Reviewed: August 19, 2003
Reviewed by: Mark Smith

Publisher
Eidos Interactive

Developer
Climax

Released: October 8, 2002
Genre: Racing
Players: 2
ESRB: Teen

7
6
7
7
6.7

Supported Features

The Italian Job is the latest driving game to hit the console market to compete with games like Midnight Club II and Midtown Madness 3. It’s based on the recently released remake of the 1969 movie of the same name. Whether you saw or even enjoyed the movie(s) really has no bearing on the game. The major plot points are recapped with images from the movie and some dreary narration between the driving sessions.

The Story mode is basically a series of 15 missions that are integrated into the plot of the movie. Sometimes you are reliving events from the film and other times you are filling in parts of the story that we never even considered. Each mission is broken down into several stages and you must pass all stages to complete a mission. There are no checkpoints so if you fail the final stage you get to replay the entire mission from the beginning.

You are also on a fairly rigid timer that doesn’t allow for more than two or three crashes and certainly no detours for stunt points. Even though you are rewarded for stunts you had better only do the ones that are convenient with your optimum route between points A and B. Most of these stages range from 45 seconds to two minutes with several ending before you even know what happened. Stage 2 of the first mission has you driving from Skinny Pete’s to the car rental office which is exactly a 24 second ride down the hill.

To make matters worse they often throw cops into the mix, and let me tell you that the LAPD is not to be taken lightly in this game. These cops will come at you in force and slam you off the road and box you in. Stage 3 of the first mission is the first time they appear and it must have taken me at least six attempts to escape back to my hideout, which of course means playing stages one and two of that mission over and over again.

Frustrating, you say? Why, yes it is. But considering that if you weren’t forced to repeat the levels over and over again the game would be much shorter than it already is. Even with an average of having to replay each mission two or three times you can easily finish the story mode in 2-3 hours. You are graded on each mission based on your time, the number of stunts you pulled, and any crash damage you sustained, so if getting that A ranking is important to you then there may be some additional incentive to keep replaying the game.

The Circuit Racing is basically a checkpoint race around the city for one or two players. You can add computer controlled cars for up to four racers which only makes the lack of system link or Live support that much more apparent.

Stunt driving is a bit more challenging and offers some specialty tracks that are designed with stunts in mind. This mode actually requires a bit of skill and precision driving that is missing from the rest of the game and will probably keep you occupied longer than the story mode.

Control is about what you would expect from an arcade-style driving game. The left stick steers and the right stick is the gas and brake or you can also use the A and X buttons. The B is your handbrake and the Y cycles through the various driving views. A squeeze of the left trigger is your rearview and the right trigger combined with left or right will pop your car onto two wheels to slip through gaps or between traffic and get you some stunt points.

You are given a radar map of sorts that will show your objective as a blip relative to your position. This is only of moderate usefulness since the maze of city streets between you and that blip can be complex and confusing. Again, you will be forced to learn the optimum path to each objective through trial and error and by the time you finally complete stage three of a mission you will be breaking all sorts of time records for the first two stages.

Despite the bland textures and washed out colors the game does cruise along nicely at an unerring 60fps creating some serious sensations of speed. This combined with the slick controls gives you precise command over your car for sliding around turns or kicking up onto two wheels and slipping through that traffic jam.

There is a minor attempt at modeling car damage in that you can damage your car and see parts fly off during collisions and smoke will pour out from under your hood but none of this lasts beyond the initial impact and it never affects the way your car drives. Damage does detract from your final score though.

For a movie product there is a disturbing lack of visual ties to the film. Aside from the opening movie that creatively blends movie footage and in-game graphics all of the remaining cutscenes are created using game engine fly-bys. I found it amusing that the artists tossed in some film artifacts like dirt and hairs and even some film flicker so you “known” you are watching a cutscene. This would be most appropriate for a game based on the ’69 film but not a 2003 movie. In this day and age of DVD and digital theaters if I saw that much “stuff” on the screen I would demand a refund.

Sound effects range from good to hilariously bad. The Mini Coopers all have that trademark whine to them but when I hop into my white panel cable van it shouldn’t sound like my Mini…but it does. The rental sedan has a unique engine sound that would have been more suited toward the van. Aside from out-of-place engine noises there isn’t much left but crashes and the squealing of tires…oh yeah…and SIRENS!

The only speech is the voice-over from a dreary actor who sounds nothing like Mark Walburg. For as little speech that appears in this game it’s a shame they couldn’t have gotten the actual star to read the narration. It certainly would have added a bit of authenticity to the project.

Even so, The Italian Job is only good for about 8-10 hours or original gameplay making it a good rental but dubious purchase, even at bargain bin prices. When games like Midnight Club II can offer 50+ hours of original content and online support it’s hard to recommend this as anything more than a weekend diversion.

The final verdict is that you will probably enjoy this game whether you saw the movie or not, but due to its lack of lasting content I can’t recommend this as anything more than a rental unless you find it in the bargain bin for $19 or less. There are just too many other racers out there that do it better and do it longer.