September 25-October 1, 2003

naked city

Grand Theft Jam Jar

Glocking bird: Yasmin and 'er gormless pal are off on a dodgy scheme in The Getaway.

Robbers steal and hijack, while bobbies curse in Cockney slang, in The Getaway.

It's rare you'd hear about a video game in which you spend much of the time being chased by pandas. But The Getaway (Sony, PlayStation 2, $39.99), the already well-recognized title produced by Team Soho, recreates 40 square miles of gangster-ridden London, fully interactive and primed for your tour of the local wildlife: underworld alpha males and their knuckle-cracking security gorillas, shiny-suited weasels and even a couple of screeching birds. And on this safari, hunting is most certainly allowed. As reformed crook Mark Hammond, you're co-opted by hammy villain Charlie Jolson to do his dirty work, in exchange for the safe return of your son, captured during the bungled kidnap operation that left your wife dead. But the lure of jacking cars -- not least those aforementioned panda cars, driven by pesky cops who believe you killed her yourself -- takes hold, and The Getaway follows the slide of a good man into the filthy dealings of the urban jungle.

The city, as in gangster movies from which the game draws its cynical pace, takes on a character role: Its inhabitants are disgruntled and stroppy, its landmarks appear in the misty distance and awe you up close and its underworld retains its own factions. (Jamaican-style Yardies in Brixton have better guns than Jolson's bad-skinned East End old guard, and the Asian gang 'round Chinatown drive souped-up Mitsubishis.) Most of the game alternates nicely between missions on foot and those on wheels, when your vehicle indicator lights will lead you to a mission destination. There's not much time to enjoy the scenery when Hammond's escapades wind up in a car chase, so take advantage of the lower-key levels or the big payoff, a free-roam level allowing you to run riot across town. Pick the car of your choice with gunpoint persuasion, head up through Westminster on Victoria Embankment to admire the river, even (gasp!) refuse to drive on the left and finish up by smashing into the gates of Buck House. Now you're a geezer. —Juliet Fletcher

Doom and Gloom

On one hand, it's probably not the most PC thing in the world to take an army of infamously genocidal assholes and reduce them to video-game villains, but then again, a game where players run around shooting comically inept Nazis at least attempts to have its heart in the right place. Return To Castle Wolfenstein: Tides of War (Id, PS2, Xbox, $47.99) is a grim but clever update of what was one of the first first-person-shooter games ever to dominate pre-Doom dormitory recreation. But where the good ol' Wolfenstein 3-D involved running amok, finding keys and typing in cheat codes, Return is about performing specific tasks related to what might be called a plot (silently stow away in a Nazi truck, sneak into a secret Nazi catacomb and kill the mummies they accidentally summoned). The snowy gray compounds and war-ravaged French towns are appropriately bleak, but while you're sniping guards from 500 yards or tossing grenades at some mad scientist's monster, you can't shake the feeling that you're supposed to enjoy all the righteous bloodshed. —Patrck Rapa

A Virtua Steal

Bearing the esteemed name of the definitive martial arts brawling title, Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution (Sega, PS2, $19.99 in the bargain bin) delivers another roundhouse to the competition while sparing your wallet. Two new fighters join the fray, each with their own signature attack, counter and defensive moves. The combination of judo and kickboxing fighting styles lets players kill repeatedly without getting bored. Sometimes you can even change your style midfight. The graphics quality has certainly evolved from VF4 to allow more fluidity in game-play. Also, there are now more than 1,500 options for customizing your character’s clothing and hairstyle, etc., giving this brutal bloodbath some Queer Eye for the Straight Guy makeover options. —Chris Newborg

Sonic Echo

No video game character better personifies the 16-bit era than Sonic the Hedgehog. Following his much-hyped debut on the Sega Genesis console in 1991, the hyperactive little blue creature quickly became synonymous with the Sega brand. Although Genesis has since met its apocalypse, the flagship mascot has moved on to bigger and better adventures on other platforms. His latest chapter, Sonic Adventure DX Director’s Cut (Sega, GameCube, $39.99), finds the insectivorous mammal fighting to save the world from longtime arch nemesis Dr. Eggman. Five additional playable characters are available, each with his own storyline and unique type of game-play. With 30 different levels and bonus mini-games, players can look forward to hours of enjoyment. Amazingly, after more than a decade on the run, the Sonic franchise still has legs. —Chris Newborg

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