 2015.
9. ^Joe Dodson (January 21, 2005). 'The Getaway: Black Monday Review'. Game Revolution. Retrieved July 23, 2015.
10. ^Alex Navarro (January 10, 2005). 'The Getaway: Black Monday Review'. GameSpot. Retrieved July 22, 2015.
11. ^Miguel Lopez (January 13, 2005). 'GameSpy: The Getaway 2 [sic]: Black Monday'. GameSpy. Retrieved July 23, 2015.
12. ^Michael Lafferty (January 9, 2005). 'The Getaway: Black Monday - PS2 - Review'. GameZone. Archived from the original on December 5, 2008. Retrieved July 23, 2015.
13. ^Ivan Sulic (January 10, 2005). 'The Getaway: Black Monday'. IGN. Retrieved July 22, 2015.
14. ^'The Getaway: Black Monday'. Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine. February 2005. p. 86. Archived from the original on March 5, 2016. Retrieved July 23, 2015.
15. ^ ^ab'RECENT VIDEO GAME RELEASES ('The Getaway: Black Monday')'. Detroit Free Press. February 6, 2005. Retrieved July 22, 2015.
16. ^ ^abJason Hill (November 27, 2004). 'More plot than shot ('The Getaway Black Monday')'. The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved July 22, 2015.
17. ^'ELSPA Sales Awards: Platinum'. Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association. Archived from the original on May 15, 2009.
18. ^'Mike Rouse (@Mike_Rouse) on Twitter'. mobile.twitter.com. Retrieved 2020-01-28.
19. ^'Mike Rouse on LinkedIn: #gamejobs #gamedev'. www.linkedin.com. Retrieved 2020-01-28.
20. ^Buying EVERY PS2 Game in store on a £5 Game Challenge! WHAT?, retrieved 2020-01-28On the comments section the username 'Retro Gamer Boy' is the account of Mike Rouse & he confirms the sales numbers.
21. ^Scott Steinberg (January 11, 2005). 'The Getaway: Black Monday'. Maxim. Archived from the original on January 25, 2005. Retrieved July 22, 2015.

External links[edit]

• The Getaway: Black Monday at MobyGames

'Eastern Europeans drunk on freedom'. That pretty much sums up what to expect from the latest Getaway title, the pseudo sequel that started life as an expansion pack and to all intents and purposes is exactly that.

Dispensing with the East End old school violence of 2002's original and running with a more sinister, but somehow more faceless Eastern European theme, it's once again a semi-linear romp through a series of missions (22 this time) that don't quite match up in terms of intrigue, atmosphere or the tension that infused Team Soho's massive debut success.Wisely, but somehow unwisely, Team Soho recycles the London setting for the game. And herein lies the game's first problem, but perhaps also its saving grace: there's very little sense of novelty.

We were truly wowed when we first drove around familiar streets, and for London residents such as us it's still impressive - but the wow factor is gone, and in truth we found ourselves becoming a little more picky with the fact that so much of the grand city is blocked off, with only the main arterial routes available to you. Also, this time around we were less inclined to forgive that huge sections of architecture have been crudely approximated; it's a game that can no longer trade on the fact that it's doing London. It needed to do London better and the fact that it's not really noticeably different to before in any meaningful way is something of an initial disappointment. More pricks than a second hand dart boardWhat Team Soho hasevidently worked hard on this time is trying to vary what there is to do in the game beyond shooting and driving. The first thing to notice is the use of multi-level architecture on all of the interior locations, and starts the game as it means to go on, with a drugs bust on a block of flats quickly progressing into a dramatic rooftop chase with the kind of action that would put Bodie and Doyle to shame. The incidental music's ripped straight from The Professionals at any rate, although the language would make Dennis Waterman blush.Another appreciable difference is the learning curve - the game's a hell of a lot easier than previously, and it's no exaggeration to predict that most players will tear right through all 22 chapters in well under eight hours (assuming they don't come across the bug in Chapter five that fails your mission every single time, telling you you've run out of time when you reach your destination even if you've arrived before your target, bizarrely). With the exception of one annoyingly precise stealth mission, the rest of the game is alarmingly easy - with at least half of the chapters completed on our very first attempt.At least Black Monday's not so frustrating, then, which was something that killed many people's interest in the original's overly exacting mission design.

But what's worse? Frustration from missions rich with intrigue and atmosphere?

Or the mild disinterest of being able to just romp through, shooting samey looking enemies in the face with an overly generous lock-on facility that all but guarantees success? But let's in not pretend that Black Monday is immune from frustrating mission design.

The stealth sections stand out as fiddly and poorly designed, with pathetic AI behaviour about as convincing as trying to avoid the gaze of a stone statue, and control quirks that make it strangely difficult to crawl through passageways, yet worryingly easy to mount yourself up on a wall in a Sam Fisher-esque manner. A small fish out of his depthTo keep the annoyance theme running for a bit (because we're no way done yet), in design terms the driving sections seem to vary between mildly irritating and just plain disastrous, with the worst excesses of the original returning in force. Did Team Soho not listen to any complaints about this side of the game? Where do you start? The handling model is still a total mess.

Every vehicle feels like it's permanently aquaplaning, and tiny steering adjustments at speed are likely to have it lurching uncontrollably, leading to over-correction and an inevitable high-speed rendezvous with anything solid in the vicinity. Team Soho has, notably, tried to work around this inherent issue by slowing down the vehicles you chase, but this backfires almost comically. One so called 'chase' mission has you driving at no more than about 20 miles per hour. It's as if the team did realise how little fun it is to put the pedal to the metal, but only managed to make the game look stupid in an attempt to fix it.On the rare occasions you do have to really go for it the game puts you on the straightest roads to make sure it's attainable, but the minute you have to negotiate bends it's in the lap of the gods, with cars swerving right into your path. That's not to mention the missions where you're simultaneously the pursuer and the pursued.

