This review was originally published on Gaming Horizon, GameBump's predecessor. Its format does not match our own but we support its content. It was written by John Godfrey.

It’s two years after the climax of the original Getaway, which managed to lower the crime rate in all of London, until now. A major player is on the scene looking to stir up trouble in the world of organized crime. Black Monday follows the stories of three individuals affected by the same events, including a disgraced police officer, Sgt. Ben Mitchell, a boxer, Eddie O'Conner, and hacker/scammer Sam Thompson. Like the first game, the characters’ paths will intertwine and widen the scope of the story as you explore it from all the angles.

Black Monday once again uses the story mechanics that worked so well in the game before it, in that you control different characters at different times in order to be able to see the full picture of what’s happening in the plot. Except now you get the chance to play as three different characters in the game, compared to the original’s two. This allows for further insight into all the happenings as the game goes on. The story is adult and gritty, dealing with the London underworld, a cop after a top crime boss uncovering the new wave of organized crime violence on the streets, a boxer trying to put together the piece of how a heist he was involved in went sour and who killed his friends, and a hacker that helps Eddie, the boxer out, in situations he wouldn't be able to manage with brute force alone. The story twists and turns and the character-driven narration is excellent, much like a movie.

Like the original, the developers wanted the game to be as cinematic as possible, which means nothing on the screen except gameplay. No HUD, no speedometer, no indicator to tell you how much ammo there is, no map, no nothing. One of my biggest gripes with the first game would have to be the lack of a map and relying on the car’s flashing rear indicator lights to get an idea of where my destination was. The system was unperfected to say the least, often times sending me down one way roads or dead-end streets during missions where time is critical. Thankfully, Black Monday improves upon this innovative yet somewhat cumbersome system by providing a full map with markers available to be called up, and indicators that don’t just blink based on the direct location of the destination, but by the best route to take there. Driving missions are incredibly more enjoyable in Black Monday now, as worrying if you took a wrong turn is no longer the only thing on your mind.

The ways the developers got around using no HUD are quite innovative and usually consist of audible cues, like a character saying they're almost out of ammo on their last clip, or if you're on a timed mission the music will change to a faster pace as the clock ticks down. You can check your health status by seeing how much blood is on your character and if they're limping. If they're not doing so well you can rest them up against a wall and they'll naturally heal, much like the first game. Except this time around you're not allowed to naturally heal an unlimited number of times, you can only fully heal about twice in each level, though there are health packs scattered around the environments to make up for that.

25 miles of real-world London is the real star of the game, modeled to perfection with photographic textures, real store fronts, real advertising, real grit and grime, real cars on the street and real congestion caused by them, even though the days are gray Black Monday’s graphics sure do make them pretty. If you know London like the back of your hand, you're going to be able to get around this true-to-life map of London as well as you can in the real world. And if you play the game enough, I'm sure the same can be said vice versa. The feat of having such an authentic conversion of a real city into a game alone is quite an accomplishment.

Getting around the city is a bit easier this time around as well, as cars control a bit more predictably, compared to the realistic handling of the original. This allows you to do more things like delicately weaving between traffic without running into a car or the side of the road, like in the last game. New vehicles have been added to cruise around in, as well as the additions of motorcycles which come in very handy as London’s roads are not only congested, but extremely narrow in many cases.

The indoor locations for on-foot missions are larger this time around and feature more interesting locales. Run down apartment complexes, pool halls, corporate offices, mansions, the London Underground subway, and some very cool rooftop areas are just a few of a very nice assortment of realistic environments of Black Monday. Whilst playing these missions there are an assortment of moves you can do, evasive roll maneuvers, jump over objects, take cover behind objects, hug walls to peak around corners, grapple, grab and punch enemies, pick up two weapons of the same class and use auto-aim or manual to fire them, grab enemies from behind and either execute them or use them as a human shield, toss smoke grenades as Sgt. Mitchell or kick off of walls to higher areas like awnings with Sam.

