Review: Marc Ecko’s Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure (PS2)


Marc Ecko’s Getting Up
Genre: Action/Adventure
Developer: The Collective
Publisher: Atari
Release Date: 2/14/06

I suppose I’m probably not the target demographic for a game like Getting Up. I’m a suburban kid, born and raised; I’m not exactly artistically gifted; the sum total of my rap music ownership amounts to Eminem and Kid Rock (depending on your definition of “rap”); and hey, all I know about Marc Ecko is that he makes clothes with rhinos on them. Be that as it may, I had an interest in Getting Up, for the reasons you’d expect… I thought it looked pretty good. Previews made it out to be an interesting experience, the combined dynamics of beat ’em ups like Beatdown mixed with Prince of Persia level designs had me intrigued. And hey, I liked Jet Grind Radio quite a bit, so I figured the graffiti tagging elements would end up being pretty interesting too.

So yeah, I decided it’s time for me to try Getting Up. That sounded funnier in my head.

Now, the game has gotten mixed press since its release, and I’m sure we’ve all heard that Ecko himself came out and blasted the review industry for having a “negative predisposition” to urban games. Now, the fact that most urban games have been pretty crappy notwithstanding, I don’t really have a negative opinion of the urban concept itself. Games like the various GTA games and Def Jam: FFNY have been good, well received titles, and titles like Final Fight: Streetwise and Beatdown were good games in their own right, at least in my opinion. The problem is that for every GOOD urban title, five more terrible ones (True Crime, 25 to Life, State of Emergency, Crime Life: Gang Wars, etc.) come around that aren’t so good, just so they can attempt to cash in on this new trend. As such, it’s hard to expect gamers to immediately warm up to games with urban themes, as the majority of them have been shit sandwiches. That said, I like the theme perfectly fine, for the most part, so I was actually hoping Getting Up would end up being one of the good games of the lot.

Well… it didn’t make me blind. I’ll say that much for it.


1. STORY


You take on the role of Trane, a young, up-and-coming graffiti artist (referred to as a “toy” by most of his rivals) who seeks to make a name for himself in the world of New Radius. The story is your standard fare; young kid goes out to make a name for himself, runs afoul of some heavys, finds love, and ends up tangled up in a plot to impose a dictatorship style government on the people of the city. The Mayor, Sung, has a mad-on for putting down the graffiti artists that roam the city, no matter the costs, and Trane pisses him off, both because he is a graf artist, and because of his daring-do (including spray-painting an unpaintable train and tram cars) that is exclusively against Sung and the CCK (Sung’s shock troops in the anti-graf war). It’s all pretty standard stuff, but the dialogue writing helps freshen things up quite a bit, as the character interplay is solid and the dialogue writing is fairly decent.

The problems with the story, from my perspective, are two-fold. First, Trane isn’t a terribly likeable character. The idea behind writing a character is that you either write them three-dimensionally, or you write them two-dimensionally, but develop them appropriately. Trane isn’t really created either way, and it hurts the character a bit. In the beginning of the game, Trane runs around his neighborhood, spraying graf wherever he feels the need to do so, and he ends up spraying over the graf of a gang known as the VaNR, or the Vandals of New Radius. The VaNR leader, Gabe, catches him in the act, and unceremoniously beats his ass for it, because hey, VaNR already long since claimed this territory. Trane is crossed out (Gabe sprays an X on his clothes), and after taking over MORE VaNR territory, Trane launches a counter-attack against the VaNR in revenge.

It’s very hard to sympathize with Trane’s plight, however, because everything that happens to him from the beginning of the game is, effectively, his fault. He leaves his grandmother to go pursue making a name for himself in the world of “getting up” (IE getting your name up on the wall), which is hardly an honorable action to undertake. “Hey grandmom, I know you’ve taken care of me all these years, but I’m off to go spray my name on the walls, so you can go screw”. Also, when you walk into gang territory and start spraying your shit OVER THEIR SHIT, you’re going to get messed up. This isn’t rocket science; gangs have territory for a reason, and they don’t want random idiots coming in and trying to make a name in their territory. That Trane attempts to take them on a second time, after they whipped his ass once, shows a distinct lack of intelligence, not to mention it’s an asshole tactic (you don’t want me stealing your turf, so I’ll do it anyway). Later, when he becomes pissed off that VaNR are supposedly spraying things over his graf, it is (again) hard to sympathize because HE’S DOING THE EXACT THING. Not only that, HE’S THE ONE THAT STARTED IT. And to top it all off, early in the game, Trane finds himself attracted to Tina, Gabe’s girlfriend. Through circumstances that play out in the game world, Trane and Gabe end up on the same side. So what’s the first thing Trane does after allying with Gabe? HE HITS ON TINA, RIGHT IN FRONT OF GABE. Mind you, all of these problems are easily corrected and spotted, so whoever wrote the script (Mark Ecko, supposedly) apparently WANTED players to think Trane’s a dick.

