Get Info: #2001

Review: The Italian Job (2001)

by Matt Sephton — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 14:00:00 +0000

You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!

The Italian Job is based on the 1969 cult classic movie of the same name, and released very late into the life of PlayStation in fact over a year into the life of PlayStation 2. It reviewed well and charted at number one for a good amount of time, even winning a “Best PlayStation Game of 2002” award from the Official PlayStation Magazine in the UK. But I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve never heard of it let alone played it.

It was one of those games I picked up along the way, long after release, probably at a car boot sale or charity shop or bargain bin. I distinctly remember booting it up for the first time and feeling the vibe of the movie instantly despite only having seen it once when I was a teen. It retains all the comedy, action, and British irreverance. The thought of racing cars around busy city streets with reckless abandon is as intoxicating now as it was then.

So, with that in mind we should look at The Italian Job through that sort of period lens. PlayStation was on its way out and the wobbly polygons were par for the course, no worries. It released after the hugely successful Driver (1999) and its slightly less successful sequel Driver 2 (2000) and is obviously inspired by those games. It features pretty much the same game modes, and the same gameplay. One could be forgiven for thinking The Italian Job was Driver: 1969, which is no bad thing. Graphically it’s very strong, gameplay wise it ticks all the boxes, and most imporantly it drives very well. You control a range of vehicles throughout the game and they all handle differently in terms of speed and control which makes the game all the more rewarding.

The main game follows the plot of the movie quite faithfully and turns the heist planning and preparation into missions mostly around London, then on to Turin and finally to the Alps for the finale. If you don’t know the movie, it’s the story of a heist where $4 million in gold bullion is stolen from Turin on the day of a football match and the robbers escape through grodlock traffic in Austin Mini cars coloured red, white, and blue. Rule Brittania, eh!? The music at the end of every mission never fails to raise a smile, and the sound effects in Turin really put you in the moment.

What I love most about the game is that even though it is sticking to the plot of the movie, it never feels linear. You’re free to take whatever route you want. Naturally, there are more optimal routes for certain things, and familarity of the cities comes over the course of the missions. You might want to drive on the wrong side of the road, or take a slightly longer route to avoid police cars or roadblocks. The developers did something wonderful when they stiched together all the disparate stunts and scenes from the movie into something far more grand than it has any right to be: a seven minute escape route across Turin—through city streets, across rooftops, shopping arcades, on top of the roof of the Palavela, around the test track at the FIAT factory, down church steps, through a Palazzo, across a river, into sewers, and foiling the police to potential freedom. It’s difficult to recall a finer set piece. By the time you get to this mission the game is quite demanding in terms of difficulty, but never feels unfair. Of course these days it useful to play with save states to avoid any frustration. Load times are probably the only real issue with the game, but you can use emulator fast forward to speed those up. No better time to play the game!

Today we’re spoiled by open world games. We’ve seen it all before from the likes of Grand Theft Auto and many more. It’s comforting to think that the lowly PlayStation was powerful enough in the right hands to pull of streaming of “whole” cities and allow a game like this to exist in 2001. It is undoubtedly one of best arcade driving games on PS1.

It’s worth noting there was a later movie also called The Italian Job from 2003 which received a video game on GameCube and PS2 that same year. It’s similar in scope, though perhaps less daring in scale, and also very highly recommended and well worth playing. See posts from 2022 and 2021.

Review: ChuChu Rocket!

by Matt Sephton — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 14:01:00 +0000

The Dreamcast was the first truly online home video game console, and brought with it the first wave of fantastic online multi-player games that could be played on your TV. ChuChu Rocket! was one of the best, an outstanding action puzzler with a glorious multi-player mode.

The aim of the game is to guide mice (“ChuChus”) around the screen into one or more goals (Rockets) whilst avoiding any cats (“KapuKapus”) that are roaming about. Both the mice and cats move in predictable ways - they always turn right when reaching a wall, they follow corners and they turn around when they encounter a dead end. The player places up to three arrows on the play field, which will direct anything that passes over them - both mice and cats. Arrows cannot be laid on top of other arrow or obstacles, and disappear over time and the oldest is removed if the player lays a fourth arrow. Special mice frequently appear, golden mice being worth many times more than regular mice and pink mice randomly changing gameplay in one of a number of ways. Such a simple premise quickly results in a maddening procession of mice and cats and all manner of confusion as players try to outwit each the positioning of arrows.

