The Getaway (video game)
The Getaway is an action-adventure video game developed by Team Soho and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 2. It was released on 11 December 2002. It is inspired by British gangster films such as Get Carter and Snatch. The game was planned to be released alongside the launch of the PlayStation 2 in 2000, but was delayed by over two years due to the difficulty of recreating large areas of London in high resolution.
The Getaway focuses on two characters: Mark Hammond, an ex-bank robber, and Frank Carter, a police officer in service with the Flying Squad. Both plots run parallel and intersect before concluding in the finale of the game. A sequel, The Getaway: Black Monday, was released in 2004. A spin-off, Gangs of London, was released in 2006; this spawned the 2020 television adaptation of the same name and a 2022 graphic novel.
Gameplay
The Getaway is an open world action-adventure game played from third-person view in which the player controls the two lead characters as they carry out their missions for game progression. Both of the characters can perform a series of physical tasks such as walking, sprinting, rolling, shooting, and taking cover during a gunfight. Once Mark Hammond's missions are completed, free-roaming is unlocked for his character, which allows the player to roam around the City of London and Central London without mission objectives or time limits. Due to similarities to the Grand Theft Auto series, it is often labeled as a Grand Theft Auto clone.The game features a number of licensed vehicles from automobile manufacturers that the player can control, unlike those seen in Grand Theft Auto, which are fictional. The majority of the vehicles in the game are made by MG Rover Group, Jensen Motors, Saab, PSA Peugeot Citroën, Fiat, and Lexus, along with a number of others. Firearms and weapons available to the player include the Glock 17 pistol, AK-47 assault rifle, Remington 870 pump-action shotgun, and Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun; other weapons include a meat cleaver and crowbar, among others.
A major feature of the game is its approach to being "movie-like" and immersive, which was achieved by excluding features that are present in most games; there is no HUD or map system, players driving in a car are guided to a destination by the car's indicators and hazard lights blinking, running out of ammunition is signalled by the character dropping their weapon, health points are represented by how badly the character is bleeding and limping, and recovery to full health is done by resting against a wall.
Plot
The game takes place in London during a single day, and is played through the perspectives of two characters: ex-convict Mark Hammond and police officer Frank Carter of the Flying Squad.Mark Hammond
Mark Hammond, a former member of the Soho-based Collins Gang, witnesses the kidnapping of his son Alex and the unintentional murder of his wife Susie by the kidnappers. He pursues the kidnappers toward Bethnal Green, where he is confronted by Charlie Jolson, the head of the Bethnal Green mob. Charlie informs Mark that he is to do Charlie's bidding under the threat of Alex being killed. Mark is sent across London on increasingly dangerous tasks, such as ambushing a prisoner transport vehicle to free Charlie's nephew "Crazy" Jake Jolson and instigating a gang war between the Yardies and Triads. Due to Mark's criminal history, any possibility of police assistance is unlikely; this is exacerbated by Mark having unintentionally touched the gun that was used to shoot Susie, leading the police to believe he killed her and kidnapped Alex.Mark is sent on his most dangerous mission yet: the execution of corrupt Detective Chief Inspector Clive McCormack, who arrested him five years prior and who was also working for Charlie. In return for information on Alex, Mark spares his other target Yasmin, who was one of Alex's kidnappers. Expecting Charlie to betray him, Mark steals £300,000 of Yardie drug money and gives it to his close friend Liam for safekeeping. Mark's suspicions are confirmed at a cash drop-off with Jake, but he is captured before he can flee. Charlie later reveals to Mark and Yasmin that his ultimate plan is to wipe out his rivals and take over London in their absence, with Mark acting as the scapegoat.
Frank Carter
Detectives Frank Carter and Joe Fielding identify and arrest Jake at a safe house, though Joe is wounded in the siege. Frank follows up on the chaos instigated by Mark across London, before he is unexpectedly placed on escort duty when Jake is moved. Arriving too late to prevent Jake's escape, Frank is suspended by McCormack. Frank, having already been suspicious of McCormack, follows him to one of Charlie's depots. He discovers a hoard of seized evidence being repatriated to the Jolsons. Before Frank can clear his name, Mark executes McCormack. Frank visits the hospital where Joe is recovering, and Joe points him in the direction of another one of Charlie's warehouses, where he finds the captured Mark and Yasmin. Left with no other options for assistance, Frank frees Mark and Yasmin and convinces them to team up with him and bring the Jolsons down.Finale
Mark, Yasmin, and Frank converge on the Sol Vita at St Saviour's Dock, where Charlie has taken Alex and where he intends to wipe out the rival gangs with a bomb. Following a shootout, Mark and Yasmin rescue Alex and are able to escape the ship mere moments before the bomb detonates. Frank fights his way out, leaving Charlie and several gang affiliates to die in the explosion.Development
The Getaways development originated at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe on the PlayStation, off the back of Porsche Challenge. After Porsche Challenge, director Brendan McNamara felt that a free-roaming vehicle game was an interesting concept worth exploring. The title was prototyped and playable missions were made; several screenshots appeared in the Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine. The project evolved into a PlayStation 2 game. The original code was kept and there was a discussion of including it on the finished version of The Getaway, which would ultimately not happen. The original version has not been released.Bizarre Creations received attention due to their successful result in reproducing the streets of central London for their Sega Dreamcast racer Metropolis Street Racer. As MSR was being hyped and primed for release as one of the Dreamcast's so-called "killer applications", Sony Computer Entertainment Europe felt compelled to attempt to steal Sega's thunder by promising the creation of a PlayStation 2 title which would re-create a massive 113 square kilometers of London, displaying the ferocity with which Sony Computer Entertainment Europe was willing to attempt to challenge its veteran competitor. In moving over to vastly more capable hardware, the scope of the title expanded, as did its ambitions; the unit at Sony was formally spun off as an independent unit named Team Soho. The final creation actually only yielded an area of 16 square kilometers.
Re-creating 16 square kilometers proved a daunting task and a technical nightmare, factors which may have delayed the release of The Getaway by several years. In the case of the latter, the programmers had to perfect an engine that could constantly stream three-dimensional geometry and texture data; of the areas of London the player was in close proximity to. At no point was the city loaded into memory, as it simply would not fit. Unlike Rockstar Games's Grand Theft Auto III, it was not an acceptable option for the Team Soho developers to break the city up into separate regions and impose a loading time delay when crossing between areas.
The hype surrounding the project began in earnest just before E3 2000, when a series of screenshots were published online. They revealed a level of detail, showing the identifiable streets near Team Soho's studio. Though it has been argued that these shots were actually mock-up pre-renders, it is possible they were taken from actual code that received further detailed vehicle and character models, higher resolution textures and also anti-aliased the final output.
Although the prototype game was shown behind closed doors, the public was not privy to its results for at least another year. It was made playable at E3 2002. By then, the project had ballooned, exceeding its development budget many times over. Sony Computer Entertainment Europe had a range of other titles in development; however, the decision was taken by Phil Harrison to can many of them, perhaps to allow yet more funds to be poured into The Getaway. As a result of this, the axe was to fall on two of its studios, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Manchester and Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Leeds.
When the game was launched in December 2002 it was a huge seller across Europe, especially in the United Kingdom. Worldwide and particularly in the United States, the game received mixed reviews and sales. The fact that it was released around the same time as the hugely-popular Grand Theft Auto: Vice City also hurt sales, despite a large marketing campaign in the United States.
The game had a marketing budget of $10.3 million.