So yeah, problem number one, Trane’s an asshole, and it’s hard to appreciate his plight when he keeps acting like an asshole.


The second problem is a more universal one: save for Gabe and Decoy, all of the game characters either behave inconsistently, are stereotyped, or have no personality to speak of. Trane leaves a rival gang member at the mercy of the CCK to save his own ass, is more pissed off that his old apartment building being firebombed is blamed on him than the fact that HIS GRANDMOTHER MIGHT BE DEAD, then risks his own life to try and save the life of the chief of the CCK. Wait, what? Tina is another great example; she calls Trane a toy at the beginning of the game for not knowing who Futura is (not that I do or anything), then later makes an observation that desiring to go spray is a testosterone thing. So… if she dislikes the graf culture so much, why is she able to identify artists on sight? Sung and his various assistants are all evil bastards with no notable redeeming qualities, and sub characters like Dip and White Mike don’t really develop beyond “I wanna tag something/beat your ass” character-wise. The sad thing is, when one sees how a character like Gabe is developed (everything he does is a logical extension of the sort of person he is and the situations he finds himself in), it’s hard to understand why HIS development makes sense when Trane’s does not, what with Trane being the main character and all.

To compare this relatively, Carl Johnson, he of San Andreas fame, is a far stronger character with far better motivations and far better character development across the board, and I didn’t even LIKE San Andreas. This will be relevant later, I promise.

If you can completely tune out the storyline inconsistencies and overused stereotypes, you’ll enjoy the game a lot more than if you try to understand them. Unfortunately, the storyline is prevalent throughout the game, and if you ignore it, you’re basically left spraying graffiti on walls and beating the crap out of guards for NO GOOD REASON. That might fly for some, but for me, I just have no interest.

Story Rating: 3/10


2. GRAPHICS


Visually, Getting Up is a mixed bag. The game environments look suitably run-down and citified, and the character models look solid, though they look better in the in-game cinematics than they do just running around. The character models animate solidly enough, and even with several opponents on screen at once, I didn’t notice any slowdown, which is certainly good. The visual star of the show, of course, is the graffiti, and it’s all very nice looking across the board. The spray effects look really convincing, and while on the subject of visual effects, the Intuition effect (the screen takes on an orange hue while orange and blue neon-like trace lights snake around the environment) looks pretty cool the first few times you see it. Lighting and fire effects are also quite good, though not the best around.

Unfortunately, there are a few visual problems that keep the game from living up to its full potential. For one, clipping is a MAJOR problem. Graffiti on walls will disappear and reappear as you approach them, people can disappear entirely behind graffiti and walls, and on rare occasions, the environment will load broken (IE steel girders sticking out of a subway train). These appear to be more situationally dependant graphical glitches than anything else, but they still happen, and happen consistently enough that I feel they should be mentioned. Character animations are also occasionally buggy; throwing characters off of ledges, for instance, will show them in a standing animation the whole way down on more than a few occasions. And in stages where there are a lot of environmental actions going on (the stages where Trane is on busy highways, for instance), the game occasionally hiccups while processing everything and slows down for a second or two. This only happened twice out of six attempts, though, so you may never even see it.

All in all, MEGU looks good, but not great. Even if the graphical glitching and animation issues were cleaned up, there are still better looking titles on the console. MEGU does have a pretty reasonable amount of style behind its image, and that helps a lot, so while the visuals are by no means perfect, they’re solid enough that most folks will probably like them fine.

Graphics Rating: 6/10


3. SOUND

Getting Up features a licensed soundtrack, which consists almost entirely of rap/hip-hop/R&B tunes, though I swear I heard a punk track pop up during the Tram level. Overall, it’s mostly solid stuff, but if you’re not a fan of the genres in question, it stands to reason that you won’t be a fan of the music. Most of it is inoffensive, though, so you probably won’t feel the need to turn it off. The game sound effects are also solid, if standard fair; everything sounds as it should, from the simple ambient sounds of a subway tunnel to the sound a spray paint can makes when shaken. Nothing sounds abnormal or out of place, and everything blends together nicely for a more engaging experience.

