The Italian Job

Written by Adam Woolcott  on May 24, 2002

Review: УCharlie Croker, you just got outta jail! What are you going to do next?Ф УI'm going to Dis..no, I'm going to steal a bunch of money and piss off the Mafia!Ф

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With the era of the PlayStation 2 in full swing, PSOne games are being released few and far between. That number of games grows less when you take PSOne games that are decent titles. Backwards compatible or not, PSOne games are finally slowing to a snail's pace, 7 years after its US release.

With that in mind, Rockstar Games took it upon themselves to bring one last good PSOne game to the US Ц The Italian Job. Given Rockstar's obsession with the mafia (see Grand Theft Auto 3, Max Payne), TIJ is a perfect fit for their carefully built image. Released in the UK late last year, TIJ finally made its way to the US in May, for the extremely wallet friendly price of $10. Usually any new PSOne games that retail for 10 bucks are horrific and should be avoided as if they could infect you with leprosy (play this game and I swear your arms & legs will fall off!), but in this case, The Italian Job is worth the $10, and probably could have been sold at the full $40 clip without missing a beat. The main game is a little on the short side, but the extra features make up for it Ц and this TIJ is not only a great single player game in the mold of Driver, but also a great party game as well.

The main УItalian JobФ game is based on the 1969 movie of the same name Ц Charlie Croker has just been released from jail, and instead of living low and being a law-abiding citizen, he hatches a plan to create a massive traffic jam in Turin and steal $4,000,000 (that's million, for those who don't know 6 zeroes is a million) in gold. In this part of the game, you have to complete missions that prepare you for the big heist, as well as get the hell outta Dodge with the money, with the mafia and the police on your tail. The game takes you through 3 different areas Ц London, Turin, and The Alps. There's around 15 missions to complete before knocking off the main game Ц more on that later.

Besides that, there's a handful of minigames that perhaps would be useful for the main play mode. There's a freeride where you just travel around the cities you've unlocked (you begin only with London) in the cars you've unlocked (you get more cars as you play through the main mode). Along the way you'll find people with challenges for you to complete, adding a little twist to the deal. Freeride certainly comes in handy for learning the city Ц considering the task at hand, it's not a bad idea.

Also, there's a checkpoint mode where you race through the city and pass through checkpoints (didn't see that one coming, did you?). Like other modes, you unlock more areas to race through and more cars to race with as you complete the main game. Plus, there's a destructor mode where you just race around and crash into stuff Ц an interesting premise, for sure.

Those last 2 modes can be played in Party Play, the 8 player, take-turn multiplayer mode. Given the TV would be way too small even if you have 2 multitaps to hook up 8 controllers, individual racing makes for a less frustrating experience.

The Italian Job could probably pass off as GTA on the PSOne Ц at least GTA 3's driving missions anyway. TIJ is more akin to the Driver series than anything, with chases and escapes through the cities and a clock ticking down before you fail the mission. This is all there really is to TIJ Ц pick someone up, drop someone off, ram a car until it doesn't work; there's no argument that this game can get a little repetitive and tiring after a while. Which is why I think the game is on the short side Ц with only 15 missions that last perhaps a few minutes tops, it's possible to beat the game within a few hours.

However, TIJ counters with some frustrating/annoying missions that perhaps wouldn't be so hard if the controls were a little bit better. Most of the cars are pretty easy to handle, but running into an object will probably knock you into trouble and it takes a bit longer than necessary to correct your driving and get back on course. This is a serious pain in the levels where you must follow someone Ц one mistake and you're pretty much shit outta luck, while the person you're following makes no mistakes whatsoever.

That's not saying all missions are like this; there's a few interesting ones. For instance, driving a bus armed with explosives through a busy city street is fun and challenging, given how little damage is allowed before it goes kaboom.

The police chases that you occasionally get into are creative Ц besides how they'll ram you and follow you everywhere, they pick up individual characters on your license plate. Once they get all the numbers, you're busted. The idea is to get away from them so they lose sight of your plate, then figure out a way to lose them so you can finish the mission. Because if you don't shake the police (or the mob for that matter), you can't complete a goal, which could cost you if you're short on time.

Graphics Whores need not apply Ц the visuals are terribly dated and show how far the PS2 has come in comparison. Even with all the effects turned on (texture mapping), the game is a blocky, jaggy, washed out mess. If it's not blocky and jaggy, it's heavily pixilated. Of course, this is PSOne, a system that kinda was top of the game graphicallyЕin 1995. If you expected a PS2-quality, you're either a nimrod or dreaming. The cars themselves don't look as bad as the environments, but the rest is pretty mediocre. Devloper SCi did an interesting thing that lets environments load as you near them, reducing draw-in and popup, but you're not going to work wonders out of a machine that's from the 32-bit generation.

The audio is fun though Ц the goofy British voice acting is funny Ц not the kind that makes you laugh out loud, but the kind of amusing banter that gets a chuckle or 2. It's pretty well done and not campy at all, but it seems UK-made games seem to have great voice actors Ц must be a little more УreasonableФ to do a game than the egomaniacs that exist in the US seem to believe. But I digress.

The music is just a repetitive tune that plays through the missions Ц but the music that plays in the menu screens is oddly catchy. It must be from the movie, but I don't know for sure. It certainly feels British, with a pop-rock/harmonica mix that sounds kinda like country music blended with pop music Ц just without all that negativity.