Graffiti isn't often something taken at face value by the general public, with the art form more likely to be seen as trashy or immature rather than an actual expression of creativity. This phenomena is what makes Getting Up's existence a little baffling. A high-budget, fully featured adventure game focusing around a street artist's rise from obscurity wasn't exactly tapping into any existing markets that video games often find themselves falling into. Either way, there's been almost nothing like GU, before or since, but uniqueness does not always equal quality.

The first thing any player's going to notice about the game is the sheer beauty of Getting Up. While the game is still visibly a 6th generation title, the console is pushed to it's absolute limits with remarkably detailed environments and impressive animation work. Every wall is plastered with others' street art, lighting effects such as cop car lightbars look exquisite, and the game truly 'enjoys' urban decay in a way that few games do. While most other titles would have levels set in abandoned buildings and grimy subway stations to simply avoid having to put too much personal detail on one level, Getting Up revels in the little things, finding beauty in the ugliness of long-forgotten school buildings and back-alley shortcuts. This is all complimented by a solid voice cast and an excellent soundtrack that blends rap with RnB and alternative rock seamlessly.

Unfortunately, Getting Up is a game too, and it's not a very well-playing one at that. The gameplay is split into three parts; parkour, stealth, and combat. Of all 3 aspects, parkour is the least offensive, being passable if stiff. Stealth feels incredibly underbaked, with vague indications of your undetected status and a stealth attack that seems to roll a die to determine if you actually commit your intended one-hit kill takedown or instead just standing up to commit a regular attack. It cannot be overstated how bad of an idea a two-button prompt for context-sensitive stealth kill is. Combat too, is stiff and underbaked, but also frustrating to boot. Enemies will often instantly interrupt attacks, knock you to the ground and continue to get in free hits while your character refuses to get up, and take a noticeably long time to incapacitate. Add in a camera that often refuses to cooperate alongside inconsistent checkpointing, and I would honestly not blame anyone for turning on cheats.

It really is a shame that Getting Up has so many flaws, because nearly every aspect sans gameplay is both stylish and high quality. It's a further disappointment that the cultural time capsule of this game has passed, because a game like this is begging for a second-pass remake from a more competent developer.

Definitely, this is a very interesting concept of the game and the game is remembered not only for some of the best tracks that are perfectly built into the game, but also for the concept itself, which is quite original and has not been touched upon anywhere else in other games. Of similar games, I immediately remember one single old Jet Set Radio, but this is a completely different style of storytelling. In terms of mechanics, I would say a beat ’em up made on the knee and the main one: painting graffiti is very simplified, it doesn’t smell of realism, but surprisingly it works.

Однозначно, это очень интересный концепт игры и запомнилась игра не только одними из лучших треков, которые идеально встроены в игру, но и самим концептом, достаточно оригинальным и более нигде не затрагивался в других играх. Из похожих игр сразу вспоминается одна единственная старенькая Jet Set Radio, но это совершенно разный стиль повествования. Из механики я бы назвал сделанный на коленке Beat ’em up и основная: покраска граффити упрощена очень сильно, реалистичностью не пахнет, но на удивление это работает.

As always, my background:
1) Played this game when I was a kid
2) Loved it a lot
3) Loved the graffiti culture back in the day
4) Indifferent about it now

Now.... This game is an absolutely work of art. For me, this is the definition of a video game for ps2. It looks and sounds incredible, has a very unique theme, every aspect of it was made with love, ball brave game design and overall ideas.

So let's digest it a little:
1) Gameplay - It's a 3rd person action-adventure with graffiti elements. It mainly has 4 aspects: fights, exploration and graffiti

Fight system is somewhat hit or miss. It works well, the animation are great, the overall system is good, but the "bullet sponge" enemies are the problem. God damn, some regular enemis are just too fucking fat. That makes you wanna use stealth, and yes, this game has stealth. But it is kinda wonky. The only proper way to deal with them, imo, is to avoid them and run away. And honestly I think that what the intended way to deal with them. Kinda like OG mirror's edge.

Exploration is one of the best aspects. 3rd platforming kinda sux, but at least there is not a lot of it and it's not that important. But exploring the world, oh my. I will speak about the world-building later, but holy shit just being in this world is amazing. And no, I wouldn't like an open world probably. Every level is so unique and give you the different and complete view of one of the districts of the town: big ass bridges, HQ of the special police, zeppelins, metro stations, etc... Man, I miss these games where the levels were just unique. Also by exploring the level you can find: upgrades, ipod songs, normal secrets and additional graffiti spots.

Now, the biggest thing - Graffiti. Man oh man. Basically on every level there are marked spots where you can tag your graffiti. Once you get close to it, you can choose the graffiti that ya wanna paint, the size and start painting. It's pretty much just a mini-game, where you control your hand with a can and try to fill in the image. But you gotta do it fast, without drips(keeping the can on the same place for too long), and also shake the can once in a while. Also enemies can interrupt you, so you gotta deal with them first or be extra strategic. And that's pretty much it. Sounds kinda repetitive, and it is. But I never got tired of doing them. I did all the extra once as well, cuz man, it's just cool to do them. You pick your graffiti, and then all the sounds of releasing the paint, shaking the can, and just overall vibe, DAMN. Also, after some levels you unlock new graffities and even new styles, so it never gets old for me. There is also additional small tags that you can place anywhere, but they are not that fun.