Sam brings a whole new element to the series, which before was solely a shoot 'em up with cars. She has no weapons and no fighting skill. Her advantages are acrobatic-like skills and hacking, which means she cannot be spotted, because she won't be able to deal with the situation. Sam's missions are all stealth, requiring you to tip-toe around, hide behind corners, travel through vents and ledges, and basically remain a ghost at all times. These missions add a lot to the game, as sneaking your way around a gunfight takes much more thought than simply ventilating everyone in sight.

There are hidden keys in the levels throughout the game that you can pick up to unlock minigames like races and chase modes, and characters to play as in the free-roam game. Combined with 2 parts in the game that you are given an option to do one thing or another, resulting in four different endings and secret cars to find hidden about the back alleys of London and save in the newly-implemented GTA-style garages, Black Monday offers some pretty good replay potential.

Besides the improvement of being able to properly navigate the streets of London with the car’s blinkers flashing to lead you to the destination by the best possible route and not just a straight path, the controls of the game remain mostly untouched. On-foot missions remain difficult largely because of the camera system which makes it hard to see what’s around corners, or at times, what’s directly in front of you. The right analog stick is a step in the right direction, allowing you to somewhat adjust the camera to your liking, but doesn’t allow enough flexibility to position it exactly where you need to in the heat of battle. Otherwise, the controls are somewhat slow and can be a bit unresponsive at times.

When it comes to aiming, the auto-aim feature just isn’t intuitive enough, and targets enemies based on… well, I’m not even sure what the criteria for aiming is; it simply seems random. Sometimes there could be an enemy straight in the open firing at you, and another hiding behind a wall, and you aim at the one hiding behind the wall, which you can do no damage to. This leaves you resetting your aim, cycling through targets hoping you can get the real threats in time before you're toast.

The AI at times can be downright ignorant. In some instances you can run into a room before the enemies were scripted to run out and they’ll stand still as you just shoot them. Other times enemies run past you as if you’re not there, and in cases where you play as Eddie and you’re up against enemies with melee or no weapons, when you grab someone by the collar and start pummeling their face, their cohorts stand by and watch until you're done with him and move on to the next guy, until you’ve fought off everyone surrounding you completely unscathed. The lack of intelligent AI or any real challenge saw me beating the game in two afternoons, it's simply too short.

Driving one of the fastest cars you can find down a relatively clear strip of road will reveal that the framerate really isn’t that great; you’ll be going as fast as you can but it still feels slow due to the framerate trying to keep up with the action. This can also reveal muddy textures on the buildings in the distance at times, as the game doesn’t have time to load the crisp textures in yet at that speed. Thankfully the congested narrow streets of London usually don’t allow you to see these ugly problems rear their heads.

I think some of the best missions in Black Monday were the ones that involved Sam. You had to think more to get yourself around a level without anyone noticing, and there were a lot of cool moves and jumps you could do to keep yourself out of sight. Really thinking and completing these missions successfully I found to be more rewarding than the shooting and driving missions of the other two characters that greatly dominate the game. There are only three or four sneaking chapters in a game that has 22 chapters, so it would be nice of Sam's side of the story was fleshed out more. The on-foot control problems are hardly even noticeable in these parts as well because the gameplay is non-confrontational.

Choosing to do a certain action at different plot points in the game pave the way to 1 of 4 different endings, but after unlocking them all, they're all quite anti-climatic, the story was written very well and there were some extremely interesting characters developed here, but the endings, ranging from bad to meh, send the game out with a whimper.

Despite its flaws, I still enjoyed playing Black Monday, the storyline and voiceacting are both excellent, and cruising around in a photo-realistic London is ever-so-cool. The game is disappointing in the sense that it could have been a triple A title so easily, by fixing up the problems of the original (which the developers had over two years to do). If the controls were tighter and camera fixed, I would be able to highly recommend this game; instead I can only recommend a cautionary try before you buy, but only if you enjoy GTA-style games.

AI in need of some serious special education, buggy camera, sluggish controls, and problematic auto-aim.

Photo-realistic London, but framerate issues and muddy textures.

Great soundtrack, excellent professional voiceacting.

If you can deal with the gameplay issues the game offers up some interesting missions.

Hidden minigames and characters to unlock, secret cars to find, and multiple endings.