Single player mode saw you play against the computer or in puzzle mode where you have to figure out the solution to puzzles by placing your arrows in the correct locations to get the mice to the exit, which was an excellent part of the game in itself. Local multi-player is an absolute riot and has to be seen to be believed - there simply aren’t many other games that are this much fun played with a few friends. Online multi-player was a great backup option to have as you’d never be short of people to play against. It’s something we’re used to these days with things like Xbox Live and as we have all grown up and got on with our own lives it’s often the preferred way to experience multi-player gaming.

With the demise of the Dreamcast the game slowly faded away, briefly reentering the public eye a year later with a release on the Game Boy Advance. This handheld version matched the Dreamcast original feature for feature, with the exception of online play. However it did have slightly simplified graphics and an extra 2,5000 user-generated puzzles taken from the Dreamcast version’s online hub. There was a fan remake for the Atari ST which was an accurate but unofficial version of the game.

Recently a version of the game was released on the App Store, but with features being spread across an iPhone version and an iPad version and it not feat as much content as the older GameBoy Advance version. It’s great to see such an original game get a new lease of life, but sad that it’s still missing important features from the original, showing just how far ahead of it’s time the Dreamcast was. Hopefully the iOS versions of the game will gain multi-player support in the future and finally give us the experience that was so enthralling those 10 years ago.

This review is dedicated to my good friend Morgan, without whom I’d have never bought a Dreamcast. He will always be Mr Sega to me.

Review: Sheep, Dog ‘n’ Wolf

by Matt Sephton — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 19:00:00 +0000

In a sea of badly realised licenced games French company Infogrames made a daring move to buck the trend, creating this cartoon stealth ‘em up set in the Looney Tunes world. The result is a fabulous game as imaginative as the source material it’s based on.

You play a Ralph Wolf – a Looney Tunes character the double of Wile E. Coyote from their Road Runner series of cartoons. The story goes that you’re starring in a game show hosted by Daffy Duck in which you have to steal sheep from under the nose of Sam Sheepdog. Using ACME products such as rockets, dynamite and giant elastic bands ordered from mailboxes conveniently placed around each level - as well as a variety of items that make up the scenery - you have to figure out how to get to a sheep without being seen. After that, it’s usually - but not always - an easier task to get it to the level exit. It’s a brilliantly inventive mix of stealth, puzzle, platform and adventure genres that really brings a breath of fresh air.

The pace of the game encourages a thoughtful and sedate approach. With it’s electro-jazz music you’re left largely to your own devices as you survey the lay of the land, sneak around, collect items and figure out how to approach the problem of sheep stealing with the tools you have at hand.

The game is slickly presented with short tutorials to introduce every new gameplay mechanic and has all the hallmarks of a Looney Tunes cartoon: a cast of well known characters all of whom have their proper voices, a luscious cell-shaded 3D realisation of the cartoon world, and the famously comical over-the-top deaths.

Even today - almost 10 years after it was released – it’s rare to get a game this simple, fun and challenging. In fact, there are few games on the original PlayStation that holds up so well after so many years. Plus, it’s as cheap as chips on eBay and you can even get a graphically improved version that will run on Windows that might be more convenient to obtain and play these days.

Replay value is limited once you’ve figured out the puzzles, but I still enjoy revisiting levels from time to time.

I’d love to see a follow-up to this game, or alternatively another game that treads the same ground as I’m hungry for more.

Review: Kuru Kuru Kururin

by Matt Sephton — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 09:41:00 +0000

Kuru Kuru Kururin sums up what I think is so great about the sort of games Nintendo publish. It’s an unorthodox action/puzzle/maze game made by a third party best known for their scrolling shoot ’em ups. No other company would have the balls to release a game like this, never mind as part of a console launch line-up.

The launch of a console is always an interesting event, the launch line-up of games can be make or break for the system. So instead of rushing out and buying the latest iteration of long running series (Mario, Tony Hawk’s, F-Zero, Castlevania) I was intrigued to find a quintessential Japanese game in the European GBA launch lineup. It had my name written all over it.

In Kuru Kuru Kururin, you’re a rabbit, piloting a helicopter rotor blade, in search of a mother’s lost children. What this means in terms of gameplay is that you have to guide a constantly spinning stick around a series of mazes, avoiding the walls, to get to the exit. The concept becomes fun as you have to judge the position of your spinning stick when manoeuvring around corners, through gaps and past moving obstacles and enemies. Getting to the goal is a nail biting experience, and there’s nothing quite like the feeling of getting a perfect run through the level. Well, except perhaps getting a perfect run whilst breaking your personal best for that level.

What’s brilliant about the game is that you can play it in so many different ways:

Want it easy, play with the short stick. Want it regular, play with the long stick. Want it hard, go for all the fastest times. Want it extra hard, go for all perfect (no collisions).