Sooo, the gameplay is an okay action-adventure with a unique element of graffiti, what about the rest of the game?

2) OST & sound design - OST, and included songs are hip-hop from the early 2000 and damn it fits this game perfectly. The sound design is also top, especially all the painting related things

3) Graphics - DAMN. Definition of ps2 graphics. Peak. So much love here, every tag, every texture, every graffiti. I absolutely adore this game. You look at any screenshot and you feel "yup, that's ps2"

4) Story and world-building - again, DAMN. It takes place in a authoritarian city, where people are being oppressed. And graffiti is one of the way to "fight the system". But what first starts as a gang battling for respect, grows into a much larger story about conspiracy, mayor, elections, freedom of speech and so on. It's not super deep, but I love how they decided to use graffiti sub culture to tell this story.

The game is not perfect, it's pretty junky in a lot of aspects. But this game is coming from love, and I can't get anything except love to this game. One of my favorite games of all time.

Besides being a front-runner for 'most unnecessarily-wordy title', this game also might be up there under 'most impressive celebrity cast for its budget', but regardless, Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure is a quintessential mid-2000s sixth-generation video game. It just has such a style and sensibility that feels like a time capsule of 2000s cool, from the fashion to the dialogue and the admittedly great soundtrack, featuring everything from Kasabian's 'Club Foot' to Nina Simone's 'Sinnerman'.

However, being a mid-2000s sixth-gen video game, it's also a relic of its time in less favourable ways: camera issues abound, half-baked mechanics that never really feel fulfilling and pacing issues with its campaign. It's not a bad game, however; far from it, it just has a lot of jank despite the charm of its premise and art direction.

Combat in particular is pretty lacklustre from start to finish, though the foundation they set up is decent enough as a combo-based button masher. However, when tougher enemies show up, it can be all to easy for them to trap you in a combo with not much of a window to escape it.

As said, the camera can also get stuck on geometry that can mess up combat at times, but more crucially, it can make platforming (especially in tight corridors) more of a slog than it needs to be.

The story and dialogue are... okay. Very much a product of their time in a lot of ways, with a corny 'tough-guy' protagonist, admittedly voiced pretty well by the great Talib Kweli, with a tone that's unsure at times if it wants to be serious and grandstanding or light and fun.

Honestly, the platforming and graffiti parts are really the best part of the game, which is good since that's what the majority of Getting Up is. However, there's not all that much variety mixed in and that can really start to become apparent with the game's pacing issues as the story drags on longer than it maybe should.

Still, its undeniably a fascinating and pretty fun romp from 2006 that stands as a testament to why the sixth-gen of games and consoles are still so cherished.

6/10

I really loved this game, this is one of the best and most underrated games of PS2 and the story, music, gameplay and all around it is amazing, but i also hated how long it was, it became a little repetitive and at the end of the game i started hating it because of the terrible cameras, the fights at first were enjoyable but almost at the ending they were too hard and complicated, you could be sneaky but it was hard too, the silent executions were hard to make and buggy sometimes, maybe it was the PC version, but once they see you you are over, and you dont have any way to refresh the checkpoint so you have to kill yourself multiple times and loss all your progress.

Начиная с этого обзора буду стараться оценивать игры по критериям:

Геймплей - Подрасстроил, нудная и однообразная рутина, заключающаяся в паркуре и зачистке локации от солдатиков. Но несомненный плюс за идею рисовки граффити. Эта механика забирала десятки часов геймеров, особенно у тех, кто проходил её в детстве. Боёвка удивила своей уникальностью и проработкой. Это действительно проделан огромный пласт работы, чтобы довести её до ума. Получилась пушка, молодец Марк Эко.

Сюжет - Тут однозначно большой плюс. Идея становления короля граффити Трейна сделана на высоте. Сюжетные повороты постоянно сопровождают игрока и не дают заскучать. Персонажи проработаны детально и подробно. Испытываешь сопереживания герою и всеми силами хочешь помочь ему достичь своей цели.

Визуальная составляющая - Игра от и до пропитана старым вайбом. Гетто районы города, населённые различными группировками помогают погрузиться в мир игры и прочувствовать его, так, как это задумывалось разработчиками.

Косяки - Паркур достаточно деревянно и нестабильно работает, что заставляет местами подогревать очко. Понимаю, что для того года это считался хороший и качественный паркур, радующий глаз, но в нынешнее время смотрится не очень. Несколько миссий имеют действительно повышенную сложность для прохождения. Момент дуэли с гейбом и рисования граффити на мосту заставили напрячься (Пришлось просить пожилого друга Трейна пройти Гейба за меня).

Возможно дополнение обзора U_U