If you've read my review for the first part of The Getaway, you should know how disappointed I was with it. After seeing how poorly received, and rightfully so, the first one was, I was shocked to see there was a sequel! After doing a very short bit of research I set out to pick it up from a local Shamestop and give it a go.
When I got to Shamestop the PS2 games were all in disarray and I searched for nearly 30 minutes before I was fed up enough to ask the kid behind the counter whether they had it in stock or not. Sadly they did! I demand my games are mint and complete in their cases with the manuals, but for $2 I was willing to let that slide in this game's case. Although I did ask for a spare PS2 case, and instead got a broken 99 cent store black case...
After cleaning the disc, thanks to Shamestop's lack of give-a-damn, I popped it into my PS2 and off I went! I played the first mission and was pretty well over the experience right there. Same overly simplistic, shove it in your face BS as the first game, with minor (and I do mean MINOR) improvements. The game is pretty much a mirror image (or as one review I read online stated "More of an expansion off the first, instead of it's own game.") of the first!
I had to suffer through all this to get into Free Roam, the only reason I even bought this game!? Well... No! From the start there is a Free Roam option, but the hidden cars are all locked up depending on how far you've progressed into the story. Well hey, that just means I'll free roam about London and when I feel like I give enough of a shit, I may just go through the story mode!
I do have to say that while healing is still done in the stand by a wall and wait for your character to rest, resting doesn't drag out as long as it used to. Also, driving doesn't seem like such a pain in the ass, traffic has a flow that allows for quicker speeds with less (less doesn't mean none) crashes. The headaches of the first game are still present, yet they are alleviated with the aforementioned, minor, improvements.
My only issue is that now I own a game that I may want to keep in my collection that doesn't have the original case or manual. Although the game still doesn't earn it's stripes to be called a GTA clone, this one does work better than the first as an open world, free roaming game. I just hope this is the last we see of this franchise, perhaps the lack of a third is a good sign!
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