Whilst Nintendo were brave enough to release the game in Europe, it must not have sold very well as the two sequels (Kururin Paradise for GBA and Kururin Squash! for GameCube) were only released in Japan. I was such a fan of the first game that I bought the other two regardless.

I even took the two GBA versions of the game on holiday one year to Corfu, just to give me something to do whilst sunbathing. My girlfriend might argue against me when I say was possibly one of the greatest gaming decisions I’ve ever made. I sat for a few hours every day on the beach for the whole week we were away and managed to ace both games - I think I’m a bit gaming OCD like that. Even so, completing all levels perfectly and breaking all records remains one of my greatest gaming achievements to date. Though I think I drew the line at the secret, super-difficult levels that were unlocked for doing so. Perhaps I can do them on my next holiday?

Review: Guru Logi Champ

by Matt Sephton — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 12:02:00 +0000

I’ve been playing this on-and-off for years and still haven’t finished all the puzzles. It’s one of those games that I love so much that I sort of don’t want to finish it. Possibly the greatest puzzler of all time – disregarding Tetris, of course.

Each stage sees you having to complete the image by placing and removing blocks on the board. The puzzles are set up so that there is no simple solution; a position may be blocked by other immovable areas, so you have to improvise a solution by constantly constructing and deconstructing scaffolding in order to get a piece into the correct position. As well as controls to add or remove blocks from the board, you can also rotate the board to enable you to approach the problem from any side.

As well as having bags of gameplay the game also features some completely bonkers characters, over-the-top stage clear screens and the craziest of cutscenes. It’s a shame to say it but these are the sorts of things you only seem to get in Japanese games, as the rest of the world seems too scared to make a game with a sense of humour.

Game developer Compile went bust a short time after releasing the game, though some of their staff went on to work at Eighting, working on Kuru Kuru Kururin amongst other games. A version was made for Japanese mobile phones, and there were unofficial versions made for MSX, PC, and PopCap even out out a version under the name Pixelus but that was discontinued – I hope for reasons of IP infringement.

The game is quite expensive to buy these days if you can even find it outside of Japan. But worry not because as of 2nd December 2009, thanks to Nintendo’s DSiWare download service, Japanese DSi owners can play a modern reworking of the game under the name of Spinning Logic (ぐるぐるロジック gurugururojikku) whilst in the USA as of October 18th 2010 it’s available as Snapdots.

Review: Vanishing Point

by Matt Sephton — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 22:57:00 +0000

I’ve recently come back to this game in an attempt to complete it 100%, picking up my 10 year old save game. It’s a great game, though the sensitivity of the controls can be unforgiving at times. But it’s definitely worth persevering with. Think of it like a modern day Stunt Car Racer and you’ll be fine – laying off the accelerator is just as important as keeping the pedal to the metal.

Straddling the narrow line between flat-out arcade racer and flat-tyre simulation, Vanishing Point offered a wealth of cars, locations and driving modes that still stand up today. Time Trial, Single Races and Tournaments as well as a novel Stunt Mode in which you had to throw the cars around various non-race challenges with pinpoint precision. The recent Trials HD on the 360 brings back a lot of memories of Stunt Mode for me, except Vanishing Point had more cones, balloons and chequered flags.

Multi-player modes were Head-to-Head split-screen for two, and Knock-out, League and Winner-Stays-On for up to eight player sessions. The game also took advantage of the Dreamcast’s online function and allowed you to send Challenge Times back and forth with your mates.

Sitting somewhere between Gran Turismo and Ridge Racer the range of cars available was broad but also quite unique. As well as fast cars like the Shelby Cobra and Dodgy Viper, the game also featured alternative choices like the world famous Mini, VW camper van and even some American muscle cars. You had to start with just two default cars and unlock the rest through your own driving skill. The game wasn’t afraid to do things its own way.

All of this was dressed up in high resolution 60fps graphics that made it’s contemporaries look positively old school. It’s a crying shame Clockwork Games didn’t survive long enough to make a sequel. Perhaps it exists in the same alternate dimension where the Dreamcast is still selling millions? Yes, I’d like to go there.

The thorn in the game’s side was it’s overly sensitive default controls, which caused many gamers to not even give the game a chance. But those that did would find a truly complete and supremely rewarding driving game.

Update: I finally completed the game in May 2015. Woop!

Get Info: #2001

Review: The Italian Job (2001)

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Review: ChuChu Rocket!

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Review: Sheep, Dog ‘n’ Wolf

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Review: Kuru Kuru Kururin

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Review: Guru Logi Champ

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Review: Vanishing Point

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