This is a game that was so far ahead of it's time, it's downright scary. It NEEDS a PS3/360 sequel done right.
It has so much potential and does so many things 7 years ago that games are now copying and doing much better. You will use cover, blind fire, take hostages to use as bullet sponges, regain health by resting and lead police on high speed chases. It is a story driven game with excellent writing and voice acting, back when only RPGs really had interesting stories. Nowadays, pretty much every (semi-big budget) game employs at least decent voice acting and writing. Many blockbuster games nowadays even employ B and even A list celebrities, as well as Hollywood screenwriters. It is swear laden and very violent, but by today's video game standards it seems pretty tame.
There is no HUD. None. This is something that more and more gaming are edging toward, and I think the time will come when it gets done right. This game does it surprisingly well considering it had never been done before - at least as far as I'm aware.
The Getaway is all about realism, sometimes at the sacrifice of fun. You won't be crashing a car 13 times before it starts to break down and you certainly won't be taking half an AK clip and popping a pain pill to regain your health. Instead your character will take damage and you will hear him start to breath heavy, and you'll notice blood spots on his clothes. Once he takes enough damage he'll limp around and maybe say "I need a break." or something to that effect. To restore your health you just stand next to any wall and you'll lean against it and after a bit - actually, far too long - you'll stand up and be just dandy. Think about that. In 2003 a game was basically doing what just about every 3rd and 1st person shooter does now. GoW, CoD, BF:BC2, ME2, and the list goes on. The problem with how The Getaway handles restoring health is that it takes too long and breaks up the pace, and thanks to the horrible camera it's too easy for an enemy to kill you while you're resting without ever seeing him. There's just no way to pan the camera around.
You use the square button to fire, R1 to lock on to the nearest enemy, and R2 to free aim. There is no aiming reticle, just point your gun where you want to shoot. The lock on works just fine, but when free aiming you can't move. I generally only used free aim when holding a hostage or blowing up the requisite big red barrels of doom. L1 reloads, and if L2 does something I haven't figured it out yet. As previously mentioned, there is no HUD so you can't tell how much ammo you have left. It sucks to run dry in a critical situation, so it would have been nice for your character to say something like "Only one clip left, **** to give you a warning.
The way you take cover is stand near a wall/box/crate/etc and press X, then you move the left stick to move along it. When you get to the edge, holding the left stick in that direction will let you peak out. (Gee, another thing every game does nowadays.) Once you've peaked out you will generally hold R1 and tap square till whatever bad guys you see are dead. The biggest problem with the cover system is the camera. Most of the time it focuses on you, which means it's focusing on nothing but you standing with your back against a wall which allows enemies to run up and kill you in a hurry.
To take a hostage you also hit X, which is a major design flaw. You'll be trying to take a hostage but be close to a wall, and go into cover while there's a guy with a SIG Sauer standing right next to you about to double tap your skull. You also can't take hostages up or down stairs, or while standing on stairs. Oh, and X can also cause you to roll. So instead of going into cover you roll out into the open, or instead of taking a hostage you roll away from him and get instakilled by his pump shotgun.
The driving sequences work pretty well, but this is really the only part of the game that is hampered by not having a HUD. To get to your destination you follow your car's turn signals. This sounds like it would work well, but they commonly direct you onto one way streets. This wouldn't be an issue if the cops and cars behaved more like they do in GTA, but cars will rarely swerve out of your way and the fuzz will give chase for minor traffic violations. Like driving the wrong way on a one way street. Or bumping into the car in front of you because you couldn't brake fast enough. Or just about anything else. Again, this wouldn't bother me if it was easier to escape from the cops, or if they implemented a better mission system. If you get arrested, killed, or do something wrong you do the WHOLE MISSION OVER. There just needs to be mid mission checkpoints. You obey the traffic laws for what seems like an eternity, almost get to your destination and then a car pulls out in front of you from a side street, and you can't brake in time - you don't want to swerve because you might hit a car that you can't see because you can't change the camera angle at all - so you hit them. Because the cars don't take much damage, your car is toast and you have to get out, and because the camera sucks donkey balls you don't notice is nice lady cop with a nightstick behind you. Oops, mission failed. Now you drive even more slowly for what seems like infinity and hope that no randomness causes you to restart the mission AGAIN.
It is a good game that is brought down by some poor control and camera decisions which cause you to replay entire missions. I rarely felt like I was being outsmarted or I wasn't good enough, just stupid little things happen that caused me great frustration.
Really though, I enjoyed the game and truly hope that they make a PS3 or 360 sequel because I think the hardware would be up to the task and it would have the potential to be a classic story driven action game.