Worst. Purchase. Ever.

[toxic]

Getaway was in development well before GTA3 was released. Of course you could point to the other GTA games which, while technically limited, don't have many of the same problems of GTA3/Vice City with which I take issue. And the fact that I don't really believe that Getaway owes anything to GTA, except for the ability to jack cars...

Here is a quote I found on IGN

April 18, 2001 - In a feature demonstration about The Art and Science of Making Games at this past March's Game Developers Conference, Sam Coates, the lead artist on Sony Computer Entertainment's The Getaway, revealed that the game is currently slated for a worldwide simultaneous release in the last quarter of 2001.

Coates describe the Getaway as a crime-em-up that's set in contemporary London's criminal underworld. Its story revolves around inter-gang rivalries and warfare and the efforts of the Metropolitan Police to deal with the violence and the gameplay is a mix of urban driving and on foot action.

Developed by Team Soho, The Getaway has not yet been officially announced by Sony Computer Entertainment America for release on PlayStation 2 in North America. However, given the amount of time and money being spent on this title, which is being worked on by Team Soho's largest internal development team, we're fairly certain that it'll see a Stateside release. And if Coates' statements are to be believed, we could expect to see this title as early as the last quarter of this year

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So, somehow they didn't make the end of '01. GTA3 is the breakout story at E3, then comes out in October of '01 .. becomes a killer app and helps move millions of PS2's for Christmas. The Getaway then doesn't get released for another 15 months (Jan 03).

So you're saying that GTA3 had 0 influence on the decisions that were made with The Getaway?

You can tell what happened. The guys doing The Getaway saw GTA3 and said "oh shit" ... and pushed thier release date back, and back again. I find it even more curious that this release wasn't in stores for Christmas of '02. What would cause it to miss the busiest time of the year?
Inferior product, lack of buzz, last minute tweaking?

I just find it strange that a game that was slated to release at the end of '01, would have to wait 12-15 months to be released, and it not be influenced by the 900 lb. Gorilla of the console.

I'm no GTA fanboi .. I didn't care for Vice City. But GTA3 is a landmark game, and deserves its proper respect.

[MarkRyan]

It's a sound theory, but I still don't think The Getaway has any of the things I don't like about Grand Theft Auto 3/Vice City. Aside from the ability to go on-foot or drive a car at any time, both games are designed very differently.

[taloony]

You might actually have the worst tastes of anyone on this board.

I'd agree, except Skies of Arcadia is one of the few games I regret grabbing. I disliked almost everything about it, from the "been there, done that" plot, to the annoying "Yay!" voiceovers of the characters. Where's Strider to back me up?

Other than that.. Silhouette Mirage (WD) stands out, as does Tenchu 2. I loved the first game, but something about part two just didn't feel right to me.

[Timber]

Not a whole lot of games coming to mind but here's what I can remember at the moment.

Beast Wars Transmetals (n64) - I'm a huge Beast Wars fan and I would jump on about anything with this license but this games was complete fucking grabage. I remember buying it at EB, taking it home, playing it for about an hour and driving right back to EB to return it. Luckily it was back in the good 'ol days when EB let you return games because you didn't like 'em.

WCW Backstage Assault (n64) - I was hardcore into wrestling games when this came out. So while I was over at my buddy's place playing Wrestlemania 2000 he mentioned that it just came out that day. So we jumped in the car and headed over to EB to pick it up. We put it in the 64 right when we got back and about a half hour later we were headed back to EB. Worst wrestling title ever.

And I keep hearing a lot of hate for the 32X, which I can totally understand, but I'm on the opposite end. I put in enough time on Star Wars Arcade, T-Mek, MK2 & Doom to toally justify receiving it as a Christmas gift. I only regret buying that Scottie Pippin CD/32X game for it. And I paid a whopping $5 for it.

[MechDeus]

I just find it strange that a game that was slated to release at the end of '01, would have to wait 12-15 months to be released, and it not be influenced by the 900 lb. Gorilla of the console.

I'll bet it actually came from the dominating influence of Driver 2.

[toxic]

My sarcasm meter just blew up.

[Tsubaki]

I'd agree, except Skies of Arcadia is one of the few games I regret grabbing. I disliked almost everything about it, from the "been there, done that" plot, to the annoying "Yay!" voiceovers of the characters.

If you ask me, Arcadia and Rez are the most overrated games on gaming message boards. Not just limited to this one.

Not that these two games are garbage. But the constant gushing of them and the refusal to admit their flaws makes the games harder to accept than others.

[g0zen]

Sewer Shark was and always will be crap. Same goes for every FMV game ever made.

Speaking of which, add Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger to my list. While I did have a lot of fun with this game, it was really garbage in every sense. Also, to anyone else who played it, is it me or did Mark Hamil look like he'd been hitting the crack pipe while on location? He's skinny, jittery, and generally pretty sickly looking.

The scenes where he got to make out with either the old chick or the young chick were awesome though.

[RoleTroll]

I still believe the 32X was powerful enough to have been great, especially if Sega had released the Neptune simultaneously and not released the Saturn. There was never any significant effort to support the system. I liked Virtua Racing, but there was nothing else that was great.

My favorite 32X memory was reading about Knuckles Chaotix in Diehard Gamefan. They were oohing-and-ahhing over the incredible color palette used in the game, all the thousands of colors, gaming would never be the same again! (Then it came out that it was really a plain old genesis game using 64 colors max, and the 32X just helped out with the bonus stages.)

[Anthony]

SC2, it just sits there, being obscured by other fighting games, sadly.