The voice acting is also quite good, especially the acting for Trane, which is absolutely perfect for the character. Talib Kweli, the rapper nee actor in question, brings the right amount of emotion when needed, and conveys the appropriate amount of attitude in his lines. Tina and Gabe are also well done, and hearing Adam West’s voice come from the Chief of the CCK was something of a mark out moment for me, I have to admit. The only issue I could bring against the voice acting is that some of the real life graffiti artists (Obey, for instance) act in their roles better than others (Futura). I can’t really knock any points for that, though; if you’re playing yourself, and you sound like that, that’s probably how you really sound, and how can you condemn a man for acting like himself? That minor point aside, you’ll be hard pressed to find fault with the voices, and in a game where the story is heavy throughout the course of the experience, that’s a damn good thing.

Sound Rating: 8/10


4. CONTROL/GAMEPLAY

And here’s where everything falls apart.

Okay, in Getting Up, there are three main play dynamics: Prince of Persia style jumping puzzles (from here on referred to as “free running”), beat-em-up style fisticuffs, and graffiti tagging. Combat actions take up three of the face buttons (for punches, kicks, and dodges), and are fairly in depth, and your jump takes up the fourth. The triggers are assigned functions like switching the graf tools you use, locking onto targets, triggering Intuition (which highlights graf targets and the line of sight of cameras) and locking in to tag locations. You use the D-pad to cycle through the tags you’ve set up in the mission, which you choose from your Black Book prior to starting a section (or you can let the game choose what it wants). The controls are all fairly self explanatory, though so many functions are assigned to the various buttons that it can become confusing, at times, remembering where everything is located. After a few hours of play you should have everything memorized, but prior to that you might have some confusion. On-screen you’ll see plenty of easy-to-read meters that dictate your health, skill (for special attacks in combat), and reputation (which is earned by tagging), as well as an icon dictating what graf tool you’re using. If you’re working with your spray can, you’ll also see a meter on the can icon that indicates how much pressure is left, so you know when to release and let it shake up for more pressure. In this regard, at least, everything is fairly clear and self-explanatory.

Before we move on to describing the individual sections, however, I’m going to address one major issue that plagues everything universally: the camera sucks. In combat you’ll find yourself having to adjust it to keep from receiving a major ass-beating more often than you’d like. When tagging, the camera will lock to a specific angle dependent on what and where you’re tagging, and a lot of the time, said angle will obscure part of your view, or keep you from being able to see potential drip spots. When free running, the camera angles can occasionally cause you to line up a jump incorrectly, and while in POP you could rewind the segment with the Sands of Time, here you simply take damage or die. The camera also has a tendency to get stuck behind walls or other environmental obstacles, and is just generally a pain in the ass. You have a 50-50 chance of being given broken locked angles that cannot be adjusted, and will probably spend a quarter of your time adjusting the angles you CAN work with. Bottom line, assuming you desire to surmount this obstacle, you’ve got your work cut out for you.


Level design is solid and interesting, and for the most part is usually negotiable without incident. Most of the time, the game is fairly specific about where you are expected to go next, and if you’re stuck, Intuition will usually point out where to go. Occasionally you might be stuck without an idea of where to go next, but this is rare. Hidden items dot the landscape (IPods, Legend cameras, health and skill upgrades, etc), most of which can be found without too much trouble. Unfortunately, most of the levels are quite linear, so there isn’t too much exploration to be done, and some of the stages amount to two or three rooms and little else, though this is the exception, not the rule. Level objectives tend to go all over the place as well, which is pretty cool; some stages see you knocking out neon lights to spell your name, while others see you leaping onto tram cars to tag them as they do their daily cycle.

Combat is theoretically well balanced; you have your standard weak attacks, which can be chained into combos; strong attacks, which can be used at the end of combos to break blocks but drain from your skill bar; stun attacks, which stun enemies but, again, drain skill; grapples, which allow for grappled combos or throws; and taunt attacks, which refill your skill bar and add insult to injury. You can also grab various environmental items to use as weapons; some, like bricks and what appear to be glass covered bats, are fairly useful, while others, like basketballs, not so much. And as is standard, as you progress through the game, you develop new combat skills and techniques to use in battle (including turning a spray paint can and a lighter into a makeshift flamethrower, which doesn’t do nearly as much damage as you’d think). In theory this all fits together well; in practice, there are some notable deficiencies. The lock on button is the same as the button to engage graffiti, so you might end up going to tag something if you press the button near a wall. In one-on-one combat, most of your combat abilities are reliable, but trying to manage two enemies at once can be taxing, and when facing down three goons at once, you’re left to button mashing as your only real reliable alternative. Worst of all, though, is that combat is incredibly frequent, and it’s honestly just not as much fun as tagging or free running; had it been excised entirely, the game would have been better for it.

