It had more than its fair share of problems, but we had a bit of a soft spot for The Getaway. Hammond and Carter were as unwieldy to control as three-year-olds dosed up on Sherbert Dips, but the London setting looked amazing and it remains one of the most cinematic games ever on PS2.
The Getaway: Black Monday, then, has the potential to be an absolute corker, if Sony can just fix things such as the on-foot controls and enemy AI. And our visit to Sony's Soho studio this month put our minds at rest somewhat, and unveiled lots of new information about the plot.
For starters, what exactly is Black Monday? It turns out to be the day that one of the game's three playable characters, Eddie O'Connor, takes part in a botched bank job to help his friend out of money trouble. His gang of small-time criminals include Danny, who's his trainer at the gym; John, a cleaner who works in the bank; Arthur, a 60-something safe-cracker and Sam, a 19-year-old female computer hacker, who you also get to play as later in the game.
Exciting stuff, but the game actually begins on the Tuesday following Black Monday, with you playing as an entirely different character - a copper called Mitch. Tuesday is Mitch's first day back on the job after being suspended for shooting a teenager in the back.
Sony have opted for a Pulp Fiction-style plot, so you start off as Mitch, then leave him on a big cliff-hanger and go back in time to previous events, playing as Eddie and Sam.
So the plot's more sophisticated and, more importantly, Sony promise that the problems with the first game will be addressed. With any luck, this will be the game everyone wanted the first one to be.
