The Italian Job: LA Heist (PS2)

Author's product rating:   

Gameplay/Playability	Poor gameplay- not very playable
Graphics	OK graphics
Sound	Poor sound effects & music
Value for Money

Advantages:	The stunt levels are cool
Disadvantages:	The rest of the game is far too easy without any challenge

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

When the new version of the Italian Job was released last year it was obvious a wide range of new merchandising opportunities would arise. The inevitable computer games seemed to be spawned from the film. So another trip to blockbusters and another rented PS2 game. As I’m a big fan of Driving based games I thought this one would be ideal to wile away a rainy day.

The game is made up of several different modes. The main part of the game is the story mode, which runs in line with the story of the actual film. This part of the game requires you to drive around various parts of LA carrying out the missions. You start of as with the easiest missions as with most games and would expect them to get harder the further into the game you go. However this isn’t the case and the only difficulty is finding your way around. Each mission is against the clock and if you don’t make it in time you fail the mission.

Within these missions you can earn points by pulling off stunts and keeping your car relatively in one piece. These points are then amassed at the end of each mission and you are given a grade. This grade then unlocks special features depending on which level you are at. I personally find this to be a very good feature. It means you have to have a degree of skill to unlock the special features, of which there are many.

Of course playing some of the other features also helps to unlock more items within the game. The first of these are the Circuit races. You can choose a few vehicles and race against the computer or against a second person round various courses. As you complete the courses more open up until you have all the different tracks around the city. You can either play this on two player, split screen against 2 computer-controlled cars. Or the alternative is to play 1 player against 3. Although the two player plays identically to the one player only on a smaller screen. The only way you can get any competition on this mode is by playing 2 player, as the computer is far too easy to beat.

The next type of game you can play is Stunt Driving. They have set up 4 different courses for you to try and navigate around in a mini. When you complete a level you again unlock another. This is probably the hardest part of the game as it’s easy to fall from the course. I liked this part of the game but with only 4 different courses again I felt it to be terribly lacking. The need to get a grade A or B makes it a lot harder than anything else on the game but still doesn’t give it any longevity.

The time trials seem to lose the difficulty edge again just letting you drive around a course. You can do this as many times as you like practising different parts of the game, whilst trying to get the best time. Although this can be ok a couple of times, by the 4th lap it does become a little tiring. The final game mode is the free drive mode. This enables you to pick any car you want and drive around the city exploring and again this can be good for a short time but the appeal again wears away very quickly.

The in game music is a real let down as well. You can hear music on the intro screens but after that it is barely audible. As you drive around the levels you get the realistic sounds of the car. However these sounds drown out the in game music, which can become a little boring. The in game music for me is one of the most important parts. Despite the actual sound effects of the car being quite realistic the music is incredibly poor.

This then brings me to quite possibly the most important aspect of the game, the graphics. Although they do look good in places I feel that unlike Grand Theft Auto and True Crime, this just doesn’t test the PS2 to its full ability. This enables the game to carry smoothly from one scene to the next. Although there are little details added in such as parking meters it’s still not really enough.

For instance in Driving games I like to see the damage on the car if you have a rather spectacular crash. Again the game lets you down on this account as well. Apart from some smoke the car doesn’t really show any signs of damage until it just gives up and dies. Now personally I prefer it when you hit a bus for example that the car actually looks like its hit a bus. I then find it very hard to take the game seriously as I class a degree of realism as a big factor in games.

The controls are pretty simple. You can chose to drive using either the analogue control or using the normal direction pad. Either way is easy enough so doesn’t cause too much difficulty. As for the accelerator and brakes they are next to each other meaning the spread of buttons are all close to each other. So control wise I can’t really fault the game, well it had to have a few good features.

Overall it is poor game. Despite a few good points such as the vehicles and the stunt courses the game is lacking. If you do still want to buy this I’d still say don’t rent it from Blockbusters or somewhere. The game took me a total of three hours to complete the Story mode and win each of the extra levels. The game is suitable for ages 3 and up and only has one difficulty setting making this a complete waste of the £19.95 you would end up paying directplay.co.uk for the privilege.

Also available on the X-Box and Gamecube