There are also the odd stealth mechanics, and as usual, they don’t work as well as in games like MGS. You can sneak up on enemies and fall silently by holding down a button, and once you’re upon them, you can knock them out by holding both attack buttons to charge a hard smack with your spray can. You’ll find that this is easier said than done, largely because the game has the occasional tendency to simply misread your presses as regular attacks instead of a knock out attempt. It’s not a bad try per say, but simply pressing one button to make the attempt would have alleviated a lot of problems.

The free running segments fare a little better; Trane can scale walls, climb ivy and chain fences, crawl through vents, balance on and hang from beams and such, and jump off of walls for an added boost. About the only thing he’s missing when compared to his peers is the wall run, but it’s not exactly missed. Most stages feature fairly reasonable free run obstacles, though some stages (the subway train rides, for instance) are far more focused on this than others. The controls in these instances are fairly responsive, for the most part, but mild hiccups can be noted when trying to negotiate Trane to take T-intersections in balancing sections. Also, as noted above, it can be difficult to see if you’re properly lined up to make certain jumps; occasionally, the camera will pull in for a first person view, but this does not always occur, and you may find yourself jumping into nothing on more than a few occasions. Collision detection can also occasionally play havoc with you; in an attempt to grab ONTO a freeway sign, I fell clean THROUGH it, onto the freeway, whereupon a car ended my little jaunt by smearing my ass all over the street. This was not exactly what I would consider a strong point.

Tagging fares the best of the bunch, and while it’s not perfect, it’s certainly the most enjoyable. In pretty much every stage in the game, there will be locations that you can tag with graffiti, though the types that can be used depend on the location you’re in. Your most common type of graffiti is the free-form tag, which can be done with a spray can, marker, stencil, stickers, or posters. This is as simple as locking on to an area and pressing a button. You can simply do these for the hell of it, but they don’t gain you anything. You can also use them for various free-form challenges in each of the levels, (cover the door in tags, tag all the whiteboards, that sort of thing), which increase your rep. The other type of graf you can perform are the more detailed large tags, which can only be placed in specified locations, and are usually either done in spray paint, rolled paint, or wheat paste posters. Spraying large tags is pretty interesting for the first few hours, as you have to regulate your paint pressure and watch that you don’t cause drips while trying to complete the tag before you run out of time. Actually painting is a snap; hold down the button and move the left stick, and you’re painting, no fuss. Applying rolled paint tags and wheat paste posters works in a similar fashion, though there’s no paint pressure to worry about. Posters also require that the poster material be applied after the paste is adhered. In short, there’s a lot of variety in what you can do, and hey, if you only like applying tags in a certain way, you can customize your Black Book exclusively with that kind of tag before missions. You can also upgrade spray pressure (by finding Gold Montana paint cans) and later in the game you gain the ability to paint more quickly, with the caveat that you’re more likely to drip, which is a welcome mechanic. Oh, and Trane will occasionally spray specialty tags over certain things just to amuse himself, which also keeps you guessing. Seeing him change Gabe’s tags to pictures of Gabe as an ape saying “I Eat Shit”, for example, had me cracking up pretty good. There are, unfortunately, some small issues with tagging, though compared to the other mechanics, they are minor. The free-form challenges don’t always work as intended; in a couple of instances I was able to defeat the challenges simply by writing tags over top of one another, while in one in the subway terminal, I couldn’t register a success when writing on the center beams no matter what I did. The drip indicator turns red and white to show where a drip may occur, which can be hard to see on red and white tags, which are more readily available than one might think. Also, in the wishful thinking department, I’d have liked to see something that allowed me to make my own tags (not that I can draw or anything, but still), but I’m not going to hate on the game for lack of this thing. That said, tagging is by far the most entertaining part of the game, and was honestly the only thing that kept me playing as long as I did.