On more occasions than we can recall, you find yourself being trailed aggressively by both the Police and Russian gangs, while also having to keep up with someone else. It's a farce, with the whole of London's Police apparently out in force, not to mention dozens of machinegun-wielding morons who, having appeared from nowhere, also have the world's best acceleration at their disposal to catch up with you instantly. It's so hopelessly ill-conceived and contrived as to just be a hilariously bad example of how to design car chase missions. At best it's amusing, and thankfully not all that difficult to work through.On the other hand, compared to the original the actual driving is far less frustrating on the basis that you can refer to a map by just pressing the Start button, and the actual routes don't seem to be as insanely long, while your car seems to be able to withstand more damage than before. But it's still a tragic spectacle, whatever tweaks the team's made. Note to Sony: rubbish handling plus moronic AI plus ridiculous quantities of enemy does not equal a compelling gaming experience.So, okay, we've established that London's barely changed, the stealth bits are somewhat annoying, the driving's still not up to much (although at least is a bit easier), but what of the bits when you're not driving like a psycho in a city of lunatics flipping out at a Road Rage convention gone wrong? Well, on-foot missions follow a fairly consistent pattern: enter room, tap R1, tap square and pick off whoever's in your way, clear room, move on, repeat until the inevitable cut-scene kicks in.

With a fairly forgiving health system that once again has our 'heroes' able to rest up against a wall to heal their wounds, and a few handy wall-hugging stealth manoeuvres that let you pop a cap in whoever's around the corner, it's not the sort of challenge that will require much more than a modicum of skill to master. Ungod modeFor some ungodly reason, though, Team Soho still insists on wrapping the third-person camera in a straightjacket, and not allowing the player to use the right analogue stick to dictate the view more than a few degrees in any direction. Although we put up with it in the first game, after 50 hours of San Andreas recently it snapped into sharp focus the folly of using this system. Gradius wiki. It may well make things slightly easier for inexperienced gamers, and make sure you can't completely lose it, but it causes all sorts of other problems. The auto target often refuses to acknowledge a clear target and it's missing basic fundamentals like allowing you to peek around a corner like you can in every other third-person action game.

For a reason. It's fair to say that you do get used to it, and it's not a major pain, but why not just give players the choice? Going wilfully against the industry standard is the quickest way to alienate players right from the word go. It's a recurrent theme in The Getaway; Sony manages to break things that didn't need fixing, with an approach that just goes against common sense.Another small issue we constantly came up against is the way that missions are so badly explained, often forcing you into a game of trial and error to work out what you're supposed to do. At one stage midway you're tasked with retrieving a laptop in a rather large building. But from where?

Either we weren't paying close enough attention or it just assumed we knew, but nevertheless for a good half an hour or more we trawled around looking in every nook and cranny just in case. We were utterly through when at one stage our character blurted, 'There it is'. And what's more exasperating is the fact that it wasn't there anyway. And it doesn't end there. Virtually every single mission you find yourself quickly checking back to the mission briefing to work out what you're actually supposed to be doing, but when you do it's usually no more than a one-line description with no real context.The main reason for this is the cut-scenes and storyline, which while very well scripted and voiced, just don't engage as much as we'd hoped.

There's no option to replay cut-scenes when they're gone (unless they happen to be the first part of a chapter that you're replaying), and unless you're one of those people that can memorise everything they watch the first time they see it, it's gone and that's that. As a result, we managed to lose track of why we were even chasing after certain people.

It's not a great position to find yourself in during a game that's so narrative driven; some sort of text-based system in the menu that lets you read through recent dialogue (a la GTA) or some kind of verbose text-based brief would have helped a great deal.But it doesn't really matter a huge amount. The whole Eastern European gang thing.

The villains just didn't seem that evil, and in any case we didn't really get a feel for what it was they were doing anyway, or what their motivations were. There's no sense of ultimate evil that dominated the first one, and the way Eddie and Mitch's storylines interweave just doesn't feel as satisfying or as coherent as it did last time around, and the characters just didn't get our sympathy, and weren't really that likeable.

We wanted to like it, honest; the last time out it was almost a desperation quest born out of something you could really relate to and wanted to seek vengeance for. The tragic thing is that we just didn't care this time around. Emptiness insideAnd so after your eight hours are up and everyone's dead, what's left? Free Roaming? Been there, done that. We don't enjoy the driving model, so that's out.

Four chase missions? Four Black Cab challenges? It's Crazy Taxi minus any craziness. Additions we weren't excited about to any significant degree.

Forza motorsport 4. 1931 Bentley 8 LiterSuccessfully complete nine challenges in Autovista mode to unlock the 1931 Bentley 8 Liter. Halo M12 Warthog FAV in Autovista modeTo unlock the M12 Warthog FAV vehicle from the Halo series in Autovista mode (non drive-able), you must unlock all 20 other cars in Autovista mode by completing their challenges in that mode, ranging from completing races and passing a certain number of cars within a lap or two.

We felt numb with disappointment during our time with Black Monday. We expected it to be a whole lot more than the mission pack it's turned out to be.

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. To be honest, the best thing about Black Monday is the awesome title music and the accompanying animation.

It's literally all downhill after that, and that's not something we thought we'd say. Back to the drawing board, Sony.5/10.