There’s also a two-player battle mode available outside of the main game, but it suffers the same inadequacies the main game does, and isn’t really terribly fun, though it might amuse players who’ve got nothing better to do. You can unlock various characters to participate in the battles by earning rep, which will be a good thing if the mode entertains you. That said, I didn’t spend much time with it, and I doubt you would either.

So, after all that crap, what’s the deal? Well, the tagging is great, the free running is okay, and the combat is meh. The camera breaks everything, and fighting with it will probably annoy you long before anything else gets a chance. And frankly, there’s lots of style but not much substance to the levels. In other words, there’s some fun stuff here, but the negatives far outweigh the positives, which is just a flat out damn dirty shame.

Control/Gameplay Rating: 5/10


5. REPLAYABILITY

You can repeat any stage you want at any time, so if you happen to like certain stages you can take comfort knowing you can go back to them. Sadly, there’s no way to just run around and tag without fighting, which would have honestly given me a reason to come back. There are also all sorts of hidden unlockables in the various game stages, as noted prior, though there are codes online to unlock these things without accomplishing the various objectives, so if you’d rather do that, it’s available. If you’re a fan of the graf culture, the game also has all sorts of archives about various artists contained within, though if you’re not, this probably won’t matter so much. Bottom line, unless you love the tagging enough to deal with the rest of the game, or you love the whole package for some reason, you’re most likely never going to come back to Getting Up after one playthrough.

Replayability Rating: 5/10


6. BALANCE

For the most part, Getting Up is pretty evenly balanced. The free running tends to be reasonable for the most part, and the tags never really get any more difficult, though the conditions you’re forced to make them under do. The biggest difficulty jump you’ll face is in the enemies you encounter, as the CCK shock troopers you face in later levels deny grapples and shoot you in the face, and in some cases you’ll face down multiples of these troops. If the combat system were more functional, this might not be an issue, but as it stands, it tends to be a bit more unbalanced than you might have tolerance for. It’s by no means impossible, but it can be more of a pain than you’ll want to bother with.

Of course, you could always put in the infinite health code and simply concentrate on the tagging and free running parts of the game. I tried that out, and found I enjoyed the game a whole lot more for it.

Balance Rating: 5/10


7. ORIGINALITY

Hm. Fisticuffs, see Beatdown, Final Fight, Spike Out, et al. Stealth, see Metal Gear Solid or Splinter Cell. Free running, see Ninja Gaiden or Prince of Persia. Graffiti tagging, well, that’s more original, but Jet Set Radio did that like five years ago, and GTA: SA did that in ’04. Urban theme… please. Pick something.

The actual execution is fairly unique, however, which does save this from a poor score. HOW the actual tagging mechanics work is interesting, and how the overall product comes together shows unique elements in places. It’s by no means a completely original experience, but there are plenty of original elements in place, and the end result is something that is familiar, but not a rehash.

Originality Rating: 5/10


8. ADDICTIVENESS

The first few hours you play the game, you’ll find yourself wanting to come back to see what sort of tags pop up in rotation, and because the graf tagging is honestly pretty damn cool, as I said. But as you progress further, and combat takes more of an active role in the game experience, you’ll probably find your interest waning. Unless you really love the tagging dynamic, you’ll probably only finish the game to finish it and be done with it.

Addictiveness Rating: 5/10


9. APPEAL FACTOR

Mark Ecko has his name all over it, it’s about the graffiti culture, it has a fully urban theme and a fully urban soundtrack, so those with an appreciation for this culture will find a lot to draw them to this. The graffiti tagging elements have been hyped up quite a bit too, and anyone looking for something a little different will probably have an eye on this. The urban theme will probably turn off those that have been burned in the past by similarly themed games, or those that simply do not care for such concepts at all. At the end of the day, though, Getting Up has a pretty large market appeal, and hey, as a first try at this sort of thing it’s fairly okay, so I’d expect it will do fairly well.

Appeal Rating: 7/10


10. MISCELLANEOUS

And here’s where I get a little nasty.

First off, I’d like to note that I take mild exception to Trane as Superman. We can associate that Ryu Hayabusa can do what he does; he’s a trained ninja and has grown up his whole life training as the leader of his clan. We can accept the Prince of Persia can do what he does; he’s the prince of a warlike nation, back when wars were every other Tuesday and were based in hand-to-hand combat. That Trane can fight off governmentally trained shock troops with tazer sticks and guns, jump from subway train to subway train, and so on, when he’s a skinny kid with no noted training or conditioning to speak of is slightly suspect. I don’t hate it or anything, but it takes me out of the game a tad.

Second, there’s an awesome amount of potential with a game like this. There honestly is. If this had been purely about free running and tagging, the environments had been more open-ended, and the camera not broken as shit, this would be a great game. Bar none. Hell, if the camera wasn’t broken, it’d be a okay or good game. But as it stands, it’s unused potential. A good template for a second or third title, yeah, but that’s it.

And I understand that Mark Ecko’s a little testy about those who might lay the smackdown on his baby. Fine. He has a right to be, he helped create it. People crapping on it would, I’d imagine, piss him off, and rightly so.

That said, when I see him saying things like…

“I would say there are gamers that have a predisposition to have a bug up their ass for anything urban. The fact that there was a black character on the cover of this game, right away there was a dismissiveness that this was just another “GTA: San Andreas,” that’s number one. Number two, this is the end of a console cycle when there is a law of diminishing returns. The code is as polished as you can make it on a no-hard-drive console like the PS2. So, there are technical limitations that people just can’t understand. There are guys that have a predisposition to be slaves to the code, rather than be slaves to the branding, products or experience. At the end of the day, it’s going to be the consumer who decides and not whether the camera makes a difference.”

…or…

“If you think that the fashion industry is filled with divas, no, the worst divas are the guys who got wedgies in high school. Game divas are the worst divas than a guy reviewer in a Helmut Lang suit standing in the second row of a show. Those guys are easy compared to the pissy gamers.”

…or perhaps…

“You can’t compare it to “GTA.” First of all, let me ask you something. In the IGN review, the guy says that any mechanic that exists in your game has to be as polished as the next mechanic. If that was the case, why would they give a 9.6 to “GTA” when the fighting sucks. It’s a one-button button masher. Why would they say that when the driving physics on the motorcycle suck? When you turn one corner you end up doing a 360. What are you building here? Are you building technology or an original intellectual property. When you’re reviewing, are you reviewing technology or gameplay?”

… well, I kind of have to stop. See, on one hand, I’m no fan of the game media, so they can take it. On the other, well, I’m kind of sort of ripping into the product, so I kind of have to take this sort of heat along with everyone else.

So, for the heck of it:

1.) If your camera wasn’t broken, people wouldn’t be bitching about it.
2.) Watch “Spider-Man” with the whole film shot up Tobey Macguire’s nose, then tell me the camera doesn’t matter.
3.) Technical limitations do not equate to broken camera. Knock it off.
4.) The idea of game reviewers being “pissy” as a collective whole because they got wedgies in school, as an argument, just boggles my f*cking mind. I can’t speak for everyone, but I can safely say that I barely REMEMBER high school, and I can still safely recall never getting a wedgie. Again, knock it off.
5.) The fighting in GTA encompasses roughly .5% of the gameplay experience, and honestly, it’s hard to screw up mashing a button until someone dies. The fighting in Getting Up encompasses roughly 40-50% of the game experience, and takes up four of the buttons on the controller, so it’s harder to do correctly. Hence the disparity.
6.) Not to defend GTA again… but try taking a 90 degree turn on a Kawasaki Ninja at 80 MPH and see how straight you turn.

The point? Marc Ecko whines, just like the rest of us. He’s not getting his way, and instead of saying, “Hey, it’s not perfect, I know, but we’re going to make the next one even better”, he jumps down the throats of the reviewers and proclaims his game a masterpiece. I’d be more surprised if 50 Cent wasn’t encouraging parents to buy his game for their small children. Now, I’m not even phased.

Here’s hoping the sequel is better. Oh, and that Mr. Ecko hires someone else to write the script. Hey, I work cheap, hit me up.

Miscellaneous Rating: 5/10

The Scores:
Story: 3/10
Graphics: 6/10
Sound: 8/10
Control/Gameplay: 5/10
Replayability: 5/10
Balance: 5/10
Originality: 5/10
Addictiveness: 5/10
Appeal: 7/10
Miscellaneous: 5/10

Overall Score: 54/10
Final Score: 5.5 (AVERAGE).

Short Attention Span Summary
Getting Up doesn’t quite make it to where it’s trying to go. The tagging and the graf cultural references are cool, but broken camera angles, mediocre fighting, a lame story, and a lack of anything to do when you’re done hurt the experience quite a bit. Here’s hoping this is a learning process, as I’d actually like to see an improved sequel. As far as this goes, Getting Up is strictly a rental only.


Posted

in

, ,

